Fuck AI

Them using a larger town for this human experiment is intentional. If they used a smaller place people might know each other well enough to organise an effective resistance to prevent this effort.

Barnsley is near to where I hail from. This is depressing to hear.

When people ask me about where I'm from, I semi-affectionately describe it as a "shit hole up North". The socioeconomic deprivation just oozes out of the cracks in every paving slab. I suspect this is part of why they're the ones doing this scheme — taking advantage of desperation

I was quite involved in local politics during the extreme austerity cuts of the 2010s Tory government, and I genuinely believe that there is some level of collective trauma caused by them. Places like Barnsley were hit the worst because they were already not doing great socioeconomically. As much as I may condemn any local officials who were a part of this godforsaken partnership with big tech, I also have a tremendous amount of sympathy for them.

Could be worse, if they rolled out an AI to Rochdale it'd turn more racist than Grok faster than Tay did.

B) Then northerners with a chip on their shoulder will grouse about tech investment staying in the same towns.