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AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

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Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#101

Post by Synaesthesia »

conartist6 wrote: post #91
Synaesthesia wrote: post #40

AI could be a boon for mankind. it can be a useful tool. We could employ it in a manner which provides more dignity for workers. That is, let them work less hours, have more leisure time etc. That necessitates something which will keep the powers of capital in check, and people don't seem to think that this is possible. Corporations are just so large and powerful, that people feel hopeless. Byt we could still get tog…

I see such positivity in your comment, but also every technology has promised to make everything easier and more convenient and so to give us more leisure time. What the evidence has shown is that the people who end up living the life of leisure are the ones who amass wealth and power, and everyone else is going to be stuck in the rat race because, well, we're living things. The rules we live by are: you can't win, y…

It's up to us to create the future we want to see.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#102

Post by Synaesthesia »

r33b33 wrote: post #99
Synaesthesia wrote: post #40

AI could be a boon for mankind. it can be a useful tool. We could employ it in a manner which provides more dignity for workers. That is, let them work less hours, have more leisure time etc. That necessitates something which will keep the powers of capital in check, and people don't seem to think that this is possible. Corporations are just so large and powerful, that people feel hopeless. Byt we could still get tog…

The only way to solve inequality created by concentration of AI superpowers will be extreme violence, and I'm tired of pretending that's not the case.

I don't think so, in fact it might be counterproductive. I think it could and should be done within existing structures. But it will require mass mobilisation and counters to mass propaganda.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#103

Post by theshrike79 »

simianwords wrote: post #84

This is a strange article. AI is the best thing to happen to meritocracy. Previously, knowledge was gatekept. Pretty much everyone has access to ChatGPT in India. You used to need the privilege of knowing the right people or knowing the right sources. But you don’t need that anymore. What honestly could be better for meritocracy than AI?

An AI that isn't a subscription service hosted in the USofA

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#104

Post by theshrike79 »

ares623 wrote: post #38

I opened 10 PRs in 20 minutes today and it felt great. If I extrapolate that to everything else with a straight line then everything looks good /s

I fixed a bunch of nitpicky PR comments just by saying "PR 69 has some comments, fix the issues" to Claude.

It opened the PR automatically, took the comments and applied the fixes (renaming a few things, simple refactoring and added a few unit tests).

Effort from me: maybe 5 minutes going through the PR comments and deciding they were super simple monkey work and 10 seconds typing instructions for Claude.

Then maybe 5 minutes of checking the work, commit and push.

All of this could've been done with a Github integrated Claude tbh without me in the loop more than accepting the changes one by one.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#105

Post by W6zVktFA »

simianwords wrote: post #85
est wrote: post #21

Feels like AI is speed-running us straight into last man (antithesis of Übermensch ), where the algorithms make the values and we’re just the training data.

What do you mean by last man?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#106

Post by Ferret7446 »

praptak wrote: post #18
barrell wrote: post #5

An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. I realize the hyperbolic framing of the idea, but none-the-less I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This article feels li…

Only if you assume that the only kind of value is the ability to be sold for a price. Marx would have a word about use value vs exchange value.

> Marx would have a word about use value vs exchange value.

Sounds like a semantics trick. Value is value. Sure, something can have a different value if you exchange it versus if you use it. It can also have a different value if you eat it, or drink it, or smash it, or wear it, or gift it to a family member, or gift it to a friend, or gift it to a lover. "Exchange" is simply one way of use.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#107

Post by simianwords »

theshrike79 wrote: post #103
simianwords wrote: post #84

This is a strange article. AI is the best thing to happen to meritocracy. Previously, knowledge was gatekept. Pretty much everyone has access to ChatGPT in India. You used to need the privilege of knowing the right people or knowing the right sources. But you don’t need that anymore. What honestly could be better for meritocracy than AI?

An AI that isn't a subscription service hosted in the USofA

i don't get it, what does USofA or subscription have to do with anything

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#108

Post by Ferret7446 »

sneak wrote: post #27
palmotea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. 1) I think it's the destruction of our value, as workers. Without an unthinkable change in society, we'll be discarded. 2) I thin…

There is a very strong argument that if your work output can be discarded effectively in favor of a firehose of mediocre slop, then it is a moral imperative that we stop employing human beings in those roles as it’s a terrible waste of a human life. The only people I see handwringing over AI slop replacing their jobs are people who produce things of quality on the level of AI slop. Nobody truly creative seems to feel…

But of course. You would only worry about AI if it will replace your job.

Factory workers didn't worry about cars, but buggy drivers did. Office workers didn't worry about factory automation, but factory workers did.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#109

Post by Ferret7446 »

r33b33 wrote: post #99
Synaesthesia wrote: post #40

AI could be a boon for mankind. it can be a useful tool. We could employ it in a manner which provides more dignity for workers. That is, let them work less hours, have more leisure time etc. That necessitates something which will keep the powers of capital in check, and people don't seem to think that this is possible. Corporations are just so large and powerful, that people feel hopeless. Byt we could still get tog…

The only way to solve inequality created by concentration of AI superpowers will be extreme violence, and I'm tired of pretending that's not the case.

You say that like inequality is a problem. If so, there's a really easy way to solve it: nuke the planet back to the stone age.

Personally, I'd rather have inequality if it means everyone can live a peaceful life. Let the rich have their yachts or whatever.

I don't see why the increased productivity provided by AI won't make things better, given that all of the ills of the world are caused by scarcity: that is, insufficient productivity.

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