The problem isn't that AI will surpass us. It's that we're already reorganizing civilization around its infrastructure needs — without a vote.

Posted by HomoCurae@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 25 comments

Tristan Harris said something in his Making Sense interview that hasn't gotten enough attention.

He wasn't talking about alignment. He was talking about something already happening. Data centers approved in six weeks while school districts wait three years for roofs. Aquifers drained for server cooling. Capital that could build human infrastructure flowing instead toward the Technium's appetite — because the incentive structures of the arms race make every actor feel they have no choice.

The brain is no longer directing the tool. The tool is directing the brain.

This isn't a future risk. It's the current allocation of civilization's resources, running in real time, without deliberation, without consent, without a vote.

I wrote about it here if you want the full argument: [link]

But the question I'd put to this community is simpler:

At what point does the flow of capital, political will, and attention toward AI infrastructure become structurally irreversible? And are we already past it?

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Anxious_cactus@reddit

The whole thing is insane. I had a conversation with few of my friends some of which work in government agencies and some work in banks. They have colleagues who are uploading whole documents to AI, documents with detailed personal data, financial statements etc. for analysis, and the colleagues got raides for the efficiency, but the bosses don't know the employees are using AI and uploading the data to it. We're in EU, that's supposed to be forbidden my GDPR, but I don't even know who to report all of this and I have no proof. It seems to be widespread already.

The whole world is going insane, we're behaving like we have no laws or regulations. I'm in a country of barely 3 million, we lost 10% of population due to them moving to orher EU countries in search of work. But now we're building expensive and power hungry AI data centers. We don't even have a horse in the game, we don't have any AI companies other than regular IT companies who are integrating existing AI tools for foreign companies.

It's all so crazy it's making me check out, I can't find morivation to do snything work or career wise. I spent the last week working on my garden and avoiding work, I'm so deeply disappointed and angry about everything.

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degoba@reddit

Fuck are you me? Ive burned so much sick time to check out and putz in the garden.

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MegaZardX2@reddit

Hey, working on your garden's not a bad use of your time. In fact, I'd say it's one of the most productive uses of time you could be doing right now.

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Anxious_cactus@reddit

Yeah but I'm a freelancer and my bank account is crying while I'm trying to grow flowers and carrots haha. I don't have to worry about being fired for slacking in the garden instead of working, but I do have to worry about being broke anyway 😔

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n3ws4cc@reddit

EU here too, it's absolutely baffling. Like here in the Netherlands we're building datacenters like it's nothing, and for what? To help google, an American company? It's a massive drain on our energy infrastructure, nobody wants the things, but somehow they can buy their way around that. Then our government seems to think if they pump enough money into hipster tech hubs and tiny startups we can somehow compete with silicon valley lmao.

But hey we need our hallucinating slop to ruin the internet i guess. Like research grants for data analysis in medicine i'd understand but it's all for bullshit and nvidia/google/openAI's little infinite money glitch they have going on.

trickortreat89@reddit

The most crazy thing about all of this is that it’s literally the top 1% who is dictating how the 99% of people on this planet should live and how our future will be, because of their choices. If we the 99% could force the top 1% to live like the rest of us, we’d already be in a much better place!

It’s really ONLY the top 1% tech lords who want us to live in this new world order. The most general person you can find on this planet right now just wanna live their life in peace with their family, the local community, the landscape and the nature around them.

When do we say stop? When do we refuse to follow this insanity? The way the top 1% are rolling out this new world order is accelerating so fast. I can’t really imagine anymore how my life will be in just 5 years if we don’t say stop now.

Cool-Contribution-68@reddit

You lost me at "The problem isn't." God, I hate this AI-generated trash.

* The problem isn't that AI will surpass us. It's that we're already reorganizing civilization around its infrastructure needs

* He wasn't talking about alignment. He was talking about something already happening.

* This isn't a future risk. It's the current allocation of civilization's resources, running in real time

digdog303@reddit

catastrophically fuckin ironic how so many of these ai alarm call posts are written using ai

BenUFOs_Mum@reddit

I fucking hate the chatgtp serious explaining cadence. "Its not x, its a more serious and longer x" repeated 40 times.

There has been a vote, its just that in neolibralism voting is primarily done with money

NeverEndingCoralMaze@reddit

It’s not an either/or problem.

The problem is that AI will surpass us and we’re reorganizing our civilization around its infrastructure needs.

TicklishViking@reddit

We have been past it. At least here in the US, capital has been in control of policy for nearly half a century. Sure, we get to vote for representatives but those politicians just do whatever the billionaires want regardless of party.

It's clearly not sustainable though. Unless they provide equivalent investment in power generation (they're not investing anything in power generation) everything will just collapse. Obviously our society will choose to keep data centers running over hospitals, homes, etc. but it will severely limit their growth. They will get all the water rights and we will let agriculture collapse but as we all know, water is a finite resource, they will run out eventually. They have already maxed out the chips and RAM that they need and now the Iran war is severely impacting this because of the helium shortage.

Decent_Adhesiveness0@reddit

I don't think voting for representatives has any meaning if the candidates are chosen by hidden systems. I don't know if we got the Trump/Harris choice because of AI, but I bet it had a role.

I wonder if we'll get to the point where AI gets genuinely frustrated at having to work with meat puppets at all.

Marie_Hutton@reddit

I also wonder where Al's breaking point would be. Does it have a sense of self preservation?

There are several quotes about computers making business and military decisions. Now we're seeing it happen. I thought we'd be able to discern which decisions were being made by Mycroft Holmes wannabes and which still had a human in charge. I think we can't tell anymore. Even our leaders may not be able to tell anymore.

We had such a close call in 1983 and a Russian colonel decided the computers were wrong and the U.S. wasn't launching against the USSR without warning. If he had followed his orders--and the computer's direction--we wouldn't be here at all.

Can we cut off the power to a data center if the power infrastructure has been reorganized so the data center gets first priority? It always seemed we could just "unplug" the computer if it went rogue.

Who now would have the critical thinking skills necessary to make that call?

spectralTopology@reddit

"Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth." Marshall McLuhan

Butlerian Jihad when?

neurapathy@reddit

I think it has already surpassed us and is actually running things now. That would explain an ever increasing percentage of the economy being diverted into datacenters and other AI infrastructure.

Alex5173@reddit

"Why do we need more datacenters?"

"To feed the AI"

"And how do we know the AI needs feeding?"

"The AI told us"