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Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

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Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#261

Post by zqna »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #127
pkphilip wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Expecting the super rich to be concerned a lot about the poor - especially when they aren't useful as employees, is quite a stretch.

Their wealth is more contingent on our consumption than employment status. If that goes, then you're looking at a zero-sum society where no new wealth is generated. Ultimately people will remain enterprising status-seekers. Rich people can already sit around with their wealth doing fuck-all excepting consuming, and they don't.

They wealthy will be buying islands (as big as Australia) get high on cocaine and do safari, shooting humans there as the ultimate fun [1]. The prey underestimates how the mind of predator works, and that's why it is a prey.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3epygq5272o

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#262

Post by swed420 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #219
anonymars wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the SAVE act? Or restrictions on mail-in voting?

Good point. They seem to be getting nervous about us voters voting.

> They seem to be getting nervous about us voters voting.

Repubs are only putting on a show of getting nervous about certain voters voting to excite their base.

But as far as the Uniparty is concerned, they'd be much more nervous if overall voter turnout plummeted by choice, because then it becomes immediately obvious to everybody that increasing amounts of people no longer believe in the illusory democracy. It's a similiar threat to the bad optics of when a "joke" party gets a sizeable amount of votes (see: Count Binface as recently discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49301260)

The Uniparty wants high-ish turnout (2/3 is good) because then we can all other-ify the 1/3 with the narrative that they were "too lazy" and thus to blame, while the 1/3 + 1/3 who did vote hopefully make for a close election, propping up the democratic illusion of choice and popularity.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#263

Post by augment_me »

preg_match wrote: post #251
augment_me wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI as a concept does not add up. It assumes an even production of all goods that people might need, but there isn't, you are giving everyone fiat currency that is not inherently tied to any physical good. Very fast you will descend into either plan economy where you get food stamps, or an economy where people are trading goods that are actually tied to value. For example, you go to the store to get eggs, since every…

Without a workforce there is no consumption, and therefore capitalism cannot exist. Yes, we would require a planned economy. Call it communism or whatever you like, but free market economics literally cannot exist in such an environment. Capitalism is based on two simple, fundamental assumptions about the world: - everyone works - everyone consumes 1. Turned out not to be true. We have disabled people, elderly people…

Try to convince the majority of the western world that are consuming the equal of 4-6 globes that they are eligible for:

(1) National Park visit a year (3) RoboTaxi rides this week (2) Eggs for the week

Who will do the planning? Why would the population accept this planning?

You will in practice need full surveillance and control of your population and an agreement between every country that this is how we are going to do things.

At that point you can also ask the question what value humans provide at all. Why upkeep all of this when you can just expand compute, perform resource extraction instead of managing your cattle.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#264

Post by brazukadev »

Zylokloto wrote: post #206
HNPedoLovers wrote: post #179

[flagged]

Is there any particular reason why you respond like this? Do you think this adds anything to this discussion at all? Did you even take the time and effort to read my comment?

> Is there any particular reason why you respond like this?

Lots of people are really, really disgusted by billionaire sexual offenders/pedophiles that won't pay for their crimes. And then another bunch get mad at people defending those criminals.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#265

Post by lanfeust6 »

ydat wrote: post #143
lanfeust6 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their wealth is more contingent on our consumption than employment status. If that goes, then you're looking at a zero-sum society where no new wealth is generated. Ultimately people will remain enterprising status-seekers. Rich people can already sit around with their wealth doing fuck-all excepting consuming, and they don't.

> Their wealth is more contingent on our consumption than employment status. Is it? Or is it dependent on the consumption of someone much greater than you. For example: I was reading something the other day about dining experiences in Las Vegas. Really though, the video was about how recently Vegas has abandoned the traditional middle class patrons in favor of providing experiences to a smaller, but much wealthier cl…

lol well the majority of the top 1% globally didn't make their fortune serving food, to other wealthy patrons no less (how's that for circular reasoning). We're in a consumer society, B2B sales is a thing but it's a side-effect of that.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#266

Post by lanfeust6 »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #243
lanfeust6 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivated reasoning. You want to believe it. > do you really think they want poor people hanging around? Which by your rationale would include everyone who isn't rich (and tautologically would mean "no one is rich anymore"). They do not care whether we're hanging around, the same way they do not care now whether poor people exist. It has no bearing. All that does is whether they remain rich and powerful, and last I c…

want to believe it? mon ami have you looked at any labor history? they used to send 9 year olds to the mines. mortality rates were as high as 50% before they turned 20. why do you think the AI robber barons are any nicer? it is painfully obvious they're not. and all of this is set to a backdrop of global ecological collapse.

> they used to send 9 year olds to the mines

Yeah, at the advent of the industrial revolution. And prior to that 80% of people had to work the land, with no ammonia, just horses and manure.

Labor conditions from over a century ago, before the laws were written, have no bearing on whether wealthy people would try their best to kill you "just because". That's nonsensical.

