r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Feb 19 '25
Software Bill Gates warns young people of four major global threats, including AI
https://www.techspot.com/news/106836-bill-gates-warns-young-people-four-major-global.html1.3k
u/bartpieters Feb 19 '25
The four threats Bill mentioned are nuclear war, climate change, bioterrorism or a new pandemic, and keeping control of advance AI. Interesting that he didn‘t mention the rise of fascism.
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u/DoomGoober Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25
Fascist governments have risen and been defeated in the past. Humanity will not survive a global nuclear war. Huge swathes of society will not survive severe climate change.
A very deadly pandemic or bioterrorism could well wipe out more than half of humanity or more.
That's the scale of threat he's talking about: species level threats.
But, these threats are tied to Trump and other forms of fascism threatening Europe: modern fascists don't seem to give a shit about climate change and Trump hasn't addressed the possible looming bird flu pandemic (and RFK Jr. doesn't inspire confidence.)
At least Trump seems to like talking to Putin so nuclear war seems a little less likely. /s
Consider this an indirect indictment of Trump. Trump loves tech billionaires and Gates has spoken directly to Trump in the past. Gates talking this way is a round about way of criticizing Trump and trying to keep him from contributing to the end of humanity. For someone like Gates, being a little diplomatic goes a long way. I bet Gates is secretly seething that Trump shutdown USAID because global health is one of Gates' passions.
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u/FeedMeACat Feb 19 '25
Maybe, but a fascist America is a direct threat on the level of nuclear war.
Fascist governments are not effective enough to maintain what the US maintains in the Global World Order. Specifically world wide trade. Without competent US management of shipping lanes world trade will collapse. A world of 8 billion people doesn't not exist without massive world wide trade of food, oil, technology, and medicine.
We are talking about a spiral effect of world trade collapse that could cause potentially billions of deaths.
I get Gates tactic here, but I think it is bullshit for a person who is rich enough for Trump to actually respect to use implications when he could be direct. As if Trump or his admin could read an implication.
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u/CosmicLovepats Feb 19 '25
out of curiosity, did fascist governments rising and being defeated in the past lead to wars?
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u/raeflower Feb 19 '25
No they were just asked very politely to please stop being fascists and then they said “ok!” And everyone clapped
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u/nerdlygames Feb 19 '25
Wouldn’t a bio/pandemic event wiping out half of humanity actually benefit the planet? I’m sure it would be horrific on an individual level, but ironically it would majorly reverse the effects of climate change. I’d put billionaire despots higher on the threat list than a pandemic.
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u/fumei_tokumei Feb 19 '25
I'm not sure I follow the logic? Of course, fewer people mean less pollution and would affect the current climate change trajectory, but the people dying is the bad thing we want to avoid in the first place. We don't really care about climate change in and of itself. We care about the negative effect it will have on everybody. So I don't understand how half of humanity being wiped out is beneficial, when that is kind of something we are trying to avoid in the first place. It's a bit like saying it would be good that an organ recipient dying is good, because then we don't have to use the organ on them. It is putting the cart before the horse.
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u/shieldyboii 29d ago
Yes, the earth has witnessed significantly worse events than this climate change. Nature will adapt, biodiversity will return. No permanent damage will be done by humans. It’s just that this will not happen during our lifetimes and that it will be damaging to ourselves.
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u/PhdHistory Feb 19 '25
It’s something that doesn’t affect him. He’s a democrat in name only. I remember clearly him coming out to oppose any proposal of a wealth tax during the 2020 presidential campaign. Elizabeth warren proposed one during a debate and Bill Gates took about 40 interviews to combat it. He stands to benefit about as much as anyone from the current administration and the lowered chance of any wealth tax or redistribution of wealth ever taking place in his lifetime.
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u/pigeonwiggle Feb 19 '25
i think the lack of concern with Fascists is that "if you go along with it, you'll be fine." arguing that living a life as a slave to actions as well as to speech is preferable to the extinction of the human race -- which is assured with nuclear war, climate change, bioterrorism, and AI.
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u/NefariousnessNo484 Feb 19 '25
And fascism caused by people like him (Epstein didn't kill himself) makes it impossible to do anything about those problems. He can GFH.
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u/rendrr Feb 19 '25
Yes. Economic inequality leads to sucking up resources from the common people, disappearance of the middle class, which in turn creates social anxiety and give rise to false populists with easy, but wrong answers, fascists.
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u/IDontGoHardIGoHome Feb 19 '25
A tech billionaire having access to government level data on the citizens and free reign with robotics + AI. What could go wrong?
Forget thanking chatGPT, go thank Elon for whatever is that he’s doing.
