The sole silver lining of this situation is that Logan's deplorable behaviour probably scared at least a few shops away from stocking Lunchly - not just because of the risk you end up selling some mold-ridden garbage (most likely to kids), but because you risk Logan starting a harassment campaign against you or your store.
BlueMonday1984
joined 10 months ago
I'd say they did do some damage to tech's wider image by becoming a pop-culture punchline and a mark of shame rolled into one.
Incidents like Seth Green's Ape getting kidnapped, the public exploitation of George Floyd's death and the legendary dumpster fire that was The Red Ape Family, plus the onslaught of dogshit NFT art and the nonstop scams and deception within the NFT/crypto sphere all led NFTs to become widely and rightfully panned, with NFTs getting unflatteringly compared to beanie babies and NFT profile pics getting either right-click saved to mock their supposed "ownership" or blocked on sight, depending on how people generally felt.
Monday here, Appreciate the shout out.
I definitely can see the election bringing some nuclear backlash against tech, and probably some harsh regulation against AI as well - we've already had Trump using AI to lie about Swift supporting him and deny Harris's public support at a rally, so the Dems already have plenty of material to use against the industry if they win.
Going by the Atlantic, there's opposition to AI from both the Dems and the Reps, so whoever wins in November, the industry's gonna find little support from the White House.
Judging by some stray articles from WIRED and The Atlantic, Merchant's likely done plenty to rehabilitate the Luddites' image.
I suspect Silicon Valley's godawful reputation and widespread hatred of AI have likely helped as well - "machinery harmful to commonality" may be an unfamiliar concept to Joe Public, but "AI is ruining the Internet/taking your job/scamming your parents" is very fucking tangible to them.
Pulling out a previous post of mine, the NFT craze likely helped indirectly, by killing technological determinism's hold on the public and badly wounding Silicon Valley's public image.
Of those two, technological determinism's death was probably the more important one - that idea's demise meant the public was willing to entertain that new tech developments from Silicon Valley could be killed in their crib, that they wouldn't inevitably become a part of public life, for worse or (potentially) for better.
Quick update - Brian Merchant's list of "luddite horror" films ended up getting picked up by Fast Company:
To repeat a previous point of mine, it seems pretty safe to assume "luddite horror" is gonna become a bit of a trend. To make a specific (if unrelated) prediction, I imagine we're gonna see AI systems and/or their supporters become pretty popular villains in the future - the AI bubble's produces plenty of resentment towards AI specifically and tech more generally, and the public's gonna find plenty of catharsis in watching them go down.
Stop dickriding the growth mindset, and we'll stop being so mean about it.
Going outside awful's wheelhouse for a bit:
Logan Paul doxed and harassed a random employee for posting a sign saying Lunchly was recalled
You want my take, the employee in question (who also got a GoFundMe) should sue Logan for defamation - solid case aside, I wanna see that blonde fucker get humbled for once.
The AI lawsuit's going to discovery - I expect things are about to heat up massively for the AI industry:
Crypto NG+ AI% Speedrun (no skips)
Thinking about it, the public and spectacular failure of NFTs probably helped AI with speedrunning its rise and fall (mainly its fall), for two reasons.
First, it crippled technological determinism (which Unserious Academic interrogated in depth BTW) as a concept. Before that, it was generally assumed whatever new crap the tech industry came up with with would inevitably become a part of daily life, for better or for worse.
The NFT craze, by publicly and spectacularly failing despite a heavy push from Silicon Valley, showed the public that it was possible to beat Silicon Valley and prevent the future it wants from coming to pass, that resistance against them is anything but futile.
Second, the NFT craze's failure publicly humiliated the tech industry, as NFTs became a pop-culture punchline and supporting NFTs became a public mark of shame for anyone involved. If crippling technological determinism made it cool to resist Silicon Valley, then the public humiliation of NFTs helped make it uncool to support SV, a trend which I feel has helped amplify emnity against AI.
Happy cake day, Charlie!