"Nice" has nothing to do with it.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#267

Post by soulofmischief »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #236
soulofmischief wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a single "pet issue", I care about a great deal of issues that neither party actually cares about addressing, and it's well-established that both parties push conservative, right-leaning neoliberal policy. I don't see these changes occurring overnight or fast enough to be acceptable.

lol Trump's party has not been the least bit neoliberal, it is populist and protectionist. Brutal immigration crackdowns and tarrifs are the opposite of neoliberal. Even Biden was a departure, with tariffs and CHIPS act. None of that is neoliberal, which peaked in the Clinton era. Incidentally, among the most effective remedies for what ails us now, like zoning reform, would be derided as "neoliberal" by progressives…

I was speaking historically of the GOP, not "Trump's party".

Yet, the Trump administration continues to support the repression of workers unions, environmental deregulation, foreign and domestic imperialism, state-sponsored terrorism, corporatocracy, mass incarceration, and other common tools of the neoliberal State.

Yes, his economic policies are populist and nationalist, his immigration policies and other things, but his administration and the likes of Stephen Miller simply do not perceive these other issues as relevant to the new era they are ushering in.

> Ok, name some. Realistically, there aren't many.

Both previous presidential candidates were bought and paid for by the establishment. Both were prepared to serve the needs of the wealthy class and pander to the middle class. Everything else follows from there.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#268

Post by lanfeust6 »

swed420 wrote: post #241
lanfeust6 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You speak as if these things are unrelated. State the connection, because it seems like your next argument is going to be "the government didn't stop them", as though that's their job. > Increasingly, we don't: Think of a single enshittified product that matters to you for which there is no alternative but to use it. This also all pales in contrast to the conveniences and improvements afforded over time. You can no…

> State the connection, because it seems like your next argument is going to be "the government didn't stop them", as though that's their job. It's not their job to break up monopolies and ever-shifting financial abstractions a few steps ahead of the law that enable monopolistic behavior? > Think of a single enshittified product that matters to you for which there is no alternative but to use it. * Mobile devices and…

> It's not their job to break up monopolies and ever-shifting financial abstractions a few steps ahead of the law that enable monopolistic behavior?

It's not their job to prevent companies from selling products that are a bit shittier in some fashion. Buy from a competitor.

I know you must not be confusing enshittification and monopoly, so why the attempted switch? At any rate, we're not dealing with monopolies, but competition can be reinforced through policy and anti-trust is still being wielded, more recently against Google.

> Mobile devices and their respective walled gardens if you expect to do something as simple as access your own bank account or reliably receive text messages

This is a EU phenomenon, and it's a product of EU-wide payment-security regulation, in particular PSD2's Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) rules. Banks found apps cheaper than SMS and card readers, and registered phones offer a layer of fraud protection. There are other incentives.

You're lumping this as "enshittified" but given what this does, average people would not agree. People who dislike this move are more privacy obsessed, or techies who dislike the app ecosystem. Ultimately if consumers en-masse cared enough about this to push a grassroots effort through, it would change, but they do not.

> Social media which only really works when lots of people are on any given platform

vbulletin forums and online communities have been around long before the popular iterants today. HN itself is an online community. It can work whether there are more or fewer.

People tend to tolerate more for high-traffic sites, but not infinitely so. Digg died many years ago, and now reddit's numbers are plummeting. FB's traffic is just old people.

> Food that is safe, nutritious, and sustainable

Lmao we've never had it better for food, in terms of choice and access. Pesticides are also safer than ever.

Notwithstanding staples and cheap healthy foods like legumes, there are novel products on the shelves all the time, including "sustainable" offerings. For instance consumers have enthusiastically adopted "milk alternatives" despite not reporting themselves to be vegetarian.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#269

Post by lanfeust6 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #267
lanfeust6 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol Trump's party has not been the least bit neoliberal, it is populist and protectionist. Brutal immigration crackdowns and tarrifs are the opposite of neoliberal. Even Biden was a departure, with tariffs and CHIPS act. None of that is neoliberal, which peaked in the Clinton era. Incidentally, among the most effective remedies for what ails us now, like zoning reform, would be derided as "neoliberal" by progressives…

I was speaking historically of the GOP, not "Trump's party". Yet, the Trump administration continues to support the repression of workers unions, environmental deregulation, foreign and domestic imperialism, state-sponsored terrorism, corporatocracy, mass incarceration, and other common tools of the neoliberal State. Yes, his economic policies are populist and nationalist, his immigration policies and other things, b…

I threw you a softball, and you couldn't even name one.

You're still confused about what neoliberalism is. It really is just "vibes" to progressives apparently.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#270

Post by polnoner »

dostick wrote: post #13

> We have to think now about how to reduce job losses so that everyone can share in the prosperity that AI creates. And I thought he is a smart man. This is so last century thinking. We need to prepare that there will definitely be no jobs for everyone and that will be falling all the time, it’s not a one-time event you should “prepare for”. There’s nothing to prepare, we already have funds and productivity to feed a…

We are really good at figuring out how to make toys that are in short supply so you have to invest all this time in acquiring the toys, for nothing more than the social signal involved that comes from the circular reason that the toys are hard to acquire.

We will figure new methods of scarce toy production. To believe otherwise seems delusional to me.

There is also this problem with UBI that I don't know how it can be solved. I see it in a certain percentage of people I know. Maybe 15-20%. As soon as they get paid that money is spent and usually spent on bullshit. Any hint of credit worthiness was used up a long time ago because it is the same process. If you gave them a daily morning UBI amount they would be broke by dinner and hungry. It is very hard to explain what causes this. To pretend this doesn't exist also seems completely delusional to me.

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