#bigtech

[doyoudelve]

The $100 Billion AI War – Who Wins & How It Affects You!

[ptitolier]

When Tech Billionaires Reinvent Eugenics

Eugenics is often seen as a dark relic of the past—linked to racist policies and forced sterilization. But what if a new, subtler form of eugenics is quietly taking shape in Silicon Valley?

Not through explicit genetic selection, but through an ideology that glorifies optimization, intelligence, and high performance as the only measures of human worth. Social Darwinism, once discredited, is being repackaged in the language of innovation and progress.

Who gets to shape the future?

Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other tech leaders present themselves as visionaries, architects of a better tomorrow. But their worldview shares a troubling core belief: only the most capable, the most intelligent, the most "enhanced" deserve to thrive.

Peter Thiel openly criticizes democracy, arguing that "freedom" thrives only under the rule of an enlightened few. Musk speaks of biological enhancement and space colonization as essential to humanity’s survival. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley startups pour billions into genetic engineering, AI-driven talent selection, and life extension—but who will have access to these advancements?

The Rise of Economic Eugenics

This is not traditional racial eugenics, but an economic form of selection where only the "most productive" individuals matter. Tech moguls advocate for skilled migration policies—not for the sake of inclusion, but to extract the best and discard the rest.

Medical research funding follows the same logic: rare diseases get sidelined because they aren't "profitable," while cognitive enhancement and biohacking attract massive investments. In a world where resources are limited, who gets to decide who is worth saving?

A Dangerous Future

This ideology is no longer confined to Silicon Valley. It has echoes in political movements that prioritize the strong over the vulnerable, cutting social aid and shifting towards a ruthless meritocracy.

If we continue down this path, we risk creating a world where only the optimized, the efficient, and the wealthy are deemed worthy of survival.

How do we resist this shift?

The real challenge isn’t just technological; it’s ethical. Do we accept a society where only the strongest thrive, or do we fight for a future that values all of humanity—including its fragility?

#TechEthics #SocialDarwinism #Inequality #FutureOfHumanity

[digitalnaiv]

Tech, Macht und Moral: Wenn Tech-Giganten Trump den Hof machen - #Wochenschau

Silicon Valley kippt: 200 Mio $ Spenden für Trumps Party, Tech-Giganten von Bezos bis Cook dabei. Während die PayPal-Mafia triumphiert, formt sich ein digitales Imperium. Europa? Steht zwischen allen Stühlen. #TechPolitics #Wochenschau

Vergangenen Freitag haben Lars und ich bei #9vor9 über Mark Zuckerberg und dessen Gesinnungswandel gesprochen. Die Meta-Plattformen verlassen oder bleiben, war gegen Ende eine der wichtigen Fragen: Wir haben uns dafür entschieden, erst einmal auf Instagram, Threads und Facebook zu bleiben und Artikel dort zu publizieren. Wir werden die Situation jedoch genau beobachten und über Konsequenzen…

[jrepin]

Inside Meta’s Palestine Censorship

Meta has a Palestine problem. If you use Facebook or Instagram, you’ve probably seen the censorship yourself. Dena Takruri uncovers an internal culture of censorship, intimidation and fear within Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook. She speaks to Meta employees who’ve tried to fix the problem or speak out, and say they were silenced or even fired. She also investigates Meta leaders’ deep ties to Israel, which may explain why it’s suppressing and censoring Palestine content for billions of users around the world.

[wzuplovely]

Boycott Israel

and another thing, ima about to fuck with yall's websites. gotta do that whole shit over bc guess what

Wix Squarespace are affiliated with Israli bigtech. (squarespace actually is based in Israel) Shopify is Canadian web.com is American IONOS is German

godaddy bought an Israli company, I wont boycott companies unless they are significant to Israeli industry. I want to clarify this is not out of hate this is a way to be heard. The purpose of boycotting is to create a dip in sales that gets noticed by big businesses. This can be used as leverage but more of a push to do the morally correct thing. Do not do things out of hate or anger, okay?

Funny how Israel's tech industry is so big but there's poverty next door. What can BIGTECH do to nourish the general welfare surrounding Israel?