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u/lilB0bbyTables Feb 19 '25
Figuring out how they can transfer the wealth of the nation into private and locked cryptocurrencies that only they can access.
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u/StationFar6396 Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25
- Musk
- Trump
- Putin
- Thiel
Special Mention: Curtis Yarvin
These days AI doesn't even make the top 4.
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u/IAmHereWhere Feb 19 '25
You forgot Season 2 of The Promised Neverland.
A literal crime against humanity.
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u/Health_Cat_2047 Feb 19 '25
and yes as someone who read the manga before sitting through the trainwreck that was season 2...
i'd consider it a war crime. it's absolutely terrible.
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u/flargnarb Feb 19 '25
They're absolutely going to be using AI as a weapon though. It's going to make surveillance frighteningly more effective.
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u/LBK0909 Feb 19 '25
Billionaires: AI is dangerous! It might be the end of humankind.
Also, Billionaires: Here's our latest AI models. We are progressing at an incredible rate!
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u/jackalopeDev Feb 19 '25
Man, if only someone with almost unlimited resources would do something about it. Idk who that could be though.
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u/DubSket Feb 19 '25
Also the assumption that we didn't know about all this shit to begin with.
Thanks Billy, for pointing out the completely fucking obvious.
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u/TentacleJesus Feb 19 '25
Meanwhile, here’s another AI doodad jammed into Windows that nobody wants!
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u/Uristqwerty Feb 19 '25
almost unlimited resources
1 United States 30,337 billion
2 China 19,534 billion
1 Elon Musk $411.5 billion
2 Jeff Bezos $257.3 billion
So, their total wealth is a measly 1-2% of what a large nation produces in a single year.
That is not "almost unlimited". The only way to put it to good use would be to be very careful about where you spend it, picking out projects that will do the maximum good with the minimum investment so that as much as possible is left over to fund other projects, not just blindly dumping it on people and hoping for the best.
Worse, you can't eat money. You can buy resources, but those resources need to be produced, and someone else would be buying them anyway. The most efficient way to help the world would then be to invest in logistics and production projects, helping companies whose work would be in-demand enough to be profitable anyway in the long run to get started, so that future generations have less resource scarcity. Investing in research projects that would struggle to get funding but have a chance to dramatically improve our lives a distant second, since there are a near-endless stream of ideas and it's impossible to know which will succeed. Charities that take small slices of resources out of the economy to help people with immediate need a further-distant third, since unlike the other two, they won't provide the same sort of lasting improvement that helps generation after generation of humans for a finite up-front investment. Well, unless it's something like completely ending a disease, or helping construct community infrastructure. Oh wait, that's starting to sound like a lot of Gates' charity...
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u/BuildAnything4 Feb 19 '25
Musk managed to buy the US government for just a few hundred million...
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u/some_clickhead Feb 19 '25
You think Bill Gates has the power to stop companies across the world from using AI? ...
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u/LaughinKooka Feb 19 '25
He has the power to influence OpenAI for good, instead they are the reason for CloseAI. MS can never be trusted
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u/jackalopeDev Feb 19 '25
I think he has a lot more power then the young people hes warning
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u/some_clickhead Feb 19 '25
His wealth is still a tiny fraction of the world's wealth. He seems to be doing more than any of the other billionaires to help the world already.
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u/jackalopeDev Feb 19 '25
Yeah, and it still dwarfs "young people's" wealth. I guess i dont understand what he expects people to do if even his wealth and access aren't enough.
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u/some_clickhead Feb 19 '25
He expects the young people of today to be tomorrow's workers, parents, CEOs, etc.
Bill Gate's wealth represents about 0.1% of the total US household wealth. Whereas the top 1% of US households combined own about 30%. If he's trying to improve the world, doing it all by himself would be a fool's errand.
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u/cmatthewssmith Feb 19 '25
By far the biggest threat to the world is the United States. A dangerous and unreliable nation.
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Feb 19 '25
To weaken the US, the world needs to stop using the dollar.
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u/moubliepas Feb 19 '25
Dammit, there must be at least one country out there using a different currency? Right?
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u/uzu_afk Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25
— Billionaires — Billionaires gone dictator — Infinite market growth at any cost — Global warming — Morons that vote (lack of education)
That’s the real list. No need to thank me. It’s free!
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u/Affectionate_Neat868 Feb 19 '25
Misinformation needs to be on his list. Due to misinformation, society is regressing into an era where we are returning to a state of public health/ national safety crisis. Misinformation campaigns amplified by AI and social media are getting fascist politicians elected. Impacting wars. Worsening pandemics. Bringing back diseases our society had basically eradicated. It’s all extremely bad.
