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   Baldur Bjarnason (baldur@toot.cafe)'s status on Monday, 23-Feb-2026 21:11:51 JST Baldur Bjarnason

   in reply to

   In some of the scenarios billionaires do really well and in others they are largely insulated from the worst outcomes. Win-win for them

   For the rest of us they're all bad. The scenarios where the tech is largely dysfunctional are the optimistic ones

   If you posit that "AI" won't work well enough to make up for the costs long term and we realise this early to mitigate for the harms that are already happening then we might get out of this with a functional economy after the hubbub has died down.

   • Embed this notice
     Baldur Bjarnason (baldur@toot.cafe)'s status on Monday, 23-Feb-2026 21:11:52 JST Baldur Bjarnason

     One thing "AI" has in common with cryptocoin that pretty much every posited scenario is disastrous to some degree, just a question of flavour and distribution of said disaster.

     If doomers are right: disaster

     If naysayers—"it's dysfunctional"—are right: disaster ("Congrats! all software is broken")

     If "moderate" boosters are right: disaster (mass unemployment)

     If optimists are right: disaster (also mass unemployment)

     If the AGI folks are right: disaster ( "Congrats! Digital chattel slavery")

     Rich Felker and Alexandre Oliva repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 23-Feb-2026 21:13:17 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @baldur I'd say your scenario 2 is pretty good, and the only realistic outcome.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 23-Feb-2026 21:59:06 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • patrislav ♾️ #RIPNatenom

     @patrislav @baldur I know there are other places where it will be a problem, but I'd be very much fine with this being the death of Windows, Android, lots of bad web framework shit, etc. Let the void left get filled by the only genuine FOSS, from communities that rejected and resisted the whole time.

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     patrislav ♾️ #RIPNatenom (patrislav@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 23-Feb-2026 21:59:08 JST patrislav ♾️ #RIPNatenom

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias I just hope the slop code won’t find its way into critical infrastructure, and the recession caused by the popping bubble won’t be too deep

     @baldur

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     Angus McIntyre (angusm@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2026 00:53:31 JST Angus McIntyre

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @baldur @cstross AI industry flack hastily summarizing toot as headline: “Internet technology expert notes wide consensus that AI will live up to expectations.”

     Alexandre Oliva likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Baldur Bjarnason (baldur@toot.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2026 00:54:47 JST Baldur Bjarnason

     in reply to

     Any scenario where "AI" works well enough to be in wide use long term means mass unemployment, wholesale political capture of media and cultural industries, dysfunctional products, and other continuing large-scale harms

     The thankfully bullshit "AGI" scenario would just be an unending clusterfuck

     Which is why "this is shit and you're a fool for using it" is the optimistic take

     The best case scenario for the rest of us is that we have to clean up after a bunch of fools in the tech industry

     Alexandre Oliva likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2026 00:55:32 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     always the optimist, aren't you? 🙂 😞