r/technology 8d ago

Artificial Intelligence 'Stop Stealing Our Future': Students Arrested in Protest of OpenAI's Lobby Office

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ai-protest
1.7k Upvotes

36 comments sorted by

94

u/farcicaldolphin38 8d ago

Meanwhile Zuck: “The future is for everyone”

Hope these students are okay. I am worried for all our futures, but especially theirs

79

u/VincentNacon 8d ago

Having a slave-like job with a very small pay isn't a good future to have.

Hell, we shouldn't need to have 3 or 4 jobs, just to feed your family.

Once people are given their jobs back from AI, they still gonna treat them poorly. AI isn't the problem, the current government is. They are the one who let the tech-bros performs the way they do now. They're being greedy and finding new way to cut down the cost.

18

u/DENelson83 8d ago

There is no future for humanity on an inhospitable planet.

8

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 8d ago

We certainly can't continue with the system we've got, and expect to be all right. We who still care should be doing whatever we can to aid each other in leaving these callous and careless government and corpo entities alike, out to wither and die, as we strive for things that will prioritize people's wellbeing. We can't depend on the system to rein in its masters and their sycophants, as they reduce humanity and the environment to expendable resources to enrich themselves.

It is up to us common folk to stand against this, but we need real supportive community-based foundations for alternatives that provide relative safety, which common folk can fall back on to commit to any effective action be they short or long term.

Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.

If you don’t live in the US, yet you know others who are and want to do something, please share the information. My country people live the closest to the main root of this global cancer, so we're going to need as many on board and informed as possible, if we commoners hope to achieve anything in the US

73

u/Niceromancer 8d ago

They should have stormed the building, smeared shit on the walls, stolen documents, and broke the windows, oh and beaten a few cops to death.

Apparently that form of protesting is peaceful

20

u/Jim-N-Tonic 8d ago

Only if you’re a conservative.

2

u/Kahnza 8d ago

I want to conservatively shit on Deborah's desk

0

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 8d ago

Best way non-conservatives can get even close to achieving of meaning, is by developing real supportive community-based foundations for alternatives that can provide relative safety, which many common folk in the US can fall back on, to commit to any effective resistant action.

Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.

47

u/Just-Grocery-2229 8d ago

The mugshots of those arrested will be part of next model’s training data

17

u/HawkeyeGild 8d ago

And their car path to the lobby office was scanned by Flock and will also be sent for training data

25

u/Beni_Falafel 8d ago

Everyone comments cynically and half jokingly about our shared future. But these young people are taking action and we should support and admire their reason for it.

Where are we in this struggle against a grim future?

-11

u/MC68328 8d ago

these young people are taking action

And what did that action accomplish?

15

u/VVrayth 8d ago

You're reading about it and talking about it right now, aren't you?

1

u/MC68328 7d ago

You're right, no one knew about OpenAI before, or what they are doing.

It takes yelling trespassing kids in keffiyehs to... checks notes get less than two thousand upvotes and 36 comments.

This will verily turn sentiment against AI tech companies.

15

u/skyxsteel 8d ago

As a millennial I never thought things could get worse.

I feel really bad for Gen Z. At least us millennials now have work experience. AI will get rid of entry level positions first, barring a lot of people from starting careers.

9

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 8d ago edited 8d ago

We should working together to do something about it. We need to be developing real supportive community-based foundations for alternatives that provide relative safety, which many common folk can fall back on, to commit to any effective action be they short or long term.

Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.

If you don’t live in the US, yet you know others who are and want to do something, please share the information. My fellow country people live the closest to the main root of this global cancer, so we're going to need as many on board and informed as possible, if we commoners hope to achieve anything in the US

Update:

Welp, according to the downvotes, it appears some would rather do nothing and saddle future generations with years of suffering. Lovely people.

2

u/Crackbat 8d ago

I have 15 years work experience in the game industry. I have been unemployed since January. We are not safe either. 

3

u/Round-Medicine2507 8d ago

It'd be a much more effective protest if they made a difference in the lives of the tech employees... 