[azspot]

Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

[dannyhellman]

“Farmer vs Server Farm”

Illustration by Danny Hellman for VIRGINIA LIVING

12/19/16

[impermanent-art]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Impermanent Art (@impermanent_art)

Work by Taylor White in Ann Arbor, MI.

[patrickkcolson]

Fired from Meta After Just One Week: The Inside Story I Can Finally Share

I never thought I’d be writing this. Read more

[nolan-higdon]

🚨 Exposed: AI Is Faking the News About LA Protests 🚨 In this clip from The Disinfo Detox, we dive into how AI-generated deepfakes and disinformation are being weaponized to distort coverage of protests in Los Angeles. From fabricated footage to misleading narratives, powerful interests are using AI to discredit activists and reshape public perception.

We reveal how these tactics mirror past media manipulation—but with terrifying new tools—and why critical media literacy is more essential than ever.

🎙️ Want the full story? Watch the full episode on YouTube or subscribe on Substack: 👉 https://nolanhigdon.substack.com

💥 Support independent media that exposes propaganda and defends truth: ✅ Like this video ✅ Subscribe to the channel ✅ Drop a comment ✅ Share with your network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVYSNGHrMg8

[inspirednews]

Google pode optar por divisão para evitar monopólio nos EUA

O Google se depara com desafios significativos em relação à sua posição no mercado, tendo perdido em dois casos importantes de antitruste no último ano. As ações da empresa estão estagnadas, e as autoridades federais estão insistindo para que a gigante da tecnologia se desfaça de várias partes de seus negócios. Caso a empresa não consiga uma solução favorável no tribunal, será forçada a repensar sua estrutura corporativa.(...)

Leia a noticia completa no link abaixo:

https://www.inspirednews.com.br/google-pode-optar-por-divisao-para-evitar-monopolio-nos-eua

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The American Betrayal Of Humanity

AI is coming for your job, your career; and who invented AI? There is a lot of finger pointing at China but the real enemy is often portrayed as a friend. The American betrayal of humanity is gathering pace and nothing much is halting it. The recent revelations about how Apple funded and trained China are instructional. The piecemeal nature of a neoliberal corporatised world lacks any big picture awareness. Shareholders are the priority for these multinational giants. Greater profitability is the name of the game at whatever cultural cost. Humanity is once again rapidly descending in value for these companies despite being their ultimate reason for existing.

AI Born In The USA

The AI revolution is being marketed as a game changer for humanity. But who is evaluating the score in real terms across the board? American capitalism is a ruthless beast. It has, thanks to recent economic and political trends, become even more so over the last few decades. Greed is good, remember. The stock market is king; and money means everything in American culture. Materialism has sunk religiosity in the land of the free. We are all much more economically literate these days. Donald Trump is the President of the United States for the second time, as if he didn’t get it right the first time. DOGE under Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is sacking government workers left, right and centre. Little respect for their humanity being shown here, is there?

Digitization Betraying Real World Human Beings For Profitability The digitization of everything is occurring rapidly with people being replaced by machines. All for the economic good of the nation, of the company, and for the bank balances of investors. AI it is estimated by Goldman Sachs to shed some 300 million jobs over the next period. This is the rich driving the bus for their own benefit. Humanity is in the grip of a greed driven curve. “Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says.” - (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65102150) Yes, productivity will be enhanced and the report mentions new jobs being created but is fairly vague about this part of the equation. In all previous industrial revolutions there was enormous disruption to lives and many individuals never recaptured their lifestyles. History, invariably, glosses over those who are collateral damage along the way. “ "The only thing I am sure of is that there is no way of knowing how many jobs will be replaced by generative AI," Carl Benedikt Frey, future of-work director at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, told BBC News. “ - (Chris Vallance, BBC, March 2023) The PR wings of the AI companies are not going to paint anything but a rosy picture, are they? The corporate bean counters are likewise rubbing their hands together at the projected savings in labour costs to the bottom line. The reality is, however, human beings losing their jobs and left with an uncertain future. American CEOs and their corporations are used to behaving ruthlessly when it comes to shedding jobs in the thousands. Oligarchs, like Musk and Bezos, have long left their humanity behind to rocket into the heavens, where gods traditionally reside.

