111–120 of 124 posts
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Based on https://annas-archive.pk/blog/physical-destruction.html I wouldn't assume being in a niche is enough.
Could you please elaborate?
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Here's a very strong take on the situation, more for discussion than a true representation of my own beliefs: The ML models will be trained as long as we as the human society in charge allow them to be trained. Progress only happens if society allows it to happen. The commercial AI proponents are trying to do an end-run around societal adjustments, forcing change at a speed that is to fast for proper responses. It co…
Name one technology society has decided to stop and it stopped. There isn't one. Lots of people have made angry sounds about it, and made doom and gloom predictions about them, but none have ever been stopped. Nuclear hasn't been stopped so don't think that's your great comeback.
- CFCs are completely banned (Montreal Protocol)
- drag-reducing swimsuits
- some Persistant Organic Pollutants were completely banned (Stockholm convention)
It can be done.
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We are seeing workers get laid off to free up more money for AI and only the AI techies are making more money? It could be temporary, but the way AI is currently owned and structured, the owners and investors are positioned to reap almost all of the financial benefits whereas workers will just be expected to do more with AI for the same pay and hours worked.
Workers are getting hired and fired in all kinds of economic situations all the time. At the moment, overall (US) unemployment at 4.1% hasn't moved all that much since the end of the pandemic, and is on the lower end of average overall by historic standards. We don't see any impact from AI so far. As far as I can tell so far, the benefits from AI seem to flow mostly into customer surplus, not towards owners and inves…
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You should ask a working woman if she'd rather be at home doing dishes and laundry by hand without pay
Unless the husband was a jerk, he would have understood that this is a division of work, so the spouse who worked at home had actually earned a half of the pay received at the payed job of their husband. Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, it was not at all unusual for the wives to handle most of the finances, so…
This is probably the best division to keep the wife happy, but from a certain point of view, housework should be paid at whatever rate you'd have to pay a maid to do the same.
> Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, [...]
Where are you getting your 'many past societies' like that from? You know that salaried out-of-the-home work isn't all that old, and wasn't all that common (until recently) even where it existed?
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The washing machine and dishwasher definitely did. I don't own a car, so I can't comment on that.
There are 4 differences between my home and that of my grandparents from one century ago, which indeed have reduced significantly the time spent with household chores: 1. Washing machine 2. Vacuum cleaner 3. Microwave oven 4. Electric refrigerator (but they had a cold underground cellar, while I no longer have such luxuries) There are also various modern tools that are not used in the normal day-to-day life, but only…
> (I never felt the need for an automatic dishwasher, because I never let them accumulate, I wash them instantly after use, even while cooking, because I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients).
Batching usually lowers the total amount of work you have to do. In any case, the dishwasher becomes more useful (for most people) as the household gets larger.
I find that when we cook and bake, we need the dishwasher more. If you only eat out or eat take-away, there's barely any washing up to do.
I thought of a fourth modern machine for your list: the elevator. But it only applies for some people.
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Hours spent at work have also gone down over the decades and leisure time has gone up. Even if that stat wasn't true and we all spent the same amount of time working more productively then that would still be good for society at large. This attitude of unwillingness to do anything except for direct personal gain isn't good for the world and isn't good for yourself.
Hours spent working haven't noticeably declined for people in Northern Europe for fifty years. I worked 40 hours a week in the UK in 1978, the usual working week in Norway now is 37.5 hours. I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivi…
The old jobs are a lot more productive. We just decided to consume a lot more, and also a lot more of things that are harder to make more productive, instead of taking extra leisure.
If you were willing to live a 1950s life (and it were legal), you could mostly do that on very little money today.
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> The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers. What makes you think so? What evidence do we have one way or another?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS85006173 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA
Btw, if you are looking for a villain, look at the land share of GDP. The capital share has been fairly steady.
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Workers are getting hired and fired in all kinds of economic situations all the time. At the moment, overall (US) unemployment at 4.1% hasn't moved all that much since the end of the pandemic, and is on the lower end of average overall by historic standards. We don't see any impact from AI so far. As far as I can tell so far, the benefits from AI seem to flow mostly into customer surplus, not towards owners and inves…
I hope you are right, but it definitely feels like everything is turning against workers. They might have jobs, but prices are such that they are still getting by or not at all.
Pick your favourite years when you think the economy was going great for workers, and look at some archived newspapers (or even just the headlines).
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What are the hard things AI can't do yet, then? Are you sure we shouldn't rather spend time getting better at, say, playing the piano? Assuming we're allowed to prioritize that in a world where the rich have all the money. (Looking at the local flow of money, I can't avoid the conclusion that my wages come indirectly mostly from the building of an extreme luxury product for an extremely rich person.)
> Are you sure we shouldn't rather spend time getting better at, say, playing the piano? Honesty, even if I could somehow make a decent living by doing that (you really can't), no I wouldn't.