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Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
(www.thenerve.news)
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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That doesn't really answer my question. It's changed your job, but has it improved your customers quality of life?
You're getting direct examples of people its helped, and you keep brushing it off and asking what about everybody else. You're obviously not going to get a single answer that affects everybody, and why do small successes not matter?
Because they're not really successes.
No one here is saying AI has reduce their workload so now they spend half their time catching butterflies.
The answers are all saying that AI has automated some mundane task that wasn't particularly important, and now they can spend their time doing something more interesting.
Is the changes to their role, multiplied by millions of employees, actually better for humanity or society?
In a way, this is what Doctorow is arguing: where is the data showing the productivity gains.
My follow up question is, how are these productivity gains being used, if they exist.
That absolutely sounds like a win to me. Why is productivity gains the only thing that's important? QoL is what matters. Unless you're a capitalist overlord.
100%! I don't understand how this is a hard concept to grasp. I've been able to make productivity gains, sure, but who gives a fuck? Even if my productivity is the same, my QoL is still much improved when I'm not buried in mundanity.
The problem here is that the technology is owned by capitalist overlords.
And their goal isn't improving your QoL. If that was the goal we would already enjoy 4 hour work week long time ago.
Doesn't matter what the goal is, the context of this particular discussion is that AI is benefiting at least some people by making their lives easier. And one guy who's trying to argue 'so what, it only matters if productivity goes up'.