56 Comments
User's avatar
Janet Jeffers's avatar

Every day brings another new Black Mirror episode into existence.

JenneJ's avatar

Where do you think they get those ideas?

The Tech-bros salivate as they tell of something totally off the wall like aiWare they call Sp-ai glasses, that can give you information in real time about events and places and people in your current environment and can hightlight a route in front of you to follow when you ask for Alexa for directions, like those lights that turn on in the grocery store aisle as you walk past. The Script-bros say, "oooooooo wouldn't that make a cool show, and they write it up and air it on the mass hypnotizer. Where, when they see it for sale a few years later, all the people say, "Wow, I saw that on a show one time. I gotta have one." And the Tech-bros are happy to oblige.

It's no accident they are billionaires.

Janet Jeffers's avatar

Art imitating life imitating art…it’s a cycle. I love a good dystopian story, but I’m not so keen on living in one.

Crystal Nipp's avatar

Because there is no better use for AI? What happened to all the claims of medical breakthroughs? Finding cures for diseases? Eradicating world hunger and poverty? Instead they are doing investigations into people who hurt their poor little feelings. Seriously, how is it possible that every one of these man babies weren't loved enough as children?

Robert's avatar

Love It ! Man babies!

A Sarcastic Prophet's avatar

This Thiel endorsed hallucinatory dystopia always makes me more intent on connecting with real people in real community. This isn’t the far off future speculative sci fi I read in my youth anymore. They want to make it real, they want me to believe that it’s real and for my benefit, but I will continue to refuse to live in their bizarre reality until my dying breathe.

celeste k.'s avatar

same here. In addition, I will do everything I can to fight against it until my dying breath.

Katy Bolger's avatar

I don't want AI anywhere in my life. It is insentient, soulless. It is another layer of insulation shielding techbros from accountability. WE MUST STOP THIS. The first person who says that gets my vote. I have no interest in "mastermind" Alan D'Souza or anything he has to say. Or "gay" Peter Theil and his anti-Christ rants. What a bunch of dopes, they will pay hard for this. We won't see it, but the shoe that steps on them in their next life as a worm will have a good view right before the sqwoosh.

Has anybody noticed, just as an aside: there are no women here. None. Look far and wide and you might find a blow-up doll wife, but all of this is run by men. If there were women involved, I mean really involved not just window dressing, we would not be having this horror show creeping into our lives. And because women are not involved, they will be the next target after "gay" Thiel gets rid of his man-enemies.

JenneJ's avatar

Wait 'til they try to make us all get bluetooth AI chip implants. We already have peoplemeeting with chatbot therapists, and who have aiPartners. How long before they tell you if you really want that thing to "feel" your emotions like a real person could you will need a bio-bluetooth link-up?

Katy Bolger's avatar

You know I've always thought Hal 9000 was kinda cute.

RobWhitH's avatar

Mega-rich billionaires never believe they do anything wrong, or that they deserve any criticism, and never ever think that maybe they should behave differently. They surround themselves with sycophants who admire and applaud their every word or deed in order to keep their rice bowls. And being such snowflakes when the rest of us intrude into their bubble of self made reality and hurt their feelings, these billionaires will spend billions on these things, "Objection", to soothe themselves and reassure themselves that their bubble is actually reality.

David Crane's avatar

See Noah Hawley's piece in The Atlantic-- "What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos's private retreat."

Sally Stevens's avatar

Thanks for that suggestion - will try to find it!

mark's avatar

Bad people have always tried to corrupt the judges with bribes or blackmail. Now they are trying a new technique build a corrupt judge from scratch.

Joseph Mangano's avatar

There are red flags left and right with Objection, not the least of which is trying to strong-arm journalists into submitting information about anonymous sources, thereby risking their anonymity. The emphasis on arbitration as an alternative to an outmoded court system strikes me as particularly problematic, though, and not just because it's advertising greater accuracy, a claim I find dubious.

With arbitration comes lower costs and greater speed, but also reduced visibility compared to litigation. Sometimes, the matters at hand of a dispute are more suitable for arbitration due to the sensitivity of the information involved or the complexity of the contract being discussed, but if arbitration is being used simply as a means of protecting a company's reputation following unsavory business practices, it's obviously more concerning.

JenneJ's avatar

Too true, but I'd begin with the name....lol

celeste k.'s avatar

If peter thiel is involved, you can bet it is a heritage foundation continuation in turning America white and and keeping those white citizens poor and stupid. Sheep can be herded without much effort or trouble.

Mark's avatar

This is frightening! Truth from our main-stream-media started to wane after Reagan shelved the Fairness Doctrine. This may be the final “nail in the coffin.”

Stephanie Hobbs's avatar

Garbage in, Garbage out. The first rule of computing.

Tom Coggin's avatar

This is disheartening, but just another ‘It can get worse, before it gets better.”

Stephanie Hobbs's avatar

When all of the jobs are being done by AI, how will we pay the oligarchs for food, housing, etc.? They're killing off the supply.

Lex Alexander's avatar

Billionaires not only want to behave like psychopaths, they also want to be PRAISED for it, and any failure to praise them is, in their minds, defamatory. This is the ultimate case of butthurt.

Allen's avatar

I object!

There is a level of lunacy running through the elite classes that seems to want all the rest of us to be their vassals. Burn the data centers and send the wanna-be overlords to Mars NOW before Skynet becomes self-aware.

Zac's avatar

Bari Weiss will jump on this. She’ll sign The Free Press up, then CBS, then CNN post-merger. The legit reporters will quit in protest, which Weiss will claim proves their liberal bias/corruption, and then she’ll replace them all with Thiel-backed hacks.

Politics and Fiction's avatar

The problem here is that news media has a real accountability problem. This is a bad solution, not least because of Thiel’s involvement. But there is a problem and it does need a solution.

JenneJ's avatar

I think that assertion is worth examining as propaganda. Politicians and public figures who don't like the press attention they are getting often try to make you believe the information you are getting from the sources you trust is illigitimate. That doesn't make it so.

Politics and Fiction's avatar

Your comment is true, but I’m afraid I don’t think it speaks to mine, which might be my fault because I was too brief.

I’ve worked in government (not politics, government) for 20 years and I now teach in the field.

In an avid consumer of media from the very oldest types to the very newest.

I also consume a lot of very-long form journalism in the form of books written by journalists and in keeping with journalistic principles, as well as academic and works on relevant fields.

Journalism has a whole host of issues from gutter tabloids to the NYT.

There’s a huge accountability gap, even in the best journalism and the further that gap grows (and it’s growing daily) the harder it gets for thoughtful people of good faith to defend it as anything less than the lesser of two evils. That’s bad for democracy, and it’s bad for business.

Lex Alexander's avatar

One reason that the media's overall approval ratings are so low is that there are two different groups rating them low for diametrically opposed reasons.

Lex Alexander's avatar

SOME news outlets have accountability problems. The New York Times, for example, has a serious transphobia problem. But by no means all. Consider The Atlantic, for example.

Politics and Fiction's avatar

I don’t think any part of the media lacks the accountability issue, though it affects some parts more than others.

Lex Alexander's avatar

You said "REAL accountability problem" (my emphasis). I was drawing a distinction between real and perceived accountability problems. Perhaps I should have been clearer about that.

Politics and Fiction's avatar

A perceived accountability problem is a real one. Accountability for the media only exists as a perception. If we perceive them as accountable we can trust them.