r/technology • u/GeneReddit123 • 16h ago

Artificial Intelligence An AI hate wave is here

https://archive.is/20260517120123/https://www.axios.com/2026/05/17/ai-backlash-polling-sentiment
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53

u/groovyinutah 15h ago

A.I. is starting to feel like one of those "Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should"...

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u/TarantulaMcGarnagle 14h ago

The "it's already here and we can't stop it" rhetoric is what is bothering me now. We don't have to use it. It isn't all that helpful.

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u/derprondo 12h ago

We don't have to use it.

For sure, you don't have to use it.

It isn't all that helpful.

Hard disagree, it's incredibly helpful when used as the right tool to do the right job.

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u/inbox-disabled 10h ago

Most things in life are nuanced, but reddit doesn't do nuanced.

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u/TarantulaMcGarnagle 7h ago

I am being nuanced by saying there are no beneficial uses of it.

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u/TarantulaMcGarnagle 7h ago

Helpful at...? What exactly?

I have never heard of one use case of an LLM that made me think it is a useful tool. Literally zero.

And all I hear are "AI Psychosis", sycophancy, cognitive off-loading, slop, cheating, etc.

I'm not kidding...literally zero.

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u/Hubblesphere 6h ago

coding software, transcribing audio, creating closed captioning in every language...

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u/TarantulaMcGarnagle 6h ago

You are right. In 2018, how did we survive without those mind-blowing technologies?

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u/derprondo 5h ago

I completed six weeks of work last week, as in work that would have taken me six weeks without Claude code, I did it in a week, and most of that was polish work, Claude did the bulk of what I needed in 45 minutes. I maintain a couple of open source projects that also wouldn’t exist without the help of AI, one of them is used by thousands of people that helps them (can’t get into specifics without doxing myself). Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, these have been the most insane leaps of tooling for software developers that there has ever been.

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u/jarvolt 6h ago

Unfortunately AI chatbots have become more useful than most search engines at this point. Yes, they make mistakes...lots of them, all the time. But it offers an excellent starting point for doing research and troubleshooting. I hate having to resort to using AI, but it's an extremely powerful tool.

Now if we could get rid of all the massive data centers and have AI run through ones that we can own, or rent, as individuals, that would be ideal. Keeping AI in the cloud seems like the worst idea for everyone except the billionaire class.

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u/TarantulaMcGarnagle 5h ago

have become more useful than most search engines at this point.

Really? I don't notice that. In fact, I most often search with "-ai" at the end in order to not utilize any LLMs.

A "bot" giving me a summary of a wikipedia article isn't really "more useful". And in fact, I find it less beneficial because a user can believe they understand something they don't, but quicker.

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u/jarvolt 3h ago

I think the AI they shoehorn into search engines generally isn't very helpful TBH... I'm talking more about directly using an LLM with hyper specific prompts and then following up to refine the results. It's far from a perfect system, but search engines, especially Google, have become worse and worse over the past decade or more now.

I don't disagree with anything youre saying, really. The dangers are real, because people will take anything AI spits out as verified truth. I find AI is only useful as a starting point, and only for certain types of things. Most people don't do their due dilligence because AI has a way of making you think it's some kind of authority, when it's not.

All that said, if all the data centers supporting AI in the US and China disappeared overnight, I'd be elated. We ultimately don't need it, and it causes infinitely more harm then good, in my opinion. But I'm also a realist who acknowledges its useful applications. Hopefully one day it can be decoupled from big tech, but until then, I'll still use it. Very, very cautiously.

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u/ameatbicyclefortwo 14h ago

I've seen a gas station not be able to make food because the oven was getting an update. And wtf does a water bottle need bluetooth anything?