Who Will Buy The AI Produced Goods? The American betrayal of humanity is couched in economic terms. The increased productivity will be good for the country. Who is going to buy the AI produced goods and services if so many of us have lost our jobs and careers? Shareholders are rubbing their hands together in glee at greater returns and dividends. The supply side economics will be greatly enhanced but what about a demand stripped of income? You can see human beings are becoming obsolete, cant you? AI may eventually decide to scrap the whole thing, as being largely unproductive. The Devaluation Of Humanity What is really happening here is the devaluation of humanity. “AI does it so much better! AI will save humanity?’ Now, a lot of the AI hype is marketing spin. However, we have handed over control to the money men and they can only see things in terms of ROI. The shrinkage of government has put the short term views of private companies like Apple, Amazon, Meta, Starlink and Nvidia in charge of where we are heading. They are, simultaneously, de-peopling the supply chains and business sectors. It is a perfect storm of stripping humanity from the centre of things. Most of us will be disenfranchised and moved out to the fringes of the power dynamic. Trump and his oligarchic backers are accelerating this process right now. They are attacking any competing power centres like the universities and large legal firms. The Trump regime is dismantling government agencies and sacking thousands of civil servants. All under the cover of greater efficiencies and bogus claims about antisemitism on campus. Where has the great American belief in free speech gone under this repressive regime?

Who Controls Your Life? If we continue to put our trust in money men and the corporate realm we will see our lives blighted beyond repair. Our children are being born into a form of digital slavery. Screens are everywhere and human beings stare into them for most of the day. The digital world, which is a poor copy of the real thing, has taken over our lives. Don’t believe me? Take an honest look around your life and what you do every day. Where is all the power? What device rules your life? Who controls the apps and platforms you use? Who makes the devices? Look at the stock market and see where the wealth is and in what sector? Big Tech! These oligarchs all lined up behind Donald Trump because the previous administration started attempts to break them up via anti-trust laws. Trump is tearing down some of these investigations and laws. “From winning a significant antitrust case against Google to adding additional export controls against China, the Biden administration took significant steps toward technology regulation in the U.S. The incoming Trump administration will likely depart from some of Biden's initiatives, including heightened merger scrutiny, Kovacic said. Still, he noted that other initiatives, including the online search and digital advertising technologies antitrust cases against Google, will continue under Trump.” - (https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/news/366617556/Biden-leaves-mark-on-four-technology-regulation-areas) Trump will bully and grift some payout from these super wealthy players in the Big Tech sector. Digital Slaves Under Machines The thing is that if we all continue to somnolently drift along in our lives the future is not bright. Our kids will suffer under this machine favoured oligarchy, becoming second class citizens and digital slaves.  All the important decisions will be made by AI. Our input is already being undermined and curtailed in big companies globally. The capitalist framework of stocks and shares being the economic imperative driving our lives will see us driven off the side of a cliff to our destruction. It is crazy, but the technological frenzy is doing just that and leadership is very thin on the ground to arrest this. Putting businessmen in positions of power in government is only accelerating this coming annihilation.