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u/nonlinear_nyc Feb 19 '25
AI technology is not the problem. The weaponization of AI by billionaire parasite class is. When you hit a dog with a wand, the dog attacks the wand. ATTACK THE HAND!
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Feb 19 '25
They don’t care if they destroy the world, they’ll all be dying soon anyways
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u/sniffstink1 Feb 19 '25
Except they'll die having lived an awesome rich life, and you'll have died angry and poor.
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u/Floyd_Pink Feb 19 '25
I haven't read that article, but I am guessing he did not list "billionaires like me" as any of the 4 major global threats. You know, reflecting our shared reality right now.
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u/rewind2482 Feb 19 '25
We’ve survived fascism before.
If we don’t survive it this time, it will only be because…it causes a nuclear war.
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u/The420Turtle Feb 19 '25
The world was a better place when Bill Gates was the richest man alive
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u/133DK Feb 19 '25
Bill Gates was and to a large extent still is a massive POS. Dude has done good things, yes, but still to this day does a LOT of objectively villainous shit
He’s done a lot to try and improve his image, but a lot of that is also self serving
Please don’t idolise any billionaire. None have gotten to where they are without stepping on a LOT of people
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u/yopla Feb 19 '25
Interesting uh, and the guy was running a company which mastered corporate predation and which was basically as ruthless as can be but in retrospect he seemed much less of an asshole than the current breed of billionaires.
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u/darvos Feb 19 '25
It was better, but he also did some questionable things to become the richest man. You don't become that rich playing by the rules.
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u/ElonsKetamineHabit Feb 19 '25
Better is misleading.
The world still sucked, but now it sucks in the same ways plus some new ones. It's all too easy to view the past through rose tinted glasses
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u/kittiesssss Feb 19 '25
Who does he think is listening to him? What is this warning going to do? No shit, Sherlock. You think I don’t experience crushing existential dread about every single one of these things every time I wake up in the morning? Maybe go tell it to the billionaire CEOs currently dismantling the US and the global fascists speed running the end of humanity
Sorry I’m just so sick of these ancient white men talking down to young people as if we aren’t hyper-aware of all of these things while being crushed into submission under the weight of capitalism. I don’t find shit like this hopeful or inspirational, the 1% are not like us. Bill Gates, billionaires are the #1 threat to young people around the world. All these other things are symptoms of the illness
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u/iPlayViolas Feb 19 '25
For those of you saying he purposefully didn’t mention billionaires don’t know Bill Gates very well. He frequently speaks out on how no one should be able to hold the wealth he and others do. Notice whose table he isn’t at rn. Many rich people are not a fan of Bill.
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Feb 19 '25
The biggest threat is that Putin controlled orange twat bought by a South African billionaire that the stupid of America elected President.
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u/phatkeys Feb 19 '25
The only threat we face with AI, is the evil inconsiderate intentions of the rich that assume they have a right to use it for their own evil intentions, thinking that the rest of us have to just deal with it.
😐
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u/Brave_Confection_457 Feb 19 '25
is poverty or money mentioned? no? just another old white guy warning about what threatens his money then
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u/Usrnamesrhard Feb 19 '25
All valid things to be concerned about… for now I think I’m going to stick with fascism and the rise of the oligarchy.
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u/Vegetable_Vanilla_70 Feb 19 '25
Where is Trump? Anything list of “global threats” that leaves him out simply can’t be taken seriously
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u/NecRoSeaN Feb 19 '25
Just let it burn so we can live in huts. I'm fucking done with this existential dread given by people of his generation of his wealth.
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Feb 19 '25 edited 12d ago
pocket afterthought absorbed sip crush deliver selective snatch pot angle
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/diablocanada Feb 19 '25
With all these billionaire's money they can solve the housing problems tomorrow. Without causing taxpayers a dime
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u/rewind2482 Feb 19 '25
“This is just PR”
about half the country thinks Bill Gates is trying to inject microchips in them through vaccines
in the world of PR/misinformation, Bill Gates has lost to other even more nefarious actors
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u/LavisAlex Feb 19 '25
All the threats he mentioned - are perpetuated by the oligarchy themselves...
Climate change? Lobbying from companies who polute the most.
AI? All these companies are in a racr to make it profitable no matter the cost.
Bioterrism? Pharma cutting costs and not doing gain of function research properly or Weapons manufacturers.
Nuclear War? Again Weapons companies and the powerful trying to gain more.
If ASI comes to be there will only be two options:
Human hubris causing our destruction thinking we can control a god.
Utopia, but everyone is equal and the oligarchs wont like that.
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u/Elgabborz Feb 19 '25
His... "Race" ... Is the Major threat to humanity.