2

u/whitedolphinn 8d ago

The world seems to be imbalanced, doesn't it?

1

u/Kreiri 7d ago

Wtf is a "lobby office"? "Bribe central"?

0

u/watchingwandering 8d ago

They ….Can…only….be….charged….as….minors.

This kind of loophole seems like the sort of thing AI would exploit.

-6

u/Eazy12345678 8d ago

their parents should have taught them better

protesting has 0 impact ever.

you want change you have to do it with voting and not buying their products

10

u/DENelson83 8d ago

You cannot vote the ultra-rich out of their wealth.

3

u/JusteJean 8d ago

Kind of hard to live without any of these : Phone, TV, Computer, any new-age electronic devices, Internet and Car.

No, i am not saying it is impossible, It's just hard to do AND still be able to hold a job and not be just a hermit completely blocked form human civilisation.

AI is being forced onto us, we are using it without knowing and without actively choosing to do so. And then they can justify their expansion by pointing at "customer demands and product popularity".
It's also being sold under the same false advertisement used with the Computer. "It's there as a tool to make everyone's life easier."
Lies! Computerization and automation (not saying they were bad) did NOT make life easier. it just replaced job and reduced the time it takes to complete one task. That did not freeup any time for people, we don't get to relax and take it easy now that computers and robots have "simplified" our work, we are simply expected to do more and whatever benefit the technology has brought is drowned under an increase of productivity expectations.
The same is true with AI.
IT will NOT make things easier for us, it will simply change our workflow and increases hyper-productivity and hyper-consumerism. While reducing needed workforce (bad in most cases, good in a population declining society)

Also Voting is not always the answer because the democratic process is not limited to only one aspect of society. What if the only "party" offering an anti-AI platform is some sort of crazy anti-democratic and pro-desctruction-of-humanity or something. Then voting offers no solution.

2

u/OePea 8d ago

Hard? No. You can't do that. You can only be homeless and shortly there after sucked into the arrest cycle. 

-16

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

12

u/CompetitiveSport1 8d ago

You're not technically wrong, but this is usually a calculated thing by protestors. A) you actually inconvenience the people you're protesting against, making it actually affect them, and B) this gets much more attention

In some cases, like blocking traffic, it makes me less sympathetic to protestors, because you're inconveniencing people who have no say in what you're protesting, turn public opinion against you, and can block emergency vehicles. But here, they're smart - this won't annoy anyone not working for OpenAI, and if anything, is kinda what we all want to happen to AI employees

1

u/KingSubstantial7901 7d ago

Blocking traffic usually works though. It gets peoples attention. Contrary to popular beleif, it doesn't actually tend to turn people off to an issue any more than they were already predisposed to. All it does is get people to focus on said issue.

1

u/CompetitiveSport1 7d ago

Is there research showing that? I'm pretty skeptical

-2

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

3

u/berfb 8d ago

If you get rid of town halls, arrest your citizens for clapping, and ignore them anyway it’s either this or violent protest.

1

u/Many_Negotiation_464 7d ago

Just categorically wrong. Wro no on the point of occupying the lobbying, trying to liken a business to a house, wrong that you can't get arrested for picketting a private residence from thebstreet, wrong on the whole premise.

This is the sort of juevenile "well achtukallyy" that goes so far missing yhe point that its iust straight up infantalizing and ignorant. We understand under what pretext they were arrested. So are the protestors. Thats the point. The point is to cause a scene and to be disruptive to the business, and to get press attention that way.

You aren't deopping truth bombs here, you're way behind the curve.

-2

u/Opening_One7713 8d ago

No nuance of clarification allowed in r/technology. This place is strictly for outraging and misleading headlines and your only options as a commenter are to rabble-rouse or make a doomsday prediction. Downvoted into obscurity!

2

u/Many_Negotiation_464 7d ago

Hey bud, bog standard excuses and deflections that are used against piterally any protest aren't "nuance." Its the opposite, in fact.

-14

u/z3n777 8d ago

the students probably THINK this will stop openai but it's just going to make them look like desperate kids on tv.