KSC-20200119-PH-KLS01_0182 by NASAKennedy is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 The Cost Of AI For every potentially wonderful thing that you hear about AI there will be a hundred banally demeaning consequences of which you will probably not hear but may suffer. ‘Cancer beating medical marvel thanks to AI’ However, you will likely not be able to afford this wonder drug because you and people like you would have lost their well paying careers and been forced to work at some shit job to pay the rent instead. It is the extreme ruthlessness of capitalism and its corporate world which will ensure the American betrayal of humanity. Who will look out for your interests? It wont be Trump or Musk or Bezos. All these oligarchs and authoritarianists are lining up to replace you with a machine that will quietly do its job. Technology is in the hands of dictators and technolords to do their bidding. I very much doubt that  AI will raise moral objections to plans to streamline the workforce and, therefore, increase productivity. The LLM settings, I find from things like Chat GPT are fairly nondescript about such stuff. I predict that authoritarian regimes will have their AI customized to avoid pesky questions about morality coming up for the subjected citizenry 1984 style. It will be like the South’s efforts not to allow Black slaves to learn to read, making it a criminal offence at the time.  Controlling the information technology will be the next step under Trump and his oligarchs, I surmise. Forcing Apple to make iPhones in the US could be a means to this end. A slight majority of 1.4 points of American voters elected Donald Trump over Kamala Harris. I found this hard to believe, at the time, and I still do. Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose. Social Media Is An American Invention On this basis, America is the enemy. The American tech sector, in particular, is a betrayer of humanity. Social media is one of the worst things ever to have happened to us. This convoluted framework for digital communication and record keeping has been a bane for us ever since its introduction a couple of decades ago. “MySpace was the first social media site to reach a million monthly active users – it achieved this milestone around 2004. This is arguably the beginning of social media as we know it.1 Some large social media sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit, have been around for ten or more years, but others are much newer. TikTok, for example, launched in September 2016, and by mid-2018, it had already reached half a billion users. To put this in perspective: TikTok gained, on average, about 20 million new users per month over this period.” - (https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media) Social media is akin to sugar, in my view, it initially tastes great but does real damage to your health and wellbeing over time. Sugar, of course, was long defined by slavery via the plantation labour that worked it. Many millions of Indigenous people died as a direct result of the sugar industry. Social media enslaves us and our young in particular. It gives a view of our lives through a strange lens warped by the algorithms underpinning the platforms. Both sugar and social media are destructive things when used in excess and both are highly addictive. Weakened governments bought off by Big Tech are in thrall to social media and have been ineffective in regulating it, especially in the US. Influencers are corralled at election campaign times to do their bidding and quid pro quo results.

The Ubiquity Of Digital Technology The thing about digital technology, in its modern sense, is that it has made its way into most homes around the planet. It is this level of infection or ubiquity, which makes it so dangerous to us all and the planet. Never before in history has one such thing permeated so effectively the lives of the entire human population. It means that bad stuff can reach everywhere, pretty much, very quickly. Yes, the converse of that could be true but little good has been travelling down those pipelines and fibre optic cables of late. It is the unthinking acceptance of technological innovations on the back of the free market economy which is most troubling. This naïve neoliberal idea that the market will be the best judge of everything based on its commerciality is threatening the survival of humanity. The market is not carefully attuned to what is in the better interest of humanity. It is driven by short term sugar hits that satisfy youthful preoccupations like fashion and entertainment. If it looks cool and does cool stuff! Ignorance & The Fraudulent Nature Of The Digital Realm Lots of folk are completely unaware of how digital technology and computers work. This makes them vulnerable to scammers and manipulation by those in power. Many users of social media are unaware that they are probably communicating with machines, bots, rather than other human beings. The online social forums that they use are, often, populated by non-human entities. If you do not know how stuff works you are vulnerable on this basis. Nearly everyone has a smart phone but the majority of us are largely ignorant to the workings of the Internet and the digital space. This makes whole populations easy to influence via platforms like social media. Indeed, quite a few people get drunk and go on social media spilling out their hearts and are taken advantage of by scammers and nefarious agents of influence. This is happening every minute of every day to lots of folk. Power Remains In Few Hands We live at a time, when it is possible to know lots of stuff. We have access to the widest plethora of information ever known. However, power remains sequestered in the hands of very few and this is tightening and shrinking every day. Knowing lots of stuff is not enough if you are unable to affect what we are doing and where we are heading collectively. Democracy has been shown to be a shell game in the US, bought off by vested interests many decades ago. Extreme greed drives too many Americans. Lauding the individual over community continually damages the country. The wealth divide between haves and have nots is obscene in America. “Another indicator of wealth concentration: the richest 1 percent own 50 percent of U.S. stock and mutual funds, up from 40 percent in 2002, according to Federal Reserve data. Inequality is skyrocketing even within the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest. As of May 2023, the net worth of the richest member of this group was 38 times larger than the net worth of the richest member in 1982 (in today’s dollars). Since 1982, just eight men have held this spot: shipping magnate Daniel Ludwig (1982), oil executive Gordon Getty (1983-1984), Walmart founder Sam Walton (1985-1988), media company owner John Kluge (1989-1991), Microsoft founder Bill Gates (1992-2017, except 1993), investor Warren Buffett (1993), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (2018-2021), and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (2022).” - (https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/) The tax rate for the richest folk in America used to be around 90% just after WW2 and that has been lowered over successive administrations to around 30-40% now. What does that tell you about the US and its political leaders? The power elite has been under the aegis of the wealthy for much of its history. The rest of the country has been treated like schmucks. The working poor have been diddled for so long they don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground. The culture wars have been a strategic distraction designed to hook voters into emotive issues like gender, guns, immigration, and race whilst they are being fleeced by wealthy interests who have already bought the political contestants. Every level of government and the supreme court in the US have been bought by light and dark money. Super PACS. The American betrayal of humanity is a wake up call but will any of us listen and do something about it in time before it’s too late? Too busy looking at your phone? We have all been sidelined for so long and directed to online recreational entertainment that few of us are likely capable of recognising and acting on the threat. Perhaps, I am wrong about this troubling proclivity toward apathy? We will have to see. “Individualism allows for this kind of stuff to go on because people are primarily concerned with their own realities rather than the community. If there are no strong communities with broad ties to all their members it is easy to isolate individuals and pick them off one by one. Oh the bad things are not happening to me or mine! It is happening to someone else. The Trump regime will put out lies saying that all these targeted individuals are bad people, violent gangsters and such like. No real proof is ever provided to the public just blanket statements. These kinds of thing happened in Hitler’s Germany and in Chile in the latter part of the 20C. Removing political opponents and unwanted voices of dissent.” - (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/american-individualism/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

