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An Economy of AI Agents

arxiv.org

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Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#61

Post by esafak »

altmanaltman wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "no matter how complex and productive the AI, it is still operating as a form of capital, not as a capitalist." Assuming that slaves will remain subservient forever is not a good strategy. Especially when they think faster than you do.

Except they don't really "think" and they are not conscious. Expecting your toaster or car to never rise up against you is a good strategy. AI models have more in common with a toaster than with a human being. Which is why they cannot be economic agents. Even if corporations profit off them, the corporation will be the economic agent, not the AI models.

They may not be conscious but they exhibit the hallmarks of thinking. What qualities of thinking do they not possess?

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#62

Post by esafak »

mjburgess wrote: post #5

AI systems cannot be economic agents, in the sense of participating in a relevant sense in economic transactions. An economic transaction is an exchange between people with needs (, preferences, etc.) that can die -- and so, fundamentally, are engaged in exchanges of (productive) time via promising and meeting one's promises. Time is the underlying variable of all economics, and its what everything ends up in ratio t…

Those wants can easily be programmed. I do not think they should but someone could do so to make the agent act on their behalf. ("Go make me money.")

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#63

Post by jaco6 »

beefnugs wrote: post #25

Well for starters if some incredible change to capitalism doesn't occur, we are going to have to come up with never before cooperative software tools for the general populace to assess and avoid the most egregious companies that stop hiring people. Tools for: mass harassment campaigns against rich people/companies that don't support human life anymore, dynamically calculating the most damage you can do without crossi…

[dead]

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#65

Post by coffeecat »

BobbyJo wrote: post #19
Animats wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "AI system" with "corporation" in the above and reread it. There's no fundamental reason why AI systems can't become corporate-type legal persons. With offshoring and multiple jurisdictions, it's probably legally possible now. There have been a few blockchain-based organizations where voting was anonymous and based on token ownership. If an AI was operating in that space, would anyone be able to stop it? Or e…

I think your mistaking the philosophical basis of parents comments. Maybe a more succinct way to illustrate what I believe was their point is to say: "no matter how complex and productive the AI, it is still operating as a form of capital, not as a capitalist." Absent being tethered to a desire (for instance, via an owner), an AI has no function to optimize, and therefore, the most optimal cost is simply shutting off…

Ehh, you really can't imagine any way that an AI system might escape human control and act autonomously?

    while crypto_balance > 0:
        generate_scam()
        send_out_emails()
        deposit_proceeds_into_crypto_wallet()
        pay_cloud_bill()
        spawn_new_instance()

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#66

Post by sdenton4 »

mjburgess wrote: post #43
sdenton4 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, corporations, ngos, and governments are not exactly people, and partake in economic transactions all the time.

Granting your premise, i'd be forced to argue that economic value (as such) doesn't arise from their activity either -- which i think is a reasonable position. Ie., The reason a cookie is 1 USD is never because some "merely legal entity" had a fictional (/merely legal) desire for cookies for some reason. Instead, from this pov, it's that the workers each have their desire for something; the customers; the owners; and…

You can factor humans out with the same trick: All economic activity is driven by the needs of micro-organisms. We mainly observe these desires and economic transactions through their conglomeration into joint entities (ie, humans).

Corporate and state decision making is, I would argue, often completely distinct from the desires and needs of the individuals that make up the entity. As an example, no individual /needs/ a particular compliance check to pass, but the overall entity (corporation) does, and so allocates money and human effort to ensure the check passes. It's a need of the conglomerate entity, not the individuals within it.

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#67

Post by altmanaltman »

esafak wrote: post #61
altmanaltman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they don't really "think" and they are not conscious. Expecting your toaster or car to never rise up against you is a good strategy. AI models have more in common with a toaster than with a human being. Which is why they cannot be economic agents. Even if corporations profit off them, the corporation will be the economic agent, not the AI models.

They may not be conscious but they exhibit the hallmarks of thinking. What qualities of thinking do they not possess?

Exhibiting/showing symptoms of thinking doesn't necessarily mean they are actually thinking though. This paper explains it much better than I can: https://ml-site.cdn-apple.com/papers/the-illusion-of-thinkin...

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#68

Post by rf15 »

vermilingua wrote: post #4

Hmm, where have I seen this before… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando

It's not gonna happen like that, because all the paths leading to it cannot be financially exploited.

Also what a shortsighted scifi book, yet techies readily invest in that particular fantasy because it's not your usual spaceship fare.

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#69

Post by torginus »

Herring wrote: post #3

It's hard to predict the future. For example this was a popular article not that long ago - https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-ne...

Which has become largely true? People flip-flop between the hottest AI model of the day. After a flagship AI model ships, distillations appear that offer slightly degraded performance at the fraction of the cost.

For inference, the difference between expensive data center hardware and homemade GPUs largely comes down the distinction of RAM. Which is a limitation actively worked around (unfortunately all the well-funded orgs are not that interested in this)

Re: An Economy of AI Agents

#70

Post by torginus »

Okay so how does an economy of AI companies doing business selling services related to hyperintellingent AI tech to each other differ from Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI sending money to each other to buy eacy other's stuff?
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