One of the more overlooked (but no less insidious) aspects of AI is its purpose to deskill the workforce. Workers are much easier to exploit if they no longer know how to code, design, engineer, write, or even think. Labor has much less power without skill.

@wjmaggos I guess "it's impossible to know the outcomes of policy ahead of time" is a position I just fundamentally disagree with so that's probably where the disconnect is.

@wjmaggos Do you think this comes down to a lack of subject matter education/expertise? I would think that some knowledge of the issues would be required to cover them, along with the experience of following a particular beat long term. Or maybe the whole thing is just cynical posturing at this point

@wjmaggos why would the popularity of a perspective on policy be more relevant than its effects? Is every perspective equally justified? I’m not convinced that “this person said x and this person said y” has any net positive impact on society

Journalism is not about presenting “both sides” of an issue. It’s about finding the truth and telling it. And doing so regardless of whether or not it’s popular, profitable, or in the interests of the powerful.

“Sustainability” means a level of economic activity that can be sustained. Capitalism requires unending growth, which in turn requires unending raw materials and infinite capacity to absorb waste. Our planet provides neither, so it’s not difficult to see the contradiction.

@DamonHD https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240202-has-b-corp-certification-turned-into-corporate-greenwashing

@DamonHD no there isn’t

@EVDHmn @roknrol @TheConversationUS doesn’t seem to be ruining profits for anyone else

RE: https://newsie.social/@TheConversationUS/116070407270743611

No capitalist enterprise will ever put benefits to society ahead of profits. It literally cannot.

One thing the Epstein files reveal is that the capitalist billionaires absolutely have class solidarity. The rest of us should too.

I’ve said it before, but it needs repeating: We already have all the knowledge and technology we need to make an ecological society. It is our political and economic structures that prevent it. The quest for unlimited growth and accumulation exploits both people and our environment.

@thekerker I am officially Out Of The Loop️

@thekerker who’s that

If someone were to watch all the Super Bowl commercials they’d come away thinking the entire U.S. economy was based on AI and sports gambling. And they’d be right.

China is dominating renewable energy production while the EU fumbles around with carbon credit scams and the US is actively fighting its own climate scientists. It’s not hard to see who is actually planning for the future, and who is going to get left behind.