Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#431

Post by foltik » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #342

boothby wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math underlying the models is widely known, and there are tons of competitors, including foreign competitors. Foreign militaries investing in autonomous warfare does not assuage my concerns about my country investing in autonomous warfare. Also, have you been paying attention to median wages vs median CEO wages since the 1960s? The benefits of computing really have gone to the captains of industry.

> Also, have you been paying attention to median wages vs median CEO wages since the 1960s CEO pay isn’t a good proxy for “captains of industry.” What you want to look at is the labor versus capital share of income. That’s been very stable since the 1960s: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/labor-share-net-income-within... .

Clearly that's not a good proxy either then... even the article itself says:

> Ultimately, concerns over inequality should focus on differences within labor compensation rather than the split between labor and capital.

The main issues I can see are:

- This "labor share" includes multi-million dollar executive pay packages, so it's heavily skewed towards the 1%

- It also completely ignores unrealized capital gains and loans against them, which is how the ultra-wealthy actually fund their lifestyles tax-free, with a tiny income on paper

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#432

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

K0nserv wrote: post #31

silisili wrote: post #10

Because the writing is on the wall already. Who hasn't been annoyed with "AI customer service", we already read about AI in the military, then you have the envisioned huge loss of jobs. People generally seem to like using it as a chatbot, or answer questions, on their own terms. But anywhere it's been forced against the user asking for it has been a disaster.

I don't like AI customer service either, but having seen the other side it cuts down huge amounts of inbound queries (where the answer can usually be found in knowledge bases) and provides an answer faster than a human would. As long as the escalation path to talk to a human isn't too arduous it's not too bad.

Three things are true:

1. Most customers seeking support could solve their problem easily through self-service methods.

2. Some customers are running into edge cases that truly need a human to solve, and they should be able to get access to a human.

3. Making a human easy to get to results in a lot of people who are actually in group 1 but think they're in group 2 costing a lot of money in support staffing costs.

The anecdote I like to give is from my brother previously working at XBox Live support. 80% of his calls were password reset requests, something everyone could easily self-service right from the login page. These weren't "I tried that but I don't have access to the e-mail address I used anymore" cases[0], but the simple case. He'd trigger the password reset e-mail, the user would see the e-mail, and go through the reset flow. These users did not need a human, but were convinced they did, despite there literally being a "Forgot password?" button/link on every login page.

My other personal anecdote is overhearing my father-in-law calling up his cable company to pay his bill, something that's easier and faster to do online, but for some reason he'd rather talk to a human.

I get it though, sometimes you really DO need a human, but how do you make it easy to get a human when you need one without making it too easy to get one when you really and truly don't?

[0] Those DID happen, but were exceptionally rare, and a significant number of those calls were probably people trying to break into someone else's account.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#433

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

simsla wrote: post #430

satvikpendem wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has a billion users and it's estimated most are consumers not enterprise users. It's about 40 million paid consumer vs 9 million enterprise users. Once they file their S-1 we'll see exact figures.

How does a billion break down into 49 million? I'm assuming you mean 400 and 90 million?

I think they mean the vast majority are using the free version to do silly shit.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#434

Post by rurp » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:04 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #202

slg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only hope we have is that they're wrong, and their power to change things will be minimal. What even is the optimistic outcome if they are right? What are we all working towards? Like do people think that these AI companies will create some superintelligence, suck up all the financial benefits of that, and then just decide to share it with the rest of us out of kindness? Because I legitimately can't see a realis…

> Like do people think that these AI companies will create some superintelligence, suck up all the financial benefits of that, and then just decide to share it with the rest of us out of kindness? I don’t get this. It’s like worrying in 1960 that the companies that invented computers will hoard the benefits of computing. It doesn’t make any sense. There is no secret formula to any of this. The math underlying the mod…

You could say that about any big tech product and yet we've all seen power and wealth become concentrated on an incredible scale since the 60s. The immense resources needed to train frontier models gives the few companies that can manage it more of a moat than most tech products. So empirically I expect that we'll see the current wealth hording keep going at at least the same rate.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#435

Post by pdonis » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #300

pdonis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should not have to work to eat It takes time and effort and resources to produce the food you eat. If you aren't expending that time and effort and resources yourself, either to produce the food, or to produce something you can trade for it (or trade for money you use to buy it), who will? If the answer is "other people", why should other people have to work to produce the food you eat while you don't? If the an…

Fair enough, we are no where near post-scarcity levels of automation yet despite what frontier lab marketing says. But still, there are more people on the planet than necessary for all of the "meaningful" work of providing for society. It would be a good thing, with the proper safety nets and protections in place (something like UBI) to have a lot of the "bullshit" jobs automated away. That leaves us into a situation…

> there are more people on the planet than necessary for all of the "meaningful" work of providing for society

Says who?

I think there is a valid statement to be made that the work required for basic necessities (food, clothing, and shelter) in developed countries today is not very large, if you look at it per person, and so the cost of getting those basic necessities, per person, should not be very large either. So it should not take very much in the way of work for a person to be able to subsist at a basic level. But "not very much" is still not zero, and none of this removes the issue I described.

But you didn't say "basic necessities". You said "providing for society". And that is a lot more than just basic necessities, because "society" in developed countries is a lot more than just people's basic subsistence. We have a huge amount of wealth over and above that, which nobody wants to just do away with, and which took a lot of time and effort and resources to build, and which takes time and effort and resources to maintain. And anyone who doesn't want to live completely off the grid, in some rural area where they grow their own food, maintain their own dwelling, and don't depend on anyone else, is taking advantage of some portion of that huge amount of wealth in a developed country. And it's not at all clear that the work required per person to build and maintain that huge amount of wealth is so small that a small fraction of the people on the planet could do it, still less that they would agree to do it just for funsies, without expecting something in return.

