r/AIWarsButBetter

This is just so insane- These people have well and truly lost their minds. https://x.com/FugazyFilmsAI/status/2070138833698517023?s=20

Hello! Recently, there’s been sharp uptick in uncivil conversations. As a quick reminder, please keep all discussions about AI about AI instead of about how terrible “pros” are or how terrible “antis” are. This sub is a place for respectful and nuanced discussion about AI, not a place for you to talk about how pros shot your dog and murdered your family or how antis are literally Nazis. We understand that this is a loaded issue, but nevertheless we ask that all discussions remain civil and respectful.

I understand being cautious about AI. I understand wanting regulation. I understand worrying about labour, copyright, consent, centralization, surveillance, environmental costs, and corporate enclosure.

What I do not understand is the fantasy that AI can simply be shouted or shunned out of existence.

Humanity is not going to collectively decide to stop developing one of the most powerful general-purpose technologies of the century because some people are uncomfortable with it. Researchers will keep researching. Workers will keep using it. Students will keep learning with it. Disabled people will keep using it for access. Independent creators will keep experimenting. Companies, governments, open-source communities, and ordinary people will keep building. Militaries will keep pushing for frontier advantage.

That does not mean “everything is fine”.

It means the serious question is not “How do we make AI disappear?”

The serious question is: “Who controls it?”

Do we want AI controlled only by corporations, copyright cartels, surveillance states, and military contractors?

Or do we want public AI, open-source AI, local AI, worker-controlled AI, library-supported AI literacy, transparent regulation, strong privacy rights, and tools that ordinary people can actually use?

Because banning or stigmatizing AI does not stop the powerful from using it. It mostly makes normal people less informed, less prepared, and less able to participate.

The printing press, industrialization, computers, the internet, and smartphones all created disruption. None of them waited for universal comfort. None of them were morally pure. But the answer was never to pretend the technology could be wished away. The answer was to fight over access, rights, standards, ownership, education, and governance.

That is where I think a lot of anti-AI energy is misdirected.

Criticize bad uses of AI. Absolutely.

Regulate exploitative deployment. Yes.

Push back against surveillance, fraud, plagiarism, spam, opaque corporate models, and labour abuse. Please do.

But “AI should disappear” is not a serious strategy.

The future will not stop because people are uncomfortable. So I would rather help shape AI toward something public, liberatory, creative, and useful than leave it entirely to the worst institutions on Earth.

AI is a tool.

The politics are in who owns it, who understands it, who benefits from it, and who gets excluded.