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Comment by daishi55 | Hacker News Reader

This anti-AI hysteria is just such a classic moral panic. It’s just

1) identify something as AI-produced

2) attack and ostracize anyone who might be involved in that production

And as with all moral panics, whether (1) is factual is totally beside the point. The point is the almost sexual release you get from (2).

I know in this case there is AI-produced code in rsync (as there is with most useful software by now), but you see the witch-hunts every day online and as with all witch-hunts it really doesn’t matter whether the accusation is true. The hysteria is the point.

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it's dangerous to refuse to understand whats happening broadly, and what's taking place in this thread, and to signal that it's ok to keep refusing to understand it.

the anger that's showing up around ai isn't a matter of the masses being misinformed, or the messaging around it, it's a matter of physics. you have this one thing that is being used as an excuse to lay people off en masse, you have tech ceos near daily saying they're gonna come for everyone else's job too, and you have the hyperscalers taking up every bit of oxygen in the room. not even gaming has been safe.

taking the attitude that it's "just such a classic moral panic" is figuring out which way the ocean is receding and running headlong toward it.

> the anger that's showing up around ai isn't a matter of the masses being misinformed

Isn't it though? let me quote my other comments in this thread:

> There is undoubtedly AI-written code in the Linux kernel now, but are they out there harassing those maintainers? No. rsync GitHub is easier to brigade.

> They’re also all completely disingenuous (“I’ll have to stop using rsync now”) given that 99.99% of software now includes AI-written code

This is why I call it a moral panic and hysteria. It's not reasoned, considered opposition to AI. The people on that github thread are totally disconnected from reality - it doesn't matter to them whether the accusations are true, it matters that the accusations have been made, and against an easy target that they don't expect fight-back from.

If they really just had a considered moral opposition to AI-generated code, they would be out there harassing Linus Torvalds himself. Are they? No. Because it's just a moral panic.

whether or to what degree people in general are misinformed is a red herring. the forces driving it from underneath are far larger and are moving in very, very obvious ways, and dismissing them as just a moral panic is a head-in-sand move.

> given that 99.99% of software now includes AI-written code

source?

If you think you're owed a salary to do something that a simple machine can do, I have a field for you to plow by hand.

Replace the C-suite with the chatbots first.

whether or not you think anyone is owed anything for anything is a completely different topic. i'm talking about what is happening right in front of you, and everywhere.

What do you mean? You pretty much described classic moral panic.

a classic moral panic would be videogames causing violence. what is happening is the beginning of something more akin to the luddite movement, and there is a chasm between them, and this has the potential to become far more widespread, and far more violent. it's not about the tech, it's about the economics.

Thank you for aptly demonstrating the exact kind of hysteria and mob mentality they're describing.

i am correcting the description of what is going on. that is not hysteria and i am not a mob.

No one is a mob. They are just part of one.

You're getting it. There are mobs of attackers and mobs of defenders, but not mobs of explainers here.

> this one thing that is being used as an excuse to lay people off en masse, you have tech ceos near daily saying they're gonna come for everyone else's job too, and you have the hyperscalers taking up every bit of oxygen in the room.

I hear these complaints multiple times per day. Not just "nearly daily". The backlash has long since drowned out the original source. The ad nauseam anguish has been steadily increasing for months.

I almost prefer to listen to asshole CEOs at this point. At least they have more to say than just repeating these same points.

Being dismissive of AI panic is healthy. What you're engaging in is not.

Most Marie Antoinette comment I've seen in a while. Startling.

I'll take that as a threat of violence.

witch hunts occur in search of something that isnt real, it is very real that unmitigated ai usage causes problems

It’s tough to take your response seriously with loose thinking like “The point is the almost sexual release you get from (2).”

Upon further reading, you use emotional language too - “witch-hunt” and “hysteria”.

Are these witch-hunts? And can you tell if people over the internet are nearing sexual release?

Are you responding to emotional language and other’s loose thinking with your own?

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