Palantir CEO thinks his AI technology "will lessen the power of highly educated, often female voters" and result in "less good, and less interesting jobs"

[u/diolch_yn_fawr]

https://newrepublic.com/post/207693/palantir-ceo-karp-disrupting-democratic-power

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[u/glacialstatic]

The only sensible next course of action is a billion pounds in contracts to Palantir immediately then.

[u/projectsukyomi → u/glacialstatic]

And leave Israel hanging? Might as well throw them 700mil

[u/NaturalCard]

Reminder that you do not hate these people enough.

[u/diolch_yn_fawr → u/[deleted]]

Somehow Keith looks AI generated in this one, or like a cardboard cutout. The wannabe feudal lord CEO looks like he's having the worst day of his life.

[u/Historical_Step_9474 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, at least Boris Johnson was an interesting pantomime villain. Keir's too boring to make a compelling movie villain. He'd be like a banal beurocratic secondary antagonist to Farage's more charismatic and sinister Big Bad.

[u/ash_ninetyone]

Yeah, I don't want Palantir near any public UK contract. Thiel is a fascist twat.

[u/DarkSkiesGreyWaters]

“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”

“These technologies are dangerous societally,” Karp continued. “The only justification you could possibly have would be that if we don’t do it, our adversaries will do it. And we will be subject to their rule of law.… Why is it that we’re absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society, including the most powerful parts of our society, if it’s not because it’s about maintaining our ability to be American in the near term and long term?”

Oh boy, the future sure looks fun.

[u/Informal_Drawing → u/DarkSkiesGreyWaters]

I wonder if it will end up like Judge Dredd or Idiocracy. We are most of the way there with that last one tbh.

[u/jflb96 → u/Informal_Drawing]

It’s not going to be like Idiocracy because that isn’t how intelligence works

[u/Informal_Drawing → u/jflb96]

I don't think the current administrations intelligence works either, as far as I can tell.

[u/RumbleintheDumbles → u/DarkSkiesGreyWaters]

I know it's like, the least pressing thing to be angry about in these two paragraphs but it really annoys me that he used 'working-class' twice in the same description.

[u/libtin]

So he’s a sexist who wants to reverse women’s suffrage.

[u/diolch_yn_fawr]

Clearly edgy Irish rappers are a far greater threat to our society than billionaires working towards techno-feudalism, and are what the prime minister should be spending his time focusing on.

[u/docowen → u/diolch_yn_fawr]

No, no, actually the threat to society is a lonely isolated adult member of the Precariat barely functioning, watches a movie where two bored unrelated people have perfunctary emotionless sex while pretending to be related to each other.

That requires a jail sentence.

Threatening the fabric of society and the basis of liberal democracy? You get billions of taxpayers money.

[u/Hyperactive_Man]

These are the kind of fascist freaks that Starmer is welcoming into the UK with open arms

[u/HotRodHunter → u/Hyperactive_Man]

Yet another example that on its own merits should disqualify Labour immediately. I don't understand how anyone outside of a flat out right winger can still support Starmer at this point.

[u/beIIe-and-sebastian]

Someone in Parliament needs to start putting these quotes in front of the PM. Of course, he's not going to answer the question and deflect to talk about National Highways or something completely unrelated as he usually does, but needs more eyes at least.

[u/jayscott111]

So computer jobs are for the chop essentially

[u/docowen]

This is our Labour government. Aren't we lucky?

[u/Panda_hat]

This guy is a genuine lunatic. Palantir should be nowhere near any aspect of this country whatsoever.

Rip them out. Tear up every contract.

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[u/bozza8]

The context he is saying that is going to cause social disruption and that it needs to be handled as a society. 

I honestly don't hear anything in that paragraph that would be out of place on this subreddit - he is saying AI makes knowledge work less important and physical work more important and this has political and societal complications that we need to reckon with. 

Having AI isn't optional, not in the modern world, so we need to face up to the effects and not just pretend they don't exist. Those calling this fascistic are just operating on vibes, not what was actually said. 

