301–310 of 694 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole". I'm considering "actual power", rather than "actual income".
Then who pays for it?
I think a lot of HN readers and a lot of first world/law abiding dwelllers in this and recent threads forget to think. Violence is not a panacea, but often, the outlet. Yes we all (majority of sane) people know that violence is not the answer yada yada yada. Doesn’t matter. It will happen anyway. Saying “it shouldn’t happen, it does not solve X” will not stop it to becoming an outlet for frustrated people.
Actually violence is the ultimate power. It is where true power comes from — you can gain true power by hurting other people or/and benefiting other people, and it is always the power to hurt people that is the greater of the two.
A well run government wraps violence behind a curtain and jealously guard it. For example most modern governments look down and punish private vendetta because the state is only the one that can hurt people legally. But if the people believe that the government is biased or don’t care about them, then they will resort to violence, the ultimate power.
A bit tangent, but is there anyone working on something for “what if AI pans out?” world? I’m not sure how to explain it, but if in the next 5 years a lot of jobs get displaced because of AI, obviously we’ll have big problems. Is there anyone working on analysis, outcomes, strategies and etc.? I think about it a lot, and would be cool to help and contribute.
It's not complicated. Just tax the corporations and billionaires a fair share and setup UBI.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wholeheartedly agree with and encourage this kind of academic distinction. However... Until people with billions of dollars behind them do something with that money to offset the financial hardship that they're knowingly - and gleefully - bringing to others... The distinction has no practical use. (And before someone says "that's the government's job!", consider how much lobbying money is coming from CEOs and compa…
How much actual money do you think the “people with billions of dollars” have in comparison to the needs of the population as a whole? I think you’re very confused about where the actual income in the economy goes.
"Until people with salaries of many dollars per hour behind them do something with that money to offset the financial hardship that they're knowingly - and gleefully - bringing to others 90% of the world that live on less than 2 dollars per day... The distinction has no practical use."
Moreover, these people do not simply lobby the government, but directly elect it, and actually have many times more money at their disposal than the rest of the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole". I'm considering "actual power", rather than "actual income".
Then who pays for it?
Money is just a way of keeping track to how high of a fraction of the future output of the civilization any one person or entity is entitled to. This is by consent.
With AI all is subject to change.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iran killed 10 times more during protests without using AI. So AI is a clear improvement.
How many people did the US kill in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 25 years?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still, that's no reason to accept a return to that state of affairs. Progress happens slowly and imperceptibly, but on a grand scale it does happen.
Much as we'd like that to be true ideally, does it happen (in terms of inequality reducing)? I see no evidence of that, it ebbs and flows in various time periods and civilizations. One can try to resist that reversion to the mean but they'd historically be proven wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can look at their actions, in particular their efforts to influence public policy.
You can, but then what? Do you judge what they say as if their perspective is the same as yours, and then conclude from that context that what they suggest could only come from an evil person. That seems to be what a lot of people do. What if they actually think what they are suggesting is the best thing for the world? How can you tell what is in their minds? Alternately you could criticise their arguments instead of…
Why is OpenAI not a nonprofit anymore?
History has shown that an alien invasion can only happen because of the internal competition and in-fighting of the natives. Colonial empires proved it only a few centuries back. The invading alien powers are fuelled by the inviting natives. AI (and computing technology in general) is an alien as it defies all wordly norms. It can have exact identical copies, can replicate, can exist everywhere, communicate across hu…
AI doesn’t actually come from the outside.
The fact it’s economics have high winner-take-a-lot aspects, doesn’t mean you can eliminate the current winners and end up anywhere different, because it’s actually a natural decentralized progression of improving efficiency.
So that framing makes no sense.
However, the thesis for the potential for violence is sound. I don’t see a way out of that, given unending disruption, with no coordinated responsible response.
I do not think is this essay is hype.
This moment requires great leadership and competence, but that is not what is getting elected.
The last two decades patience with massive businesses scaling up profitable conflicts of interest, and centralizing gatekeeper and dependency powers, that offer no recourse to any individuals they mistreat, strongly suggest we are incapable of dealing with AI fallout. Which will only accelerate and add to those trends.
I think a lot of HN readers and a lot of first world/law abiding dwelllers in this and recent threads forget to think. Violence is not a panacea, but often, the outlet. Yes we all (majority of sane) people know that violence is not the answer yada yada yada. Doesn’t matter. It will happen anyway. Saying “it shouldn’t happen, it does not solve X” will not stop it to becoming an outlet for frustrated people.
There’s a sort of fatalism about violence here, like someone saying that school shootings are always going to happen. It’s true that you or I aren’t likely to do anything about school shootings. But I’m not sure it follows that nothing can be done.
Allow a handful of people that grab the economy and all means of production and violence will be the result.
At this point in time it is simply cause and effect, the surprising thing to me is how long it is holding together. But at the rate the economy is being wrecked I fail to see how it will do so for much longer.
Effectively the French elites started the French revolution by being a little bit more greedy than the population would have tolerated. That set off an avalanche of what were effectively a series of mini revolutions ultimately resulting in modern France, which is in many ways unlike any other country in the world. The United States had its war of independence (aided by France, by the way), and then its civil war. But it never had a class war - yet - and this article presages that class war.
It could well be that the small number of rich people that are currently effectively a government outside of the government genuinely believe that their wealth and power insulate them from the consequences of pushing their greed and wealthy to ridiculous levels. But I suspect the author is right in that this is approaching some kind of threshold and I have no way of seeing across the divide, I'm hoping for another France rather than another Somalia.