February 19, 2026
Next token, next tantrum
Techno-cynics are wounded techno-optimists
The left doesn’t hate tech—it hates being used, say commenters
TLDR: A blog defending AI sparked a brawl over whether the left hates technology or just hates being exploited, set against Anthropic’s splashy $30B moment and an AI quote fiasco. Commenters split between “it’s just math” skeptics and “emergent behavior” believers, with capitalism and copyright fairness taking center stage.
A fiery thread exploded after a blog claimed the political left is “missing out on AI,” just as Anthropic’s headline-grabbing $30B moment and a messy “AI wrote a mean post” saga (plus a news site’s fake AI quotes) lit up feeds. Commenters didn’t wait for the cooldown. One crowd rallied behind linguist Emily Bender’s “stochastic parrots” critique, cheering the author’s take that these tools are just next-word guessers, not brainy robots. Another crew fired back: if you do it across billions of examples, you get surprising behavior—maybe not “human” understanding, but more than a parrot. Cue the “it’s just math” vs “emergent magic” cage match.
The hottest line in the room? “We don’t hate tech—we hate being exploited.” Users railed that generative AI feasts on artists’ and writers’ work for free while companies cash out. Capitalism took a surprise lead role, with one commenter asking what progress even means if the rewards are captured at the top. Others tossed in the classic George Carlin zinger about cynics being disappointed idealists, turning it into a meme about “techno-cynics = wounded gadget lovers.” Meanwhile, a snarky aside—“They weren’t talking about their blog”—kept the tone spicy. Verdict from the crowd: people love gadgets, but not when they feel like unpaid training data. And the next-token wars? Still raging, one prediction at a time. Visit Anthropic for more context.
Key Points
- •The article critiques a narrative that “the left hates technology,” noting it arose alongside recent AI-related events and hype.
- •It describes a pro-AI blog arguing that “the left is missing out on AI” and engaging with academic critiques, notably Emily Bender’s “stochastic parrots.”
- •The blog’s position, as summarized, is that large-scale training makes next-token prediction yield outputs resembling understanding.
- •The author argues next-token prediction remains a simple pattern-prediction process and disputes claims that LLMs possess understanding or reasoning.
- •The piece uses examples (mRNA vaccines, high-speed rail) to argue that technology attitudes aren’t strictly political and criticizes equating techno-optimism solely with generative AI.