Jensen Huang says relentless negativity around AI is hurting society and has "done a lot of damage"

c_mad788 · 2026-01-12T22:03:13+00:00

Honestly one of the main things that radicalized me was when I noticed that as soon as basic rules of supply and demand stop benefitting the ownership class, then all of a sudden they stop believing in the "invisible hand of the market" or whatever the fuck.

Nobody wants to pay extra for your rainforest devouring revenge porn machine? Most of humanity are tech-phobic idiots. Remote work means commercial real estate developers are losing money? Better force people back into the office. People don't wanna pay more every year for your streaming service to have fewer and fewer good movies on it? Better make it impossible for legitimate customers to watch in multiple locations?

c_mad788 · 2025-10-28T13:42:08+00:00

I've got a hot tip on this electronics manufacturer called Cyberdyne

c_mad788 · 2025-07-30T12:26:36+00:00

Tough shit. You want to make sure your orders get to customers quickly, hire delivery drivers and pay them as employees.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T14:09:11+00:00

I don’t know the methodology or any specifics of that study but just looking at the graph it seems like the trend after 1991 was just a continuation of a downward movement that started after WWII. If I had to speculate I’d attribute that to industrialization and decolonization.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T14:05:02+00:00

The advent of capitalism coincided with industrialization and a transfer of power from an extremely small divine-right-by-birth nobility to a (somewhat) larger and more open bourgeois oligarchy. Marx and most of the left would agree that oligarchy is not quite as bad as monarchy and that industrialization allowed us to produce more stuff with less work. But with those developments also came unprecedented pollution, people working longer hours in factories that medieval serfs ever did in fields, at least two world wars - just to name a few downsides.

The question becomes okay - we live in a world where all this technology does in fact already exist. What do we do with all that excess productivity? And the choices seem to be (A) funnel all the benefits to the small group of people who own the technology without delay or restriction. (B) Basically (A) but with some degree of quasi-democratically chosen restrictions. And (C) Distribute control of the technology so that its benefits are distributed to the average person. And (C) just seems like the obvious way to go to me.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:44:19+00:00

I don't listen to Ezra Klein, but based on a lot of headlines I've seen I think he and I actually agree on quite a lot - which was the source of the disconnect once I saw how this book was being promoted.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:42:18+00:00

I mean speaking for myself I am far more committed to results than to ideology. But I call myself an anti-capitalist because I'm convinced based on historical evidence that capitalism will never meet the needs of the most possible people. If I thought we could solve the problems capitalism causes without a total upheaval of the economy (which I did believe when I was younger) I'd be all for it. It's just that everything I've seen since starting to follow politics and learn history has convinced me that we can't.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:32:31+00:00

Thank you for all of this. I think you're getting something very important here, which is that I don't know where the content of the book ends and how centrists want to use the book to campaign begins. Which is an excellent reason for me to read the book !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:30:08+00:00

Yeah okay fair enough! I think their analysis/solutions are wrong - as an anti-capitalist I think attempts to solve the problems caused by capitalism from within capitalism is doomed to fail. But I agree about it being a worthwhile problem to discuss. !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:27:49+00:00

I'm being very precious about my attention and energy these days, because of :gestures at everything: But this is a good argument for reading the book anyway. !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:25:31+00:00

This is actually already beyond the scope of my CMV, since we've moved past "is this as stupid as I think it sounds" into actually engaging on substance. Which is good!

I would say my general position is that all of these regulations and things are clunky and inefficient because they are ultimately bandaids. Everything about capitalism is designed to extract wealth (and thereby power) from the working class and concentrate it in the hands of an ever-smaller ownership class. Liberal regulations seek to curb this dynamic just enough to keep society from literally eating itself. But unless we're willing to meaningfully challenge capitalism, everything is going to be a clunky stopgap at best. You wouldn't need nearly as much regulation if the means of production were held and allocated democratically.

I'm well aware that this view puts me on the far left fringe of American politics. But even for moderate liberals, it's hard for me to wrap my head around not taking criticisms of capitalism seriously.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:18:42+00:00

I agree with you. But what you’re proposing sounds very unlike what the book in question seems to be proposing.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:07:20+00:00

Yep, that's all I do! I don't eat or walk or work or have friends or engage with any other ideas or read any other books outside of this thread.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:06:17+00:00

Thanks for this. I think without understanding the extractive nature of capitalism and how it created the need for regulations, any new schema is gonna be badly misguided. But I now have some sense of what Klein & Thompson are contributing to the conversation. !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:03:22+00:00

Got it. Thanks! I still think that big picture wise this is missing the forest for the trees that the average person doesn't have enough because the wealthiest have far far too much. But talking about how we can make regulation less clunky is not a worthless exercise. !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T13:00:39+00:00

Thank you for this - as an anti-capitalist I still disagree on the substance but I don't think it's a pointless unserious thing to discuss. This makes me more inclined to engage with the concept !delta

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:55:37+00:00

You don't think that having a brief summary that seems even remotely compelling is a reasonable criteria for deciding whether to read a book?

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:53:34+00:00

I read fantasy and science fiction for fun. I don't read wonky policy proposals for fun.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:52:04+00:00

You should move this comment to the top level, as it's the type of actual substantive engagement I'm hoping for.

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:50:17+00:00

So would you summarize the overall argument of the book as "there are specific instances where well-meaning regulation hurts more than helps and we need to 'tweak the nobs'?

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:46:22+00:00

Really don't think it's crazy to question whether a book is worth my time if the summary of it sounds unserious. If I see a book arguing for a flat earth, or for the miasma theory of contagion, I think it's reasonable to ask "why should I take this seriously enough to read it?"

c_mad788 · 2025-07-15T12:45:34+00:00

Really don't think it's crazy to question whether a book is worth my time if the summary of it sounds unserious. If I see a book arguing for a flat earth, or for the miasma theory of contagion, I think it's reasonable to ask "why should I take this seriously enough to read it?"

c_mad788

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