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The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

theatlantic.com

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Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#121

Post by bluecheese452 »

general1465 wrote: post #99
hamdingers wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully automated luxury space fascism doesn't really need buyers. A risk of high automation/post-scarcity is that abundance exists but remains under the control of people who are not interested in justice or equality or freedom. Lots of people feel that describes the leadership of most AI tech companies. If they don't need your labor, and they don't need you as a customer, and they don't care about you as a person...…

But that also assume that peasants do not have agency and won't trigger another French Revolution.

They may they may not. The nobility has learned a lot in the past 200+ years. Powerful propaganda machines, powerful weaponry, and a small group of loyalists have proven extremely effective at controlling large populations.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#122

Post by [deleted] »

aspenmartin wrote: post #45

Ignoring CEO predictions, can anyone point to any major revolutionary technology that had a net negative impact on quality of life and employment statistics? AI is an incredibly powerful technological shift in our way of life but where is the net employment hit taking place? Unemployment numbers remain stable. Revolutions like this do create widening inequality while also increasing long run productivity. Yes inequal…

[deleted]

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#123

Post by bluecheese452 »

aspenmartin wrote: post #45

Ignoring CEO predictions, can anyone point to any major revolutionary technology that had a net negative impact on quality of life and employment statistics? AI is an incredibly powerful technological shift in our way of life but where is the net employment hit taking place? Unemployment numbers remain stable. Revolutions like this do create widening inequality while also increasing long run productivity. Yes inequal…

Agriculture for starters. The internet. The automobile.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#124

Post by bluecheese452 »

aspenmartin wrote: post #113
mrhottakes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing the macro view with the personal. Try losing your job and being told "don't worry, your quality of life will improve over time!" Would you respond positively?

My point is: you can say the exact same thing for any other major technological revolution. Would you have preferred we stopped making the internet because some people didn’t fare well in the transition? The genie is out of the bottle so what do people want to happen here?

Yes? Life was almost certainly better before the internet.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#125

Post by _DeadFred_ »

simianwords wrote: post #69
throwaway-11-1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the fact no one can actually describe these "new jobs" makes #2 appear increasingly more probable.

You can’t have predicted that an SDE 6 in Google working on ad tech using Google spanner and optimising for SEO at 1989. That’s why you can’t say how jobs can be created now.

They could though. They could see job creation occurring AS the internet grew. I saw Netscape become an actual company. Saw CISCO grow. Saw tons of startups that employed people and saw the kinds of jobs it was bringing.

AI proponents says 'jobs appeared in the past after X, therefor they will magically appear in the future after Y' ignoring the industrial revolution started in the late 1700s and the lifestyle they brag about it delivering didn't come along until the late 1940s/1950s.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#126

Post by palmotea »

Henchman21 wrote: post #118
palmotea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is almost like the interconnectedness the internet has given us has laid bare the fact that human institutions aren’t to be trusted. That the longer an institution exists the further it drifts from whatever its stated purpose. That they all tend towards corruption, aggregation of power, and actions that are by most people’s definition evil. Careful with that. I think that kind of perfectionist, all-or-nothing th…

> Careful with that Fair point -- none of us want to be in the situation where all our current institutions have failed and there's nothing to replace them. That is chaos and anarchy and a true mess. Even the most hardened ideologues put in that environment would want a more orderly society. "Order" is another word to be careful of. > I think the reality is human institutions require work to function, and if the comm…

> Our "elites" have set about breaking up our unity, fracturing us into smaller groups that can be managed. The "fashion" is definitely to denigrate anything and everything that would build unity. Judge the other. Accuse the foreigner. Demonize those who look different.

Yes, but I think your more specific examples are more liberal-coded, and leave a false impression. Liberals aren't immune. I'd say the biggest example of "fracturing us into smaller groups that can be managed" is political polarization. There are a lot of liberals that are unsalvageably deep into that, reject finding common ground (even in obviously self-defeating ways), and who seem to be able to only conceive of unity as being total domination of their other.

> But that interconnectedness has woken many people up. The people are starting to see clearly now that what has been required for much of human history may no longer be required. And so we see the existing power structure panic, and try and double down on whats worked in the past: violence, divide and conquer, rule through force.

Can you be more specific about who's been woken up?

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#127

Post by aspenmartin »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #124
aspenmartin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is: you can say the exact same thing for any other major technological revolution. Would you have preferred we stopped making the internet because some people didn’t fare well in the transition? The genie is out of the bottle so what do people want to happen here?

Yes? Life was almost certainly better before the internet.

Ok so you’re the most powerful person in your country in 1995, what’s your strategy? “I’m going to fight as hard as possible to legislate away the infra buildout and internet companies” and tank your country’s economy while other countries eat your lunch?

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#128

Post by pchristensen »

electroly wrote: post #105
thomascgalvin wrote: post #5

People like Altman and Musk are saying that Universal Basic Income will be necessary once AI has fully automated away most jobs, but at the same time they aggressively fight against any kind of tax policy that would allow UBI to function. I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving; they're trying to convince us that there will be a solution to the destruction of the economy as we know it, so that we'll…

Just because a hypocrite says something doesn't mean that thing is wrong. If a drug addict tells you not to use drugs, they're still right about that. UBI is the solution, isn't it? Capitalism both requires everyone to have a job while at the same time providing no guarantee that jobs are available. The idea doesn't get tainted just because the words left the mouths of a few rich hypocrites. We have to do it despite…

UBI is an "entitlement". Just look at how well a certain slice of the powerful view other "entitlements" like Obamacare or Social Security.

I like the idea of UBI, but the biggest problem with UBI is that it relies on the government to fund it, and the government can be controlled and subverted. UBI might go away, get held up by government shutdowns, not be indexed to inflation, etc - there's a ton of ways things that could go wrong if peoples' entire livelihoods are under the control of one entity.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#129

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

mrhottakes wrote: post #104
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree with your conclusion, this line of reasoning makes no sense in a two party state where each party offers a menu of positions. Supporters are forced to make tradeoffs and pretending otherwise just gives you an incoherent picture of reality.

In which states does the Republican party support increasing taxes?

"Two party state" as in a government where politics are bifurcated. In a one party state, a citizen's voting history isn't informative whatsoever about their beliefs. In a direct democracy, their votes give you a complete map of the positions on any issue that came up. In the US, we only know that an R voter prefers the entire set of R policies over the entire set of D policies. Maybe they're pro-taxes, pro-welfare, anti-immigrant, pro-life, and pro-gun, and they weight these positions such that it makes sense to sacrifice the taxes and welfare to get the rest. So, while the party is anti-taxes, everyone who supports it may not be.

Re: The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

#130

Post by thomascgalvin »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #109
randycupertino wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how resistant American voters and politicians are against any sort of welfare or social assistance I doubt UBI would ever be possible here. Remember the backlash against "ObamaPhones" and "welfare queens!" We can't even get mandatory paid parental leave approved; UBI would be a non-starter. Americans are fine with low taxes for billionaires and don't mind high inequality as one of their core beliefs is that upw…

When the checks had trumps name on them during the pandemic they loved it. They don’t hate welfare on principle, they hate it when the propaganda tells them to hate it.

They love programs that benefit them, and hate programs that benefit the "wrong" people. Also, the definition of "wrong people" is very easy to guess.
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