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What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

economist.com

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Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#51
post #34
post #5

I think a more important question is not whether AI will make economic growth explode but rather who that economic growth will benefit and in general how those benefits will be distributed.

I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. If AI grabs everything and few consumers are left then it is zero-sum. I'm looking forward to seeing how this might play out. Pessimistically, it seems very bubblish.

> I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund.

I looked for any comments that expressed this sentiment, and as of writing this, I only found one. It's like people don't know or remember history. I mean, look at the French Revolution—look at every other revolution. I kept waiting for the article to mention political changes, but it was only about capital and what to invest in, as if capitalism is something that will survive superintelligence (I mean real superintelligence, not chatbots).

What do these people think—that 99% of the population will just become beggars? Sooner or later, all capital will be overtaken by the state, because the main argument against it - inefficiency, will no longer apply. People will vote on AI-generated proposals for energy distribution, so basically where as society we want to allocate it. Budgets will no longer be about how much money we want to spend, but about how much energy we want to allocate.

Private capital and private companies stop making sense when you have a superintelligence that is smarter than any human and can continuously improve itself. At that stage, it will always allocate resources more efficiently than any individual or corporation.

Leaving that kind of power in the hands of the wealthiest 1% means only one thing: over time, 100% of land and resources would end up controlled by that 1%, the new kings, making the rest of the society their slaves forever.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#52

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

With enough money/capital growing, you can live however reasonably paced you like!

Well, I sincerely doubt I'm going to get much of that capital. Mostly the people at the top will....

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#53
post #37

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

People say that until they are asked to pay more and earn less.

Well, I had a high-paying job, six figures. But that six-figures came with less freedom, higher-paced work, life bureacracy, and I wasn't happy. I had no time or mental space to just sit and think. Probably the least happy I was in my entire life. So I quit. Now, I do live a slower-paced life, and earn very little. But I'm the happiest I've ever been.

But YMMV I guess.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#54
post #23

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

What's really ironic, based on my understanding, is that the world that you have expressed a desire for, is much likelier in a world where economic growth accelerates based on AI. Granted, you need to have the political structure in place that allows the growth to benefit everyone.

I sincerely doubt it, because that technology also invades life. It invades the world with more information, not less. More business...when has technology ever slowed things down? AI just seems to make certain tasks more efficient, but I haven't seen anything slow down.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#55
post #29

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

Maybe the issue with society is that we don't care about efficiency? We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy from carrying that excess weight. We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars so we build all our infrastructure around cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. This also…

> We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy in terms of carrying that weight.

But it's efficient in terms of working as a slave for the technological system, though. It means less time spent on life, more time spent on thinking about technology.

> We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy.

Again, quite efficient for the system.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#56
The civilization will destroy itself first. States are not addressing what really matters and especially not the multi billion/trillion companies. The US fight against social security and less inequality, the things that wealth should enable. We are destroying jobs that brought purpose, just because some small percentages in margin. We are not training the AIs to solve climate change but to code well. Maybe it’s time for the UN to become the main government of this world, to deal well with the uneven distribution and discrimination of work force. It is too much about egos, too much thinking in cultural groups to protect from outsiders, too much war and destruction, still too much burning fossil fuels, too much destruction of our environment and the nature. Maybe with the appearance of aliens first to have a visible outer enemy first? But I guess it will be the same as always: as long as most find some distraction, some misinformation that calms down fears and anxieties, nothing will change for the common good.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#57
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the issue with society is that we don't care about efficiency? We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy from carrying that excess weight. We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars so we build all our infrastructure around cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. This also…

You think people own cars because they’re unfit? Would it be more efficient for them to ditch their car and cycle 4 hours per day to and from work?

Yes I think people become unfit from growing up in a car culture and then become dependent on cars for transportation because they can't conceive of a world where they don't require one for transportation because they're so unfit.

It's a wicked problem with no obvious solution.

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#58

I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.

And then what? What’s there to do? By that logic we would all be playing pixelated Doom, carrying Walkman around, and smoking inside restaurants.

Go out and observe and enjoy nature, enjoy good food, the company of lots of friends, etc. I wouldn't mind a world where people had more time to do that, if it meant I had to carry around a Walkman or go to live concerts...

Of course, not all innovation is bad. Banning smoking in restaurants does not require technology to restrict it...

Re: What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?

#60
I immediately think of mining. Mining in most countries places little value on miners: it is a dangerous, life shortening occupation very often done by those without much alternative. It's history is one of random deaths and maimings, quite often of large groups of people at once. It is associated with numerous health problems. Pretty much the only thing that has ever improved conditions for miners anywhere is either collective action or paternalistic, labour-sympathetic government. Mining and jobs like it are among the stereotypical situations where people imagine that education for their children will lead to a better life.

All of which is to say, will the most awful jobs actually be automated? Not just awful, either, but poorly paid? Logically it makes more sense to approach knowledge work first: it requires only one kind of investment, namely data centres. There are thousands of niche skills in manual labour that will be awkward to make robots for. I think also of old housing stock that needs to be maintained by plumbers, in particular: legacy stuff built up over decades (or where I live, centuries)

Language models seem to have come a lot further because they can use the generalisable capital of computers. Outside of controlled environments (factories, cities with grid systems) I don't imagine robots will represent such a good investment any time soon. Knowledge work is dying, time to learn a trade. Maybe.

(It would have been great to have been able to learn and practice a profession for a lifetime. Library churn is awful, I suspect what will follow for most of us here will be worse)

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