All of that AI slop money could have gone to installing equipment for safe air in schools, hospitals, and public transit, powered by renewable energy with minerals mined by people receiving fair wages in a much safer workplace.
We could have avoided the high death toll of COVID and prepared for the next pandemic.
Instead we get even shittier code, abuse images, far-right bots, dodgy tech in healthcare, and even more precarious state of things for artists.
@akareilly As someone who has spent a lifetime working inside the system, genuinely trying to do good, and being consistently punished for it, I can tell you this: if it weren’t AI, it would be something else. The problem isn’t the technology. It’s that there is never real investment in what’s actually needed. Even when requirements are written into law, or when problems are merely complex rather than impossible, the system learns how to route around them. Compliance becomes performative. Safety becomes fictional.
Industry, capitalism, and the people who steer them are optimizing very effectively, but in the wrong regime. A system oriented toward sustainability and durability would prioritize clean air in schools, hospitals, and public transit; renewable energy; and supply chains built on fair wages and genuinely safe working conditions. The fact that we don’t see this isn’t an accident or a failure of execution. It’s evidence of what the system is truly optimizing for: end-of-horizon exit optionality, not long-term human well-being.