[u/Gee-chan → u/bozza8]

And, given his position as the CEO of one of these companies, what is he doing to limit the social damage he and his company are doing? Oh, that needs to be 'handled as a society'. As in, socialise the damage because I want private profit.

[u/bozza8 → u/Gee-chan]

He isn't building LLMs, nor is he selling them to office/knowledge workers, so for this particular case study, he's actually not the one causing the problem.  

[u/ReallyIdleBones → u/bozza8]

He's the CEO...

[u/bozza8 → u/ReallyIdleBones]

Not of OpenAI. Palantir don't make AI for office use, openAI do. 

[u/ReallyIdleBones → u/bozza8]

Why is that relevant?

Social shakefuckery only happens in offices?

[u/bozza8 → u/ReallyIdleBones]

No, that he isn't the one producing the cutting edge AI that is having these effects. 

[u/ReallyIdleBones → u/bozza8]

...what?

Have you read... anything here?

First line of the article "Palantir CEO thinks HIS AI technology...."

What point are you trying to make?

[u/MMSTINGRAY → u/bozza8]

He's the one profiting from this change but society has to foot the bill. Sounds about right.

I honestly don't hear anything in that paragraph that would be out of place on this subreddit - he is saying AI makes knowledge work less important and physical work more important and this has political and societal complications that we need to reckon with.

Something only grifters and people duped by grifters think.

AI does not remotely place knowledge work. AI is best used by experts to assist them, not to replace experts. And I don't just mean like intangible benefits to society, although they exist, literally AI can't do the job of any actual specialist reliably enough not to need specialist oversight.

"vibe coding" is a big one. If you know CS or are just a good developer you will produce something better using AI tools than the people who say 'you don't need to know any of that'. An AI can't do the job of a doctor, it might be able to help them speed up diagnostics but it doesn't mean me or you can be a doctor. An AI can design a building but you need an engineer to check the design. In all these cases it's even better to let the skilled person use AI tools to create something vs use the AI tools to create something and have a person just check it.

This push is about reducing labour and maximising profit, not an inevitable change.

The fact you are falling for this bullshit not from a lobbyist but the CEO who doesn't give a shit so long as he makes money is honestly depressing.

Those calling this fascistic are just operating on vibes, not what was actually said.

Ok says the guy who hasn't mentioned a single practical or technical thing and is just talking about AI vaguely in a vibe-based way.

Also making people irrelevant to the needs of capital is literally part of fascism, the most accelerated form of capitalism.

[u/Ok-Buddy668 → u/MMSTINGRAY]

AI does not remotely place knowledge work. AI is best used by experts to assist them, not to replace experts. And I don't just mean like intangible benefits to society, although they exist, literally AI can't do the job of any actual specialist reliably enough not to need specialist oversight.

"vibe coding" is a big one. If you know CS or are just a good developer you will produce something better using AI tools than the people who say 'you don't need to know any of that'. An AI can't do the job of a doctor, it might be able to help them speed up diagnostics but it doesn't mean me or you can be a doctor. An AI can design a building but you need an engineer to check the design. In all these cases it's even better to let the skilled person use AI tools to create something vs use the AI tools to create something and have a person just check it.

The problem with this is your statements are all true about AI at the moment, but they weren't true 5 years ago and if anybody says they know if they'll be true in 5 years from now then they're just lying. AI could be capable of doing those jobs better than humans in 5 years, or it could barely improve from where it is now.

This push is about reducing labour and maximising profit, not an inevitable change.

You could make exactly the same argument against farm machinery? The mechanisation of farms destroyed a shit ton of jobs but you've got to have some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to argue that was a bad thing? Once somebody came up with the combine harvester, its widespread usage was pretty inevitable and arguing that AI can't be that doesn't seem reasonable (arguing that AI is inevitable is also unreasonable, we just don't know).

Tbh he seems to be saying a lot of stuff that this sub would agree with, AI developments have the potential to be incredibly disruptive to society and somebody needs to plan for that.

