• Action [email protected]@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It’s the ultimate push to turn everything into the perfect Capitalist (not market-oriented) business solution: Getting paid for nothing

      If your goal is to accumulate capital, and there are not outside forces regulating your worst impulses, you ultimately will create a class of legal-protected thieves, since the absolutely best and most risk free way to accumulate capital is to be given it in exchange for quite literally nothing.

      Gambling is about as close to the platonic ideal as you can, but conquest by military force of political capture is also a very, viable route. Use the law to force people to buy your nothing and be protected for it, rather than being lynched when you steal someone’s products.

      • iocase@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Mandated insurance that isn’t a crown corporation beholden to ratepayers is a perfect example. If you have mandated insurance for something, and that private insurance has a shareholder requirement to see growth every quarter, and the same amount of things are being insured, only one thing can happen:

        Rates go up with denials

        Payouts go down

        Eventually you’re paying for insurance you know is worthless but it’s mandated by law.

      • HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
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        3 days ago

        I agree with you, but then isn’t it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.

        Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/nearly-half-of-us-data-centers-planned-for-2026-canceled-or-delayed-and-it-s-expected-to-get-worse/ar-AA20sl2J

        • Cypress@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Not when you realize that the “something” they’re charging you for is:
          a) bastardized cargo culted knockoff of “something” so insubstantial that it’s very nearly “something-shaped nothing”
          b) the “something” is made of stuff that isn’t even theirs.

          Not only is it giving you a bamboo and thatch sculpture of an airplane when you ask for an airplane; it’s made of STOLEN bamboo and STOLEN thatch.

          • Tim_Bisley@piefed.social
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            3 days ago

            Yep let’s take entirety of user submitted content to the internet over 30+ years and repackage it and sell it back to you as if it was our product.

          • HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
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            2 days ago

            I hope you don’t misunderstand me by my saying “something” to imply it’s anything substantial, significant, or even good. I’m very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I’m coming from.

            Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don’t improve our lives in any way. But they can’t exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU’s, GPU’s, SSD’s, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that’s what I mean by “something.”

            That’s a lot of work they’re doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC’s generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.

            I just don’t think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?

        • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          But it does provide nothing. Whatever AI gives is a hallucination, that’s practically nothing since it’s not information you can rely on and you have to verify it anyway.

          Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?

          • MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?

            Compared to insufferable automated phone systems, which have existed for decades and employ exactly no one, they are a vast improvement.

    • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      any company born after 1993 can’t make good products… all they know is exploitation, fire their workers, enshittify, be pink capitalist, eat hot cash & lie

      (yes i know sony was founded before 1993 thank you)

    • lechekaflan@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Ever since fucking Trump came to power, he basically defanged the agencies that were supposed to curb corporate abuses and enforce laws and regulations, and allowed corporations to do a lot more anything they want to make more profit.

    • fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com
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      1 day ago

      Yeah but until their bullshit hits their bottom line they won’t change, and most people are on autopilot through life and either don’t notice or don’t care.