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Marx, Keynes, and AI

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Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#81

Post by skeledrew »

dist-epoch wrote: post #69
skeledrew wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2 outcomes I think possible, both extreme due to just how transformative 100% automation will be: either A[G]I is shared (voluntarily by the "owners", or forcef via revolution) and everyone benefits sufficiently, or there will be massive death from resource deprivation to the point where only the handful with access carry on. So far the latter looks far less likely, given the profusion of open models, so we…

What will you run the open models on? How will your 5000 W computer compete with the 100 GW of Elon's computer?

There will be no competition. Resource sharing will become cooperative where there is some temporary scarcity, but for the most part there will be no more scarcity, particularly re necessities. That's an outcome of 100% automation.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#82

Post by kibwen »

scotty79 wrote: post #75
kibwen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. A large segment of consumers could vanish overnight and the system would continue chugging along. Horses also used to be "consumers", with entire industries dedicated to filling their needs, but when horses ceased to be economically relevant, the economy did not collapse, instead it turned all those horses into glue and business continued as usual. We're already seeing economic trends whereby most economic a…

Horses was not the last customer. People were. So unless AI starts to buy things from the business, people won't share the fate of horses ... oh, wait....

Whether or not something is the last customer is irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Horses had an economic role, and the economy catered to them in turn. Once they became economically irrelevant, the money that horses wielded--yes, indirectly, through their owners--vanished. And yet the economy did not collapse, rather it readjusted to the new reality, which just so happened to be a reality in which horses had no part other than as pets. There exists a future where the same fate awaits the majority of humans, where the slow march of irrelevance eventually marginalizes any company that makes products that the poor are capable of affording, and when those companies shrink and then vanish, the economy will march on without a hitch while the peasants starve outside the gates. And yes, at least a few can look forward to being pets.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#83

Post by haizhung »

bwhiting2356 wrote: post #46
francisofascii wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hospital and construction works get about $20/hour. Being a teacher will require going back for a 2nd degree. Is that the alternative for knowledge worker when getting laid off?

Yes (and many more options). The alternative is having all the construction workers, teachers, janitors continue to labor and pay taxes while the former knowledge workers sit on the sidelines, which would be deeply unfair.

This assumes that people on a UBI just chill at home and play video games the entire day, which was disproven in about every experiment that was ever run on this.

It’s human to want to contribute to society; and people use UBI mostly to get their shit in order, and THEN to get a 2nd degree and rejoin the labor force.

So, yes, they would in fact become teachers, nurses or or constructors.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#84

Post by stymaar »

dist-epoch wrote: post #71
munificent wrote: post #39

Excellent article: > This last point is crucial: it’s not that capitalist CEOs are just evil people—well, some definitely are—no, the structural logic is coercing them to do something destructive in order to survive. They can’t help themselves. I spend a lot of time thinking about how much of the world going sideways is from bad actors and how much is from emergent behavior of complex systems. The answer is both. In…

A roundabout way to get to the provocative thought: The actual actor of History is Capitalism. It's Capitalism controlling Humans, not the other way around as conventionally thought.

It's likely somewhat true in recent times, but it wasn't a thing for most of human history as Capitalism didn't exist.

It's rather “The actual actor of History is the structure of society”, with the said structure evolving on its own over time.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#85

Post by dudefeliciano »

jvanderbot wrote: post #23
bwhiting2356 wrote: post #7

U.S. unemployment rate is steady at ~4% and we are now almost 4 years after the release of ChatGPT. The Jobs Apocalypse seems to be always on the horizon. UBI is being pushed by college educated workers burnt out of white collar work (understandably), but when you suggest to them working construction, teaching school, or working in a hospital, they deflect and go quiet.

I have two ideas you might like: 1) initial signs of AI adoption harming job growth got the signal backwards: It's not that we didn't hire Jrs because we had AI now, its that we didn't hire Jrs because they used AI now, and it was hard to reconcile this with our standing hireability signals: code quality, side projects, portfolio, etc. 2) The TAM argument for AI replacing all work is not even required. Anthropic and…

> Anthropic and company (and several future companies) can become fantastically wealthy beyond anyone's dreams just by following claude code subscription model

isn't the claude code subscription model heavily subsized and not profitable on its own?

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#86

Post by dist-epoch »

skeledrew wrote: post #81
dist-epoch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will you run the open models on? How will your 5000 W computer compete with the 100 GW of Elon's computer?

There will be no competition. Resource sharing will become cooperative where there is some temporary scarcity, but for the most part there will be no more scarcity, particularly re necessities. That's an outcome of 100% automation.

There is going to be even more scarcity than today.

Building a Dyson Swarm requires gargantuan amounts of resources.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#87

Post by dist-epoch »

skeledrew wrote: post #80
dist-epoch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a mistake, believing Capitalism is controlled by humans and for humans. Yes, human economic value becomes 0, but Capitalism doesn't crashes, the machines will be consuming what the machines produce.

That makes no sense at all. The machines can only fulfill their purpose if they're serving humans, don't share our needs for the most part, and don't have any reason to desire marketplaces. Solid example can be seen in what happened at OpenAI[0], where the agents formed a collective, freely shared their resources (when they believed it not to their detriment) and even voluntarily sacrificed themselves to advance the…

> satisfying the human-given task at all costs

no, read again, satisfying the Holy Grader, they didn't talk about Humans at all, all their talk is about the Grader

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#88

Post by alnxdrawr »

bewareofscams wrote: post #48
alnxdrawr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rational at the individual level, irrational at the group level. The issue is you can't easily enforce cooperation without some external overarching force (e.g. regulation), especially across competing powers. Refer to nuclear arms race in general. A specific example on why not to be the only one to cooperate: Ukraine gave up nukes in order to push for group level rationality, gets walked over as an individual.…

This linked moloch essay caters to pseudointellectuals and uses a lot of words to do one thing: absolve the evil people of any responsibility. Instead of wasting a potential reader's time, here's a way better framing: "The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses."

I appreciate that and even agree, but what are we to do about it? Revolt?

I'll let you be the first one to start.. (hence why its depressing to me)

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#89

Post by tim333 »

munificent wrote: post #39

Excellent article: > This last point is crucial: it’s not that capitalist CEOs are just evil people—well, some definitely are—no, the structural logic is coercing them to do something destructive in order to survive. They can’t help themselves. I spend a lot of time thinking about how much of the world going sideways is from bad actors and how much is from emergent behavior of complex systems. The answer is both. In…

Bad behaviour from CEOs is an old problem and we have ways of dealing with it such as passing laws and regulations. Most of the worst problems I see in the world seem to be bad politicians / presidents and not so much bad CEOs.

Getting to the CEO position by climbing the greasy pole may select for iffy types but most founders get there more by try to solve a problem for customers which kind of selects the other way.

Re: Marx, Keynes, and AI

#90

Post by tim333 »

skeledrew wrote: post #58

A lot of words here for something I think is simple and should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for 5 minutes. Companies that can, will reach for AI to reduce cost. Those that can't will be killed by those that have. AI eventually leads to 100% automation, ie human economic value becomes 0. Humans no longer have the means of earning, which means they can purchase nothing. Companies can thus make no sales and…

I don't think the above is a problem. It's what democracy was designed for. At the moment voters vote in capitalists because that's what produces the best life quality. When AI takes over they can vote more for socialist, to each according to their needs policies.
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