I think most people are assuming we’ll have the ability to fend off anything. All it’s going to take is Zuck creating a new fediverse-enabled platform and just giving everyone with an Instagram account access using their already existing accounts. We’ll be outnumbered by the millions.
I use it for programming too, but programming is deterministic – if the code doesn’t work, you know what the AI gave you is incorrect. I had a question regarding which types of glasses to get for an astigmatism recently which maybe the AI could help me with, but I don’t necessarily trust it to give me the correct information when I then need to go and gamble my money on purchasing the correct product for my needs.
In a scenario like that, having recommendations from lots of different people is far more useful. They can tell you about those unique idiosyncrasies of reality that aren’t able to be found on the Wikipedia page or outdated news article the AI is referencing to build you its answer.
You’re looking at this from the wrong point of view. The fediverse is not just lemmy: Threads, Tumblr, even BlueSky (albeit with their own protocol, but anyone could just modify their fediverse enabled app to convert their data to be applicable to BlueSky’s protocol) are quickly setting the stage for a new norm. The more websites integrate the fediverse into their stack, the more data outside the immediate sphere of influence of these major corporations can be harvested. To what ends they’ll use it, I don’t know – but I don’t trust them with it.