The following is a rant fed and sustained by worries about the hollowing out of workers rights and democracy as a whole.

It’s not important at all, but it’s interesting to note that Apple has made another recent ad that’s as bad as the hydraulic press one where they destroyed all the instruments. In this one, it shows their AI tool being used by someone who didn’t do their work to fake their way through a meeting. Apple ads used to always show their users as experts or creative thinkers. Now they’re workplace liars. www.youtube.com/watch

— Anil Dash on Threads

And (this one’s a quote Post, I have embeded the quoted post, so it’s easier to read here):

Been trying to explain for years that all of this — the hyper-investment in AI, the “gig economy”, the constant layoffs and attacks on workers rights under the guise of attacking DEI — it’s all a pretense to undermine labor. It’s the single, unifying principle behind all of it.

RE:

Perplexity CEO offers to replace striking NYT staff with AI tcrn.ch/4f3cdyh

techcrunch.com/2024/11/0…

— Anil Dash on Threads

It’s hard not to see the first post as another example of undermining labor. It’s not the expert workers that matter anymore. In the eyes of companies, we’re are supposed to be consumers. But what really eats at me with the recent Apple Intelligence ads is that they are funny to me. They are well acted and written and could almost be comments on the idiotic and soul-crushing AI hype, if it weren’t for the appalling twist, where AI saves the day.

I mean, look at this ad:

Isn’t this actually super sad? Instead of resolving this situation together - “Honey, I’m so sorry, but I forgot your birthday…” (You gotta face the fucking music!) - AI is used to LIE TO YOUR PARTNER. And afterwards the protagonist is portrayed to feel good about themselves. What a genius!¹

And AI is not used here to enable experts to do better work, which is the only use case for AI that makes even a modicum of sense. Instead it is used to show us how inept we are and how we need AI to feel like geniuses (because we are not).

This Apple Intelligence ad where an executive presents a document in a meeting that they haven’t read based on AI summarized key points reminds me of the Google ad where a dad asked an AI to write a letter on behalf of his kid to their favorite artist.

These are both examples where it provides negative value for AI to perform the task instead of a human. I don’t want coworkers regurgitating ChatGPT summaries of documents instead of sharing their perspectives.

www.youtube.com/watch

— Dare Obasanjo on Mastodon

I would like to claim that things are not so dire in Europe. Maybe there isn’t anybody trying to replace striking workers with AI agents (yet), but right-wing governments destroying social democratic foundations exist here, too.

As a fellow immigrant to Finland sumarizes in the Guardian:

I feel a sense of unease as Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo’s rightwing coalition government has set about slashing welfare and capping public sector pay. Even on two teachers’ salaries my partner and I have felt the sting of inflation as goods have increased by 20% in three years. With beer now costing €8 or more in a city centre pub, going out becomes an ever rarer expense.

Those worse off than us face food scarcity. A survey conducted by the National Institute for Health and Welfare found 25% of students struggling to afford food, while reductions in housing benefit mean tenants are being forced to move or absorb the shortfall in rent payments. There are concerns that many unemployed young people could become homeless.

Healthcare is faring little better. […]

The current government, formed by Orpo’s National Coalition party (NCP) last year in coalition with the far-right Finns party, the Swedish People’s party of Finland and the Christian Democrats, has been described as “the most rightwing” Finland has ever seen – a position it appears to relish.

I do not want that mix of hyper-capitalist tech-bro authoritarianism that is so en vogue across the pond with about half of the people over there (it seems). Quite the opposite, I do believe that regulated markets and organized workers and a strong social net leads to a strong middle class which in turn leads to prosperity and more equality for all.