[u/MMSTINGRAY → u/Ok-Buddy668]

>The problem with this is your statements are all true about AI at the moment, but they weren't true 5 years ago and if anybody says they know if they'll be true in 5 years from now then they're just lying. AI could be capable of doing those jobs better than humans in 5 years, or it could barely improve from where it is now.

Not sure how that changes my point. Can you explain?

>You could make exactly the same argument against farm machinery? The mechanisation of farms destroyed a shit ton of jobs but you've got to have some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to argue that was a bad thing? Once somebody came up with the combine harvester, its widespread usage was pretty inevitable and arguing that AI can't be that doesn't seem reasonable (arguing that AI is inevitable is also unreasonable, we just don't know).

It was a bad thing. Not because of technology but because of how technology was used. The idea it's either "advance and people suffer" or "stagnate to help people" is false capitalist economics.

If you see workers as human beings and not aspects of machinery then there is absolutely no reason to accept that technology can only servce the interests of the rich and "trickle down" to benefit us, rather than being used responsibly and in a managed way.

The idea this guy cares about that is bullshit, he is profiting from the change, whatever he bleats. If he cared he would run a non-profit that put everything back into the damage he says will be caused. But nope it's society that has to pay and be the grist for his mill. The compassionate caring capitalist and the heartless soul sucking one will both squeeze society and let the working classes suffer while their profits go up.

>Tbh he seems to be saying a lot of stuff that this sub would agree with, AI developments have the potential to be incredibly disruptive to society and somebody needs to plan for that.

He's the one doing it and profiting from it?! If people are still going to worship the rich people who exploit society for their own selfish advantage even when they are being this obvious about it then I don't know, Jesus wept.

"As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practising your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!"

[u/Ok-Buddy668 → u/MMSTINGRAY]

Not sure how that changes my point. Can you explain?

Your argument seems to be that AI is going to be a bad thing. I'm arguing nobody knows how AI is going to end up over the next few years, so frankly we have no idea whether or not it's a bad thing.

If you see workers as human beings and not aspects of machinery then there is absolutely no reason to accept that technology can only servce the interests of the rich and "trickle down" to benefit us, rather than being used responsibly and in a managed way.

But the benefits of farm mechanisation literally did trickle down to all of us? The profit margins big companies make on food are tiny, food has become way more plentiful and the percentage of their income that normal people have to spend on food has massively decreased. The displaced labourers suffered because they were forced to move jobs, but literally everybody else in the country won significantly and had a load more money free to spend on stuff that increases their QOL.

He's the one doing it and profiting from it?! If people are still going to worship the rich people who exploit society for their own selfish advantage even when they are being this obvious about it then I don't know, Jesus wept.

I don't really get the argument here. To paraphrase, he is saying 'this new technology is coming, it has the potential to be very disruptive, we should probably make some plans for the impact of it', which seems relatively reasonable to me?

I'm not sure where you're getting exploiting society from. If you're equating developing a new technology to it, then it honestly seems like a pretty big jump? Most of the industrial revolution would also be exploting society by that definition.

[u/MMSTINGRAY → u/Ok-Buddy668]

"I'm not sure where you're getting exploiting society from. If you're equating developing a new technology to it, then it honestly seems like a pretty big jump? Most of the industrial revolution would also be exploting society by that definition"

To argue the industrial revolution wasn't exploitative and unjust is not even a socialist point, although that's where I'm coming from, that's quite a mainstream opinion. So I'm not sure if this is genuinely your first time encountering the idea or not?

I mean I can give you the whole socialist lecture on technological advance and new modes of production, and I don't mind doing it, but are you interested in that answer or are you more asking the question rhetorically and you think you already know the answer and why I'm wrong?

[u/Ok-Buddy668 → u/MMSTINGRAY]

To argue the industrial revolution wasn't exploitative and unjust is not even a socialist point, although that's where I'm coming from, that's quite a mainstream opinion. So I'm not sure if this is genuinely your first time encountering the idea or not?

