AI is not a grift but it is very much a dangerous rudderless ship right now.

Quantum computing is also not a grift.

Hell I feel dirty saying this but you could argue blockchain is not a grift either.

The problem in all these things is the people not the technology.

Really without major social or political change all commercial technology will serve incumbent power.

Holy loaded question batman! Yeah I’m not gonna take this seriously with you just making these sweeping assertions with no evidence.

People say quantum computing is a grift?

The other two are are only “grifts” because capitalism has shoved them into things that have no business involving them and breeds opportunistic get rich quick mindsets around the technologies. So any time you hear them mentioned it’s more than likely to be a grift. They are fine in certain niches and very stupid everywhere else, like every other technology.

Calling blockchain a pure grift ignores the serious enterprise-level work being done to solve real logistical problems. The technology behind NFTs isn’t just for JPEGs it’s used to create a unique and immutable digital identity for stuff like physical shipping containers and pallets as digital twins. In a global supply chain where a single shipment passes through dozens of untrusted parties like factories, freight forwarders, ports, customs, and warehouses a distributed blockchain ledger provides a single source of truth that replaces manual emails, scanned paper documents, and spreadsheets. Smart contracts can automate releases upon verified scans, directly reducing the demurrage and detention fees that cost millions of dollars. The big hurdle isn’t that the tech doesn’t work or is a grift, it’s getting competing companies to agree on common standards and invest in the infrastructure. The speculation was a sideshow, but the underlying utility for tracking physical assets across trust boundaries is a real thing

Capitalism is what makes them grifts. Llms could be neat. Theft at scale, environmental impact, and using it to kill little kids (anyone but jfc the kids killed wtf) is the problem. Its always the horrid companies and governments who look at any tech like “can i hurt people with this? I totally can…”

These technologies are not grifts.

The way they are often employed is absolutely a grift.

Blockchain is a very cool concept. Getting people to pay $1,000 for a picture of a cat and imply that it has value because it’s on a blockchain is grift.

Ai is a cool technology. It has become a grift because the companies behind it are sucking up massive investor dollars, destroying the worldwide computing parts market, and persuading managers to axe jobs promising the AI can take their place.

If quantum computing actually starts to work some of it will be used for grift because many current encryption schemes could potentially be cracked using quantum computers.

I think we are in a key moment for change to happen at a big societal level. As others have said the problem isn’t any of the technologies listed, it’s how they are being exploited and the perception of them maligned by said exploitation.

Capitalism is a big part of this problem. As is the messy elastic way that human society implements change over time. tl;dr - some people will pull society forward, others pull it back a bit. That’s the “elasticity” at a macro level.

For most of my life I’ve witnessed a gradual degradation, a reduction, entropy and resignation. Balance requires that we now leap forward again. I remain hopeful that a great correction is not just inevitable, it’s coming in my lifetime.

If you agree with the basic view that any software that does not respect your rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute it, is a form of unjust power over you - then that principle becomes a convenient acid test for virtually all computer technology. Any tech that enables and enhances those rights is not a grift. Any tech that restricts those rights is a grift.

Of course there are edge-cases. Blockchain stuff is usually open-source, and yet it’s a tool that has been designed by and for the most extreme right-wing libertarian types, so while the underlying technologies could hypothetically be used for good, the forms that they’re implemented in are pretty clearly a grift. So intention and design matter too.

I’d also like to see how the Hyppocratic License shapes software over time.

Would also love to see more developments in Farm Hack, Appropriate Technology, and Open Source Ecology.

they will all be enshittified so whats the point

uhm well how about anti-enshittification/corruption technology, wheres that

All technology from this point on will be a grift, because the grifters have all the power.

None of these technologies are a grift per say, the economic system we use to develop them and the marketing needed to ensure funding under the aforementioned hellscape are a grift.

None of them are a grift. They get used by financial traders for performing grifts, but the grift was and always has been stock market manipulation. AI is incredibly useful and many competent engineers now use it effectively. I expect the bubble of anthropic/openai will pop once local or on-prem models get better.

The first two are grifts and I have yet to see anyone say quantum computing is going to be a grift anywhere, so because of your other comment I’m going to assume you’re just someone who likes crypto and AI and are mad that people are pointing out how they are grifts with huge environmental and social problems

The renewable energy industry. The tech is good and getting better rapidly. Costs continue to drop, consumer grade solar is becoming widely accessible.