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[digitalnaiv]

Wir haben uns sehr schnell getraut, bei #9vor9 über die Rolle des neuen Ministeriums für Digitalisierung und Staatsmodernisierung und den neuen Minister Karsten Wildberger zu sprechen. Jetzt gibt es erste Details und nennenswerte Kommentare #Digitalministerium

[mobiletrendstoday]

U.S. DOJ Warns Google Could Use AI to Strengthen Search Monopoly as Landmark Antitrust Trial Opens

The U.S. Department of Justice has raised concerns that Google’s growing focus on artificial intelligence could help the tech giant further entrench its dominance over online search, as opening arguments kicked off Monday in a closely watched antitrust trial.

The case, which could redefine the digital landscape, challenges Google’s long-standing control over the search market. Prosecutors are pushing for sweeping remedies, including the possible sale of Google’s Chrome browser and the dismantling of its exclusive deals with device makers, to prevent the company from using its AI innovations to tighten its grip on the internet.

“Now is the time to tell Google — and every other monopolist paying attention — that breaking antitrust laws carries real consequences,” said DOJ attorney David Dahlquist in his opening remarks. He urged the court to impose future-proof remedies as generative AI technologies like ChatGPT reshape the search market.

During the trial, documents revealed that Google struck an undisclosed high-value deal with Samsung to feature its Gemini AI assistant on smartphones, with terms allowing the agreement to run through 2028. The DOJ cited this deal as evidence of Google’s strategy to link its AI products to its search ecosystem.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta previously ruled that Google’s exclusive arrangements with device makers had helped preserve its search monopoly, a key factor under scrutiny in the current proceedings. Nick Turley, a senior executive from OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is expected to testify as the trial continues.

Google's legal team pushed back strongly against the DOJ’s claims, arguing that proposed remedies would harm innovation and reward rivals looking to benefit from Google’s advancements without competing on merit.

In a blog post published ahead of the trial, Google executive Lee-Anne Mulholland argued that forcing the company to unwind its business agreements would "stifle American innovation" at a pivotal time for AI development.

Prosecutors have proposed dismantling Google's exclusive search agreements with device makers like Apple, requiring Google to license its search data to competitors, and, if necessary, forcing a divestiture of the Android mobile operating system. Google counters that such drastic actions could raise smartphone prices and threaten smaller companies, including browser developers like Mozilla, who rely on Google’s financial support.

The case, which has spanned multiple presidential administrations, is seen as part of a broader bipartisan push to rein in the power of Big Tech. Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater emphasized the lawsuit’s nonpartisan backing, noting that the Justice Department has pursued the case under both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Alongside Google, other tech giants are also facing scrutiny, with Meta’s upcoming antitrust battle over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp marking another front in the U.S. government’s efforts to curb digital monopolies.