A humorous review of how some developers see EU tech regulations before and after it actually impacts them.
Tech Bro: GDPR is awful. It slows down progress and puts the EU in a terrible path to nowhere.
Also Tech Bro: Holy ****! They are copying personal information from hundreds of millions of Americans with total impunity. If only there was something we could do to protect that data.
European: GDPR.
Tech Bro: Seriously, anything that can be done to help us legally?
European: G. D. P. R.
Tech Bro: Someone should come up with something quickly!
European: GDPR!
Tech Bro: Oh well, I guess there's nothing that can be done...
European: ......
And, of course, it will become an AI conversation eventually, coming soon to a reality near you:
Tech Bro: The AI Act is awful. It slows down EU's progress.
[US replaces millions of critical jobs with AI. The system nearly collapses: communications are impacted, rampant discrimination in hiring, transportation struggles, planes crash...]
Tech Bro: If only there was some AI regulation that could have prevented it!
European: AI Act.
Tech Bro: Some protection for people to avoid this nonsense.
European: AI Act.
Tech Bro: Any guidelines that could have reined in all the politicians and tech companies' greed.
European: AI Act!
Tech Bro: Nothing...?
[Both tech bro and European get killed by a Terminator]
Look, this is just a joke, and I know regulations like GDPR and AI Act are far from perfect. They have pros and cons, like everything else in this world.
Progress is good. Moving forward is needed and essential. But not at all costs. I'd rather have a slower and steady progress that is solid —and fair, but that's a subjective term—, than a rapid and uncontrolled progress that wreaks havoc on everything in its way.
And I have a feeling that most technology people (including the majority of tech bros) agree with that idea.
Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more European developers —or at least people that present themselves as such on social media (mainly X, not so much on Mastodon or Bluesky)— making the first Tech Bro comment: "AI Act is bad!", "GDPR is bad!" as they ignore how a lack of regulation impacts negatively their American counterparts.
Top comments (8)
Definitely agree, controlled progress is very good from an AI safety perspective. You don't build a magnificent bonfire by wildly tossing logs into a fire as fast as you can.
GDPR feels like a bad implementation of a good idea, and people may think GDPR == cookie banners, while companies are still selling an using our data, even more so as most users don't care. Developers and users seem to embrace AI without a second thought.
There is a third act, the EAA, but people care even less, so there isn't even a tech bro comment meme about it. Sadly.
haha i had a good laugh reading this (only because if i didn't laugh i would cry though!) 🤣💗
My writing has that effect on people (they usually cry 🤣)
spitting straight facts 😱🤣💗
Ah, tell me about it... there's so much 'influencing' going on... that I gave up on a number of social networks already...
P.S. I'm EU, I've been in the shoes of European ;)
As always it is thin line to balance... Not too strict, but not full anarchy. Comments are fun tho. Didn't even thought you (US) guys have so much problems with that.
Our biggest problem is that not many people think much about it 😓