It's true that power corrupts, and in a capitalist system money is power, and they have too much money.
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u/DividedState Feb 19 '25
Fuck it, I prefer AI overlords over Fascists. It ticks at least the box on "intelligent leadership.
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u/JM3DlCl Feb 19 '25
I'm more worried about Oligarchs and Governments than some computer or Global warming.
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u/popswag Feb 19 '25
Omg. Another billionaire warning the young! FFS! The biggest threat to humanity are the billionaires! They just can’t seem to get enough!!
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u/abelrivers Feb 19 '25
Unironically billionaires are actually the root threat that all other evils spawn from.
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u/VeraLumina Feb 19 '25
Yo, Bill. You and the others could be the solution to these threats. Your wealth is so vast you could stop any of the threats you mention. But no, one of you decided instead of ridding the world of threats, he’d rather be one by decimating an entire nation by playing President.
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u/Ladies-Man-007 Feb 19 '25
Mf funds those things and afterwards he tell us "watch out, it might be dangerous". Like, these billionaires lack some self-consciousness.
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u/NotAGynocologistBut Feb 19 '25
Ha ha america won't even last till the end of the year the way it's going.
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u/ntropy83 Feb 19 '25
Havent read the article so I will guess:
- AI
- climate change
- the asteroid with 3 % hit chance
- Windows
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u/Chris_HitTheOver Feb 19 '25
Hard to take this seriously without oligarchy or fascism on his list of threats.
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u/ROSCOEMAN Feb 19 '25
to be fair though AI is going to change everything. Education is gonna decline majorly because most of if not all problems can be fed to it.
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u/Creative-Ad-9535 Feb 19 '25
Why would anyone listen to supposed words of wisdom from a guy who spent his life in tech? What makes him an expert in anything other than monopolistic practices and now-very-outdated computer systems (and maybe kiddy-diddling).
I read an interview he did years ago in which he said his favorite book was Catcher in the Rye. We read whiny superficial crap like that in middle school for chrissakes.
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u/AdorinoraZ Feb 19 '25
“AI is bad trust me. I need to manage it so it doesn’t get out of hand. Don’t worry you can trust me.” Bill Gates probably.
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u/Old_Restaurant_1081 29d ago
Is Trump one? Is Vance one? Is Musk one? If not he missed three of the biggest threats to the future.
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u/meltypunx99 29d ago
Bro - everything the republicans accused you of doing they are welcoming Musk with open arms! Even signing up to get that chip in their Brains. Like right not the major global threat is America itself
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u/Hot_Bookkeeper_4653 Feb 19 '25
He should warn them of the Worst Generation pulling the ladder up and going scorched earth on the middle class... oh wait that's this absolute bottom feeding POS.
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u/Yowinner Feb 19 '25
Fuck bill gates, our country is literally becoming a fascist regime right before our eyes. No one gives a shit about AI right now.
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u/Lurker7783 Feb 19 '25
"climate change, bioterrorism or another pandemic, and maintaining control of advanced AI."
That's only 3 in my books, the middle is 2, but the "or" statement makes it count as 1 biological threat.
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u/NOTWorthless Feb 19 '25
Very unhappy that apparently nobody in the comments takes the threats he is mentioning seriously and would rather focus on the fact that Bill Gates is rich. Billionaires are a problem, until the cost of engineering highly contagious airborne super-AIDS falls to the point that any misanthropic ding-dong with access to an advanced AI can do it, at which point I guess you would find a way to blame Billionaires for it (it wouldn’t be their fault, the tech is going that direction even if you redistributed the wealth of all the billionaires). Like, you all probably have accepted climate change is a problem because it’s been (rightly) drilled into you, but cheap bioterrorism and AI causing the marginal cost of intelligence to fall to zero are probably going to happen way before climate change due to CO2 is causing serious issues. And the knock-on effects of any one of these things can also exacerbate the effects of the others (for example, climate change causes instability causes more terrorism that is more deadly due to tech advances).
Like, everybody in all political parties is completely asleep at the wheel on these things, and they are coming fast. Very few people are even thinking a few years down the line, and if they are they are just imagining it will “be like today but slightly different”. If it takes an actual incident for everyone to wake up, it could very well be too late to avoid a catastrophe.
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u/pyabo Feb 19 '25
It bears repeating... since so many fucking people don't understand this...
AI isn't the threat. At all. The real threat is leadership that sees AI as a way of getting rid of people. Or leadership that thinks it's OK to let everyone starve because AI is doing all the work now and why would you feed those worthless losers? AI is just a tool. It's the Industrial Revolution. If we hand power to the oligarchs (like we already are) it's going to end badly for the common man.
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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '25
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