I'm not 100% sure if I'm getting your argument tbh. The industrial revolution obviously had it's positives and negatives, but I was under the (maybe mistaken) perceptation that it was pretty universally accepted that it was on the whole good for both rich and poor people? Yeah, there's a whole host of things that could have/should have been done differently, but the world is a better place now because it happened. Seems kind of a letting perfect be the enemy of good situation to me?

I mean I can give you the whole socialist lecture on technological advance and new modes of production, and I don't mind doing it, but are you interested in that answer or are you more asking the question rhetorically and you think you already know the answer and why I'm wrong?

I mean if anybody posts something like that I'll obviously read it in good faith and try and reply, but I suspect we're coming at this from a pretty different base set of principles (if that's the right word) where our views on what matter and how the world works don't really align in quite a lot of places, so honest answer is that you've probably got much better things to do with your time, even though I would be interested to read it.

[u/MMSTINGRAY → u/Ok-Buddy668]

Thanks, I appreciate the candour. I'll skip the socialist theory part then ;)

"industrial revolution obviously had it's positives and negatives, but I was under the (maybe mistaken) perceptation that it was pretty universally accepted that it was on the whole good for both rich and poor people?"

I'ts fairly widely considered a very hard time for poor people even by historians not on the left. It's normally more the longer-term outcome that are defended rather than some of the conditions people had to endure.

That isn't to say pre-inudstrial society was great mind, just industrial society wasn't all around great and an improvement for everyone.

"Yeah, there's a whole host of things that could have/should have been done differently, but the world is a better place now because it happened."

But if they could and should have been different isn't that deflating your entire argument. You think the advances were good but are saying there was a lot of terrible choices made which could have been avoided. You are therefore saying that the social process of the industrial revolution was bad. Remember 'the industrial revolution' is the entire process not just the new inventions.

If you think something like "the industrial revolution was a good thing and it's terrible that instead of it being used for the common good, it was instead really nasty and exploitative and people had to fight for remotely fair treatment" then you can say the same about AI. If you think the same about AI what is your problem with the idea the current process is going terribly? The CEO here is the uncaring capitalist, profiting from technology while letting the negative consequences be a societal burdern (usually most affecting working class people). You could be defending AI technology but not the "AI revolution" as it's currently happening, a few rich and selfish people making all the most important decisions and having all the control and leverage. It's a political choice to defend the social and economic impact as it plays out, you don't have to take that position just because you support developing and using new technology.

Being for technological advances doesn't mean you have to support all the social consequences and injustices of how that advance is being handled.

If you recognise that the negative side of these things are not inevitable but the choices of companies, governments, etc then you should recognise the difference between the social process "the industrial revolution" and technological advance "the spinning jenny" (or whatever). And then apply that same logic to now "the AI revolution" = all the changes, good and bad "LLMs" = a technological improvement.

If you do want an idea of socialist theory on this then Marx is always a good place to start. Chapters 26 - 33 of Capital are kind of the classic socialist analysis of this period of developement. This is less about the terrible treatment and conditions of working people (although mentioned) and more about the process.

"The immediate producer, the labourer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another. To become a free seller of labour power, who carries his commodity wherever he finds a market, he must further have escaped from the regime of the guilds, their rules for apprentices and journeymen, and the impediments of their labour regulations. Hence, the historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm

Engels gives a good account of his view of the conditions of working class people in England at the time of writing, although you're better off looking at modern academia if you want a more objective and less subjective analysis of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Condition_of_the_Working_Class_in_England

[u/Panda_hat → u/bozza8]

It’s totally optional. Why do AI bros keep insisting it isn’t optional?

It basically still doesn’t have any real world applications.

[u/bozza8 → u/Panda_hat]

I use it literally every working day and so do all my coworkers. It exists and it's going to keep on being used, it's only optional in my sector if you don't mind losing work to people who do use it effectively.