Can't Buy Me Love

Given the fact that part of the reason why SpaceX wants to build data centers in space is that they understand that many communities find living near ones on Earth sucks, the idea that opposition is the result of a foreign influence campaign by Chinese interests seems to be a bit misguided.

Look, I get it, there's the promise of money to be made from ubiquitous automation, and boosters of technology have long held that the general public is simply too ignorant for their concerns to be allowed to slow progress.

But there's a reason why there are individuals who aren't going for: "This will be great for everyone; just trust us," and that's because time and again, promised benefits haven't arrived (or, perhaps more accurately, haven't been shared), and rather than supporters of technology taking the responsibility to make those who bore the costs whole, fingers were pointed until the whole thing blew over.

If LLMs were going to be such moneymakers, why did Meta and Anthropic feel the need to pirate books to train their systems, rather than just paying for them? I think that there are more causes to be suspicious of generative automation firms than their supporters may be willing to cop to.

The fact of the matter is that "Big Business" are not considered trustworthy by many members of the general public, and "Big Business" hasn't done a whole lot over the years to change that. Generally speaking, it's rare that someone supports something where they bear the costs, but the benefits go to someone else.

All of that said, I think that it's more than "the rich" and "tech moguls" who think (or want to think) they smell a rat. There's a reason why the term "Luddite," is more of a pejorative today than it was originally. When groups of people are pitted against one another, it's common for one or both sides to not only believe they deserve to win, but to see the opposition to them as illegitimate. And a lot of people have hitched their wagons to the generative automation star. It's not only the well-off among them who might resent pushback.