'It's like having a dumb friend': Young San Franciscans hate AI

[usonian]

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/san-francisco-ai-backlash-22325141.php

hen Somerset Dwyer found a two-bedroom apartment in Nob Hill, she felt she had done the impossible. Having grown up four blocks from her new place, she would be moving to her first apartment after college, returning to San Francisco for the first time as an adult. She was excited to live in a neighborhood she called the epitome of “Old San Francisco,” with its diners and gritty bars she remembered from her childhood. But when she got there, she found that something in the neighborhood’s spirit had changed.

“All of it was gone. Everyone works from home, and there’s no sense of community,” Dwyer said. A new wave of artificial intelligence-fueled, tech-related gentrification was seeping into the few spots of San Francisco left untouched, and for Dwyer, “It made it hard to connect to the city again.”

Although the world may be watching San Francisco as the leading voice in the AI conversation, a lot of our young people, perhaps surprisingly, hate it. In a city with a long history of attracting young people for its rich artistic and progressive history, some say artificial intelligence represents everything the city stands against.

​On Wednesday evenings at Kiitos Cocktail Lounge and Sports Bar on Capp Street, a small group of people meet for drinks. You spot them immediately, dramatically ranging in age, ethnicity and other demographics and dressed in matching bright red T-shirts with bold white lettering: STOP AI.

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[BigmanPigman]

1. I only know 1 person who likes AI

Everyone else hates it. It's tacky, cheap and just plain annoying crap. As soon as I see or hear anything AI I stop and change sites. It is a total failure that we will not accept as legit.

[anciano]

2. AI technology is the new reality of modern life....

and changes in the ways we interact with others and with our environments are inevitable. Acceptance and adaptation are no longer optional.

[usonian]

5. Little has been done to address the slop. In fact, most effort seems to have gone into making it even more powerful.

1. People trust AI more than people, even though it's flawed.
https://www.hec.edu/en/dare/innovation-entrepreneurship/why-people-trust-ai-more-humans-even-when-it-s-flawed

2. Its use extends beyond scientifically testable (and potentially beneficial ) uses.

3. It will sediment, and be given away for free, like Siri, so there's no real payback.

4. (worst?). In order to deal with its inhumanity, people will fire up agents to deal with the agents, which already have too much power over critical things (Star Trek --- The Ultimate Computer)

I have been a techie all my life, and beneficiary of all this cool technology, but this is too powerful, politicized, and owned (so far) by oligarchs, to concentrate their power, money and control. Transistors and integrated circuits, the early internet, open source software, even personal computers spread the wealth.

Concentration, as in search engines, "network effect" social/addictive sites, and AI data farms work in the opposite direction of freedom, and they are "levers of control"

Control? Rewrite history.
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
Emmanuel Goldstein
https://genius.com/Emmanuel-goldstein-the-theory-and-practice-of-oligarchical-collectivism-annotated

Something that has led to many suicides goes unregulated, except that it's censored and rigged for political reasons. It really is misogynistic and racist.

Laissez Faire

[anciano]

6. Understandable concerns...

so what realistic solutions do you propose?

[usonian]

7. Things are changing so fast that I can't figure which are.

Pattern matching?

Data analysis?

Anomaly detection? I say that because when I was doing sysadmin, I came across a financial (and network traffic?) anomaly detector)

Photo analysis/rescue? Within limits. Phone cameras already overprocess images.

I keep begging for a free photo classification app. Not yet. Apple image search is either ridiculous or hilarious.

Others?

[lame54]

3. Poor San Francisco...

People either believe it's a crime ridden shithole or a sterilized rich guy playground

Let's call it what it is
Still - A Beautiful City

[Manatee]

4. I lived there for 29 years.

This all happened during Covid and has very little to do with AI.

[Sympthsical]

9. I should have read this reply before I popped off, lol

Short and to the point.

[Sympthsical]

8. Article doesn't mention Covid once

An extremely confused piece of writing. The writer wants to talk about how no one likes AI - which is fair. Then keeps holding AI responsible for civic life in S.F. - no.

Tech gentrification is nothing new, but the character of the city didn't change because of A.I. It changed because of Covid. Tech people (and many others) fled to the suburbs where housing was cheaper once tech companies decided they didn't actually need expensive office space anymore. Just look at what happened to Westfield Mall. A ton of businesses in S.F. have closed as those workers left, particularly many of the trendier, tech hipster spots. That's why they're investigating just what the hell to do with Market Street.

Everyone bounced.

This article is giving, "I hate AI, so I talked to a bunch of my friends about it."

But you cannot discuss how S.F. has changed in the last six years without discussing what happened during and after Covid - which the writer avoids entirely. Just AI AI AI AI. Which is trendy and clicky, but not salient or informative if you want to discuss changes in the city. You also can't discuss changes without noting Gen Z do not go out to socialize nearly as much. This is the social media generation. They're not hanging in bars - look at the drinking rates tanking. They didn't all get healthier. They just stopped socializing in person as much. Bars and restaurants are experiencing a wave of closures. Mom and pop shops can't compete when everyone Door Dashes.

Kinda lazy article, tbh. Feels like some Gen Z navel-gazing.