Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Vibecoding meets the long history of viberegulationby dmix
- I'm puzzled how people who didn't care about Snowden are suddenly very upset about Flock. I'm glad they finally decided the 4A is important.by panny
- Is that the case? It seems to me that the people who cared about Snowden are basically the same people who care about Flock. Most of the people I know who didn't like Snowden also don't seem to care about Snowden. I do find it interesting / strange that conservatives (of which I am somewhat) don't care about Snowden or Flock. To me, the things Snowden revealed, and the crap Flock is doing are completely incompatible with the way I think government should function. But, maybe I'm more libertarian than conservative.
- It is more concrete now. For example the footage that was released about the Kirk shooter showed that you are filmed everywhere, including in residential areas.
People are beginning to understand.
by Zsfe510asG - Lots of people cared, it just wasn’t actionable. The situation with flock has avenues for change in town hall meetings or even good ol fashioned vandalism.
Dragnet surveillance by the CIA was a bit harder to oppose.
by WD-42 - The Snowden situation is more complicated to explain. For flock you just show a Benn Jordan video showcasing the camera recording kids and people are likely to understand the problem. It’s also visible, in the real world, whenever you go around and see those cameras
(Benn Jordan has been so good at publicizing the flock issue, I would highly recommend to check his Patreon, his technical work over the years is really impressive)
by dgellow - I'm not. The same people who seemingly magically cared about Flock overnight will move onto something else within the year. There's always something new to be outraged over, Flock is just the flavor of the week.by GenerWork
- My theory is generational and knowledge shifts, namely that now we're seeing the first substantial cohort of non-techies with a decent understanding of tech culture and politics. This is also why we see a lot more anti-AI and anti tech CEO sentiment among the young than the old in defiance of our previously held assumptions.
This is about the right time for the children, nieces, and nephews of the first and second big generations of post-Web software engineers, IT workers, etc. to be getting old enough to become a political force. There's been an explosion of tech workers since the mid-90s, and that means an explosion of people related to them as well. The kids who watched their parents be stacked ranked at Amazon, saw the difference in how MS treated contractors and employees, listened to their corporate IT parents talk about how hostile MS is, etc. all learned that the big tech companies are not anyone's friend even if the specifics of the tech go over their heads. And while the workers themselves might keep their heads down and be quiet in public for the sake of their careers, their kids and relatives are less constrained.
And they can talk to each other and find that it's a common sentiment. Since they don't necessarily have technical careers or hobbies, they're also able to export this sentiment to a wider variety of people through overlapping hobbies and interests (e.g. the IT guy at a school in suburban Ohio has a kid who's a theatre nerd, and the kid is good at communicating their anti big tech position to this 'new' group of people).
The distribution of knowledge about how tech companies operate is shifting and diffusing into channels and communities it didn't before.
by Mezzie - Optics and zeitgeist.
The Snowden leaks had too much of an abstract bogeyman. PRISM couldn't inspire critical mass outrage because, at the time, Big Tech was still genuinely useful and, besides, the Big Tech involved could be sidestepped with some inconvenience. Flock is neither directly useful nor avoidable unless you resolve to never leave your house.
Metadata tracking is, again, too abstract of a concept, too much a statistical what-if. Compare that with Flock which tracks your very countenance.
Most importantly IMO, Flock has a physical manifestation on which people can direct their anger. There is a "frontend" to actively subvert as opposed to a mere "backend" to avoid.
- My take is that the difference is simply down to visibility, and by extension broader understanding, of the issue:
- Cameras film me and my family and neighbors everywhere in daily life => Obviously an issue
- Something about secret agencies maybe (?) reading along my messages => “I’ve got nothing to hide in there anyway”
by msdz - I thought this was going to be about h1b and the severe backlash ycombinator partners are facing online.by sergiotapia
- Nah those articles are rarely allowed to make it to the topby ofjcihen
- > One of the big stories of the last decade plus has of course been the story of rising inequality, and of working class Americans becoming economically and politically disempowered. What serves as a better totem to this sentiment better than a megaproject erected under the cover of a panoply of NDAs to build a mass job automator for a trillion-dollar tech company?
The sad thing is, tech is supposed to be about solving problems to make people's lives better. But instead of investing $$$$ in tech to solve people's problems, we're investing $$$$ to add to their problems.
- If they're in denial, perhaps they see something bigger at play? Governments are likely very interested in the massive-scale capacities for monitoring and analysis these tools enable. The public might not even matter to the suits in the end.by tescreal
- I think it is more likely they are just drinking their own koolaid (and their friends are too). They are paid to bring in investor dollars, which requires lofty promises.by trickypr
- For one thing, saying the quiet part out loud takes the covers off: https://www.artisan.co/blog/stop-hiring-humans
For another, apply AI where it's good but stop forcing it where it doesn't belong. Ask the users, they know.
by imglorp - > the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses
It seems reasonable that these three things are part of ONE "backlash", but I don't believe they are. I think these are three separate issues with three different, mostly overlapping, groups of people who are giving "backlash".
Data centers themselves are subject to two different sources of b-lash. There are people who heard that datacenters use up "all the water". Then there are people who are broadly anti-AI because they don't want to lose their job (and home, and health insurance, and live under a bridge with all the other displaced people).
The backlash against Flock is predictable and unfortunate. Well, we defunded the police, and let political axe-grinders fill our DA seats with hyper-progressive activists. "Just put up cameras, it worked in the UK!" seems like the natural move, but it was a trap. People want to feel safe, and don't want to be spied on. We're going to have to have a functioning justice system at some point, aren't we?
The backlash against AI glasses is more visceral, more primal. People get shy on camera, so making everyone be potentially on camera at all times, or random times, is fueling a kind of anxiety that isn't going to just go away. hey, we've been here before, with google glass. Google was smart enough to discontinue it immediately.
by phendrenad2 - > Well, we defunded the police, and let political axe-grinders fill our DA seats with hyper-progressive activists.
When did this happen?
by lux-lux-lux - The industry needs messengers that can put out a positive vision that also aren’t creepy or skeezy seeming dudes. I don’t think Zuck’s WSJ manifesto convinced anyone, plus he’s a terrible messenger.by cocacola1
- Non creepy people were rejected by billionaires class, they just dont fit in. And conversely, non creepy people also avoid the tech bro creepy singularity is here crowd.by watwut
- > he’s a terrible messenger.
I don't think it's a coincidence that terrible persons without a lot of training are also terrible messengers.
by zombot - How about concrete actions rather than marketing "visions" ?by mindslight
- The industry needs to come to grips with the fact that many, many people either have no use for or actively despise GenAI.by Sindisil
- SV is also in denial that AI is the final straw that makes people leave the Internet.by Zsfe510asG
- Perhaps the World Wide Web but do you see how addicted the average person is to TikTok? 0.1% might decide to lead a tech-free lifestyle (and we can be sure that each will interviewed and get an article written about them).by joegibbs
- How I wish that were true for more than a tiny fraction of the populationby phainopepla2
- Something I never thought would happen: ultra-conservative Moms For Liberty and progressive education campaigners agree on something. Namely "get that AI out of our schools".
The Butlerian Jihad has started.
by red_admiral - The progressive you speak about are conserving the ideologies they thought were revolutionary.
The conservatives you speak about are conserving ideologies they thought were revolutionary.
What both have in common is that they don't like change.
by simianwords - > The Butlerian Jihad has started.
I'll let you know when it's time
by ianjbutler - Can't wait for a society dependent on spice and which is still controlled those with political (or super human) powers.by _aavaa_