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points by spwa4 1 day ago | 0 comments
This is AI though. You may as well protest water being wet, or 5+8 being 13.

Besides to stop the job losses, all they really need to do is to stop the Dutch government from saving money on labor (and to stop or at least reduce importing everything from labor to software). Of course, knowing the Dutch government ... good luck. What I mean is, the problem here is not AI.

In fact AI can solve so many problems for these protestors, they just know, and I kind of agree with them here, their own government, democratic or not, will use AI against its citizens. And it being the Dutch government, especially against paying its citizens a decent wage, but also in many other ways.

The fix for this is not "stop AI". It's a decent social contract, AND it's the government actually obeying its own laws. Like national insurance actually forcing doctors to use police data in treatment decisions. Or should we call that what it actually is: the government forbidding and persecuting medical doctors for treating people for a number of things based on interactions with the police. Everything from drug arrests to being illegally in the country. It should be called that because with a national insurance, of course the insurance is just a proxy for the government, not an actual company that makes its own decisions. And once you persecute doctors for something, it isn't really their choice anymore either.

[–] xg15 1 day ago
> and to stop or at least reduce importing everything from labor to software

I mean, the data center they were protesting is literally built, operated and owned by Microsoft.

I agree, AI as a technology is here to stay in some form, but wouldn't you be a little pissed if some foreign company takes your data, builds a data center in your community without you having any control, puts you out of a job and then sells your own knowledge back to you?

Doesn't sound very sovereign to me.

(Not to start with the whole angle that the AI goldrush undoes what little progress in fighting climate change was archieved)

[–] spwa4 1 day ago
> I mean, the data center they were protesting is literally built, operated and owned by Microsoft.

You notice I was claiming what they're doing makes no sense. What they're angry about is AI stealing jobs. And yes, Microsoft is not the problem in the labor market in the Netherlands.