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AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

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Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#21

Post by slibhb »

sudosysgen wrote: post #12
nradov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason to think it would have produced better results than a free market economy.

There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc... But central plan…

> There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc...

There's no reason to think that economic crises and inequality would be absent in a planned economy.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#22

Post by sn41 »

ajuc wrote: post #7
ankalagon wrote: post #2

Would the communist central price-fixing have benefited from AI? I mean, could the fixing of consumer prices have been automated by an AI system? Maybe using machine learning?

They tried computer-assisted central planning and it mostly failed because of data quality. There were a lot of incentives to lie and not a lot of reasons to be honest. When my grandma was in last class of school they were sent to help force farmers to use publicly funded artificial fertilizers. Farmers didn't wanted to because "their fathers didn't used them and it was fine". So communists had school kids with some…

Yes, governments always fudge data to fit a narrative. The Covid pandemic has been a shameful example of that, worldwide.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#23

Post by aaronchall »

sudosysgen wrote: post #12
nradov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason to think it would have produced better results than a free market economy.

There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc... But central plan…

At its highest, relative to the USA, USSR per capita gdp was only one third that of the USA. Not that impressive, even if you trust their numbers.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#24

Post by sudosysgen »

slibhb wrote: post #21
sudosysgen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc... But central plan…

> There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc... There's no rea…

Of course there are. If you have good knowledge of the economy and of production mechanisms you can simply not do anything that could cause a crash. The issue is getting the knowledge to behind with, obviously.

Inequality is necessary to some level but empirically it's possible to make it much smaller.

Empirically the USSR had a single economic crisis without exogenous cause which was caused by incorrect accounting of agricultural production at its heart.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#25

Post by sudosysgen »

aaronchall wrote: post #23
sudosysgen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are dozens of reasons. Free markets have deduplication of labour, concepts like patents and IP that are inefficient are necessary, there are economic crises that wreck compound growth in the long term, there are issues of inequality, humans may be lazy and not attempt to allocate their capital in the most appropriate way (see index funds), socially useful endeavors may not be profitable, etc... But central plan…

At its highest, relative to the USA, USSR per capita gdp was only one third that of the USA. Not that impressive, even if you trust their numbers.

The USSR never published a GDP figure. It couldn't, because GDP makes no sense without a market.

But yes, the USSR as a whole had a third of the US's average GDP. I agree, it was less than the US. The thing that is surprising is that they got there by planning an economy with pen and paper, which is insane to me.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#26

Post by ZeroGravitas »

sudosysgen wrote: post #14
dandanua wrote: post #8

It's worth to mention that there were Soviet attempts to build such systems, see OGAS [1] which was led by mathematician Victor Glushkov [2]. The remarkable fact is that those attempts have failed due to bureaucrats fighting for their own power. It looks like the human nature and socialism are incompatible things – individuals in charge are just consumed by their ego. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS [2] https:…

Had OGAS been suggested at other times, it would probably have been implemented. After the October Revolution, the CPSU were so open to change and so far from being ossified and giving up power that they basically implemented Keynesian capitalism until Stalin came about. But the longer you wait until after the revolution, the longer bureaucrats and egomaniac get to consolidate power, and the more difficult it is to c…

I'm still reading my way chronologically through some books written at the time but the early 20th century communists all seem fairly benignly and boringly moderate by modern standards.

I'm intrigued to see how it develops.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#27

Post by shimonabi »

ankalagon wrote: post #2

Would the communist central price-fixing have benefited from AI? I mean, could the fixing of consumer prices have been automated by an AI system? Maybe using machine learning?

They tried to use computers to set prices and plan production, but they failed anyway.

Adam Curtis had a documentary abouth this: https://youtu.be/h3gwyHNo7MI?t=1484

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#28

Post by nlitened »

sudosysgen wrote: post #14
dandanua wrote: post #8

It's worth to mention that there were Soviet attempts to build such systems, see OGAS [1] which was led by mathematician Victor Glushkov [2]. The remarkable fact is that those attempts have failed due to bureaucrats fighting for their own power. It looks like the human nature and socialism are incompatible things – individuals in charge are just consumed by their ego. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS [2] https:…

Had OGAS been suggested at other times, it would probably have been implemented. After the October Revolution, the CPSU were so open to change and so far from being ossified and giving up power that they basically implemented Keynesian capitalism until Stalin came about. But the longer you wait until after the revolution, the longer bureaucrats and egomaniac get to consolidate power, and the more difficult it is to c…

> bureaucrats and egomaniac get to consolidate power, and the more difficult it is to change things. That's one of the major issues with Marxist-Leninist government structures.

This just means that Marxist-Leninist ideology is not compatible with reality, and does not work.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#29

Post by ajuc »

sudosysgen wrote: post #13
ajuc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried computer-assisted central planning and it mostly failed because of data quality. There were a lot of incentives to lie and not a lot of reasons to be honest. When my grandma was in last class of school they were sent to help force farmers to use publicly funded artificial fertilizers. Farmers didn't wanted to because "their fathers didn't used them and it was fine". So communists had school kids with some…

They actually never even tried. The computer planning system that was suggested, GAS, in the 50s, included an internet that would automatically gather/collect and send data. The most that was ever done was to apply the algorithm manually to a few industries and see if it outperformed manual planning (it did). The planners weren't stupid. They were aware of the data quality issues. That's why they basically wanted to…

I'm talking Poland specifically not USSR and there was some real computerization done by ZETO and CEOI from 60s. Poland had a few homegrown computer architectures and also since 70s had access to western IT industry (for example it used IBM mainframes pretty much as they were released).

For example PESEL system was designed then (each citizen gets assigned a number on birth, it encodes sex, date of birth, serial number from batch [so it doesn't need to be synchronized constantly], and a checksum so it's easy to find mistakes). And every database in country used that PESEL as "business id".

At first protein-based calculators were executing this algorithm but it was computerized and it's used to this day and works pretty well (even if there are some gotchas from the times when people were calculating them manually).

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#30

Post by aaronchall »

sudosysgen wrote: post #25
aaronchall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its highest, relative to the USA, USSR per capita gdp was only one third that of the USA. Not that impressive, even if you trust their numbers.

The USSR never published a GDP figure. It couldn't, because GDP makes no sense without a market. But yes, the USSR as a whole had a third of the US's average GDP. I agree, it was less than the US. The thing that is surprising is that they got there by planning an economy with pen and paper, which is insane to me.

I don't know how it's possible, but nearly every sentence you wrote is completely wrong.
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