I'm all for eliminating bullshit jobs (and digging ditches and then filling them up again is certainly a bullshit job, though of course our technological society has invented much more elaborate ones), but...

> use our new found productivity and surplus to just take care of everyone's needs without it being tied to employment.

This just goes right back to the question I asked: how are everyone's needs going to be taken care of? Who is going to do the work? Either other people are, which means you're making other people do the work required to keep you, or machines are, which means you're making other people do the work required to keep the machines running. And in either case, if you expect those other people to do that for free, out of the goodness of their hearts, you're fooling yourself. As long as nonzero work is required to keep you alive, you should expect to have to do nonzero work of some sort. Sure, you might not do just that minimum amount of work all the time--you might spend a working career doing a lot more work, saving up the surplus, and then living off it once you retire. But to expect to be taken care of while doing zero work, if nonzero work is actually required to take care of you, is unrealistic and will lead to disaster, as I said.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#436

Post by foltik » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #401

Barrin92 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s like worrying in 1960 that the companies that invented computers will hoard the benefits of computing. It doesn’t make any sense. Not only is that exactly what happened, they weren't satisfied with accumulating most of the wealth produced by it, they've also taken it upon themselves to take over democracy and media and act like a state within a state. You only need one statistic to understand America today, tha…

> You only need one statistic to understand America today, that working class Americans without college degrees have had their purchasing power stagnate since the 1970s( https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ ) Having a college degree was a much more selective measure in 1970 (about 10% of the population) than today (almost 40%). Consider a large law firm. In 1970, the only 4-year degree holders wo…

Look at the macro data. The overall median wage for all American workers combined has also drastically lagged behind economic productivity since the 70s.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#437

Post by fragmede » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

fl4regun wrote: post #422

peab wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nah, i distinctly remember family road trips as a kid. Driving was super stressful with my mom yelling about missing an exit as she reads the map, getting lost in a not so nice neighborhood, etc. you're romanticizing the past

lol this still happens today

No it doesn't. Not in a healthy relationship. Blink twice if you need help getting out of an abusive relationship.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#438

Post by pdonis » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:30 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #393

pdonis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should not have to work to eat It takes time and effort and resources to produce the food you eat. If you aren't expending that time and effort and resources yourself, either to produce the food, or to produce something you can trade for it (or trade for money you use to buy it), who will? If the answer is "other people", why should other people have to work to produce the food you eat while you don't? If the an…

You give the answer then skip past it. We are looking at a foreseeable future where machines do all the work. You are saying all the benefits from those machines should go to those who invested their capital to create them, forever. And those without capital to invest in those machines will have nothing. Why is that a good system?

> We are looking at a foreseeable future where machines do all the work.

That's not the future I was talking about. I was talking about a future where machines do an even larger fraction (approaching 100 percent) of the work that humans don't like to do but currently have to because it can't be fully automated. But that still leaves work to be done to supervise the machines, as well as work that humans do like to do and won't offload to machines.

The future you're referring to, where machines literally do all the work, is very different. See further comments below.

> You are saying all the benefits from those machines should go to those who invested their capital to create them, forever.

No. I am saying that whoever does the work required to build, run, and maintain the machines is not going to simply give away what they produce for free, without expecting something in return. Not all of that work is investing capital (though of course much of it is, as with any highly technological product).

In the future I was talking about, there is still work that humans can do, not connected with building, running, and maintaining the machines, that produces something that can be traded. In that future, just as now, if you're not one of the people who is doing the work to build, run, and maintain the machines, you should expect to have to do some nonzero amount of work on something else that you can trade for what the machines produce, to get enough of what they produce to keep you, if you need what the machines produce to keep you. As long as nonzero work is required to keep you, you should expect to do nonzero work to be kept.

In the future you're talking about, where there is literally no work that humans can do that produces anything that can be traded, it doesn't really matter who owns the machines, because in this future, the machines are in control and every human, whether they have some piece of paper that says they "own" the machines or not, is at their mercy. Personally, I don't think that future is where we're headed, at least not with the machines that are making all the headlines now. But if that future is where we're headed, you'll have to ask the machines for UBI or whatever else you need, and no human will have any control over what the machines decide, no matter what political scheme we put in place now.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#439

Post by fluoridation » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #425

fluoridation wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are just time series of wealth over time, they don't purport to establish any causal links. You can't conclude that computers didn't "actually benefit the average American financially" from these numbers, because these are measuring the total wealth of the household with all factors combined. We can't say with any certainty what effect computers had on these values; maybe without them people would have been bet…

>You can't conclude that computers didn't "actually benefit the average American financially" from these numbers, because these are measuring the total wealth of the household with all factors combined. Fine, I’ll include your disclaimer about confounding factors. With all factors combined, it doesn’t appear that the average American financially benefited over the course of the computer revolution. Do you dispute tha…

Yes, I dispute it. Firstly because it's literally not true by the numbers you're basing it off of, as the mean real family income grew by 40ish% between 1973 and 2023; and secondly because it's a very carefully-worded statement that lends itself to confusion by placing together things that are not necessarily related, like the graph comparing the number of pirates with the global temperature of the Earth. Yes, the data being presented is true (well, in your case it's not, but let's pretend you've rephrased it such that it is), but the manner in which it's being presented is communicating something other than the data.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#440

Post by peab » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

fl4regun wrote: post #422

peab wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nah, i distinctly remember family road trips as a kid. Driving was super stressful with my mom yelling about missing an exit as she reads the map, getting lost in a not so nice neighborhood, etc. you're romanticizing the past

lol this still happens today

right - so imagine how much worse it would be with a paper map or printed instructions