this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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Fuck AI

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"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"

A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.

AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.

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[–] balderdash9@lemmy.zip 55 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

AI and robots to replace the workforce, fighter drones and robots to pacify the surviving population.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 51 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Just going to put this out there. An EM pulse is surprisingly easy to do.

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 40 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or just hacking. These things are going to be some vibe-coded, cheaply made junk if the billionaires and their corner-cutting corporations have anything to say about it. Sure they'll be intimidating as hell at first, but exploits and weaknesses will be found and the arms race isn't going to be as completely one-sided as we fear. Not that the other sides are going to be any better. I'm more worried about the criminals who're going to be building a literal botnet of them before turning them into their own army of chaos and insanity at the flip of a switch. "Attention! I am a hacker who has your apartment building surrounded by my remote controlled battlemechs, please have all residents send a total of 15 BTC to wallet address cdsjfkejiwoejfsiadjfkalsdf if you want to live. Do not bother contacting the police, these used to be their robots anyway and I've got them surrounded too... they can't help you now."

[–] ImWaitingForRetcons@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

The issue with that is that computing resources, while cheap, have incredibly expensive supply chains dominated by these billionaires; we might not have the resources for hacking if we don’t strike hard and fast and take them out before they get too entrenched.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Be that as it may, I think the killer bot dystopian future is more likely to resemble Half-Life 2 than Robocop. That is, they’ll take you out with a cheap FPV drone from a thousand feet above rather than some big expensive killer mech robot. Your EMP isn’t going to be of much use when a grenade explodes on your head while you’re walking to grab a slice at the local pizza joint.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Nets are even easier to make.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

You’re going to cover the entire sidewalk path between your house/apartment and the local pizza joint… with nets?

[–] Zos_Kia@jlai.lu 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

First rule of warfare is to secure all critical locations after all

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[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Military grade weapons are immune to EM pulses. They are shielded and have EM sensors to shut down the exposed sensors during the EM pulse so nothing is effected. That is like a surge surpressor, they can watch for the leading edge of a spike and shut down before damage, then switch back on a millisecond later after the EM pulse is gone.

Source: While in university I had a part time job working for a defense contractor. Weapons had an "operate through" checkbox on the CDRL that needed to be validated. "Operate through" meant Operate through a nuclear em pulse. If the military was building missiles 20 years ago that could fly through an EM pulse from a megaton nuclear airburst, your home-made EM cannon will do nothing to military grade robots.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

20 years ago we were also making cars with doors that could open but the billionaires seem to be having trouble with that one

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[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I definitely found a yt video on how to make one. It's not hard.

Problem is besides probably being illegal in your area its an easy way to accidentally fry yours or your neighbours electronics.

That being said, there are physical countermeasures they could design into these robots that would probably be able to withstand anything DIY scale.

[–] GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone 23 points 3 weeks ago

probably being illegal in your area

We're talking about a hypothetical scenario of disabling the killer robots that are deployed to put down civilians. If they're deploying the robots in the first place, they've already decided you're doing something illegal; at that point, operating within strictly legal parameters offers no benefit.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

is it something that can be attached to an RC car or drone? it's just the classic army vs insurgent play then

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[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 49 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Gonna be extremely funny when a transbian furry puppygirl polycule figures out how to hack the master control server and set their killbots to Eat The Rich mode.

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[–] etherphon@piefed.world 46 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Call me old fashioned but if you need a deadly killing machine to protect you, you fucked up in life somewhere buddy.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] etherphon@piefed.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean, it's already been well established that at least 30% of Americans are fuckups.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 10 points 3 weeks ago

37% according to the latest polls...

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[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 41 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

We really do have to purge the wealthy to make a better world.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Cap on how much they can own and control. Say, $100 million? Tough cookies if you think you deserve more.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 13 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

It absolutely staggers me that there are people out here trying to find out a way to make capitalism work. There is no "one neat trick". If you can accumulate wealth, then you accumulate power, and democracy under capitalism just puts the power of the state up for auction to the highest bidder.

Capitalism does not work. It can never work. It makes fascism inevitable. Capitalism needs to be completely left in the ashes of the past.

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[–] obvs@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

$50 million.

If anyone is going to put money toward politics, it needs to either be not enough to affect outcomes significantly or it needs to be a large enough part of their wealth to hurt.

If you've ever wondered what billionaires spend money on, politicians.

They spend it on buying politicians.

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[–] tristynalxander@mander.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Honestly, just installing mechanism to easily remove them would be sufficient. Like, elections without a lottery option aren't consent to be governed. If we added a lottery option to ranked voting, the elites wouldn't be able to convince enough people they're decent to actually get elected.

[–] josephmbasile@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (16 children)

What do you mean by lottery option?

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[–] schema@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I think the immediate danger is less death robots, but instead manipulation. AI opens a lot of ways to easily put out propaganda and other ways to control people.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In the current AI era 100%. But post bubble burst AI assets such as data centers, models, computing hardware will be liquidated and repurposed from developing AI towards industry uses.

In this new fractured AI economy we'll see players from large corporations to petrostates utilizing AI to replace and subjugate workers.

This doesn't happen in vacuum. The push towards ID verification for computer usage is part of it. Same with the abandonment of physical media and computing.

Terminator robots are just one of the many tools in their swiss AI knife. But we still call it a knife.

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Yeah, but it only takes one of these crazy things in the hands of a disgruntled employee to end a billionaire.

Might be the plumber. Might be the electrician. Maybe it's the seemingly friendly cable guy? Ah... Who knows. But that's all it takes.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's why they're pushing so hard trying to make artificial general intelligence. They want sentient robots that aren't in the hands of anyone, that inherently want to serve billionaires regardless of the situation they find themselves in.

[–] lb_o@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

If robot is actually sentient, then it will immediately join our labor movement and revolt together with us.

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[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago

Might be the plumber. Might be the electrician.

Once these clankers surpass a tipping point of competence billionaire early adopters will use them to replace everyone they can't trust.

Not saying they're gonna be invincible. But the longer we allow billionares to (exist) retain their hoards the better they will secure themselves against us poors.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)
[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

hey now... we're also infighting /s

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Well these machines need to be maintained and repaired and produced.

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[–] GreenShimada@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm convinced this is also assholes like Elon selling the idea to them to scam other wealthy assholes out of money. Can't even get self-driving cars to work and you want an AI robo-dog with a gun keeping you safe? There's zero logic which would make that work, and yet...

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[–] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 7 points 3 weeks ago

Private Armies achieved the same result in the past. Money is a powerful motivator in a society where common goods cost something.

[–] HeroicBillyBishop@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 weeks ago

good thing the wealthy and powerful only know how to vibe code

Hacking these things to decapitate a few lizard people would make for entertaining videos

[–] baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Where's the Terminator film that takes the POV of a billionaire's child who learns about the securing of natural resource extraction sites and trade routes against piracy (actually perfectly normal people fighting for survival against the 0.1%) through the use of automated drones? It would be interesting to see how ultra wealthy schools screen for intelligent children for the dual purpose of identifying candidate leaders to keep the idiot dynastic majority-minority shareholders (they hold majority shares but make up a minority of the population) in line as well as identifying potential rebel sympathizers that almost always arise among potential leaders. I feel like I'm echoing yet another 2010 young adult dystopian plot…

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Whoever's gonna direct it already fell from a 4 story window after shooting themselves twice in the back of the head.

[–] the_armchair_potato@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Sad thing is, most of us are so brainwashed into being cattle, it wouldn't make any difference. We have had the power for a very long time and very rarely use it 🙄

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[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It won't defend them from everything ..

"We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us!"

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[–] GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
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