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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

#161

Post by _DeadFred_ »

theshrike79 wrote: post #92
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…

AI is to many professions like the Knitting machines were to textile workers (where the word Luddite originated[0], people who opposed automation). Some "value" will be lost, but other will be generated. People WILL lose their jobs as what they did can either be done by AI directly or an AI Agent can write a script/program to do some or all what they did. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

'Because something happened in the past when we were fairly undeveloped, when almost nothing in society had been approached systematically, that same thing will happen in the future where we have systematically optimized everything we can. And we should bet civilization on that. Somehow, magically, everything will work out. And if you don't agree with magic, don't want to bet society on hopes of some magic solution appearing, you are the one denying reality and fighting progress'.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#162

Post by UtopiaPunk »

Balgair wrote: post #146
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…

All value is derived from labor. Marx agrees on this, Adam Smith agrees on this, John Locke agrees on this, heck even Keynes agrees on this; all (sensible) economists agree on this. If you do not have labor somewhere in the process, you do not have value. “Equal quantities of labor, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the laborer. In his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits; in the…

I basically agree all value is derived from labor, but a lot of modern economists do not.

There's are an interesting book called "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom" by Martin Haaglund. Part 2 of the book is really concerned with the Labor Theory of Value, and it articulated it in a way I'd never really understood before. It's hard to summarize in a short post, but here's an essay that engages with the ideas in a span of a few pages: https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/the-revival-of-heg...

Really, I encourage people to check out the book. It was at times challenging, and but always thought-provoking. Even when I found myself disagreeing (I have some fundamental disagreements with part 1), it helped me articulate my own worldview in a way that few books have before. It's something special. Anyway, the book really cemented and clarified my views on the labor theory of value.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#163

Post by _DeadFred_ »

parineum wrote: post #152
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not opposing automation. They were opposing loss of jobs, wages, dignity in work and all that. And they turned out to be completely right. AI is just the next attack from capitalism in a long line of attacks aimed at workers. And this time its coming for every single worker, given that the explicit purpose is to create AI that can replace every single person.

> AI is just the next attack from capitalism ... Technology, not capitalism.

Not at all. This technology could be deployed in many ways. We have written about benefiting ways it could be deployed to help society for 80 years. It is Capitalism that has decided to deploy it in the worst ways thought up.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#164

Post by throwaway34903 »

Balgair wrote: post #146
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…

All value is derived from labor. Marx agrees on this, Adam Smith agrees on this, John Locke agrees on this, heck even Keynes agrees on this; all (sensible) economists agree on this. If you do not have labor somewhere in the process, you do not have value. “Equal quantities of labor, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the laborer. In his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits; in the…

> All value is derived from labor... all (sensible) economists agree on this

The labor theory of value is one of multiple theories of values [1]. And it is still widely debated.

> Marx would say that the amount of value is the amount of effort that goes into the commodity, something we now know not to be true.

Marx would say the _exchange_ value of a commodity is proportional to the amount of _socially necessary labor time_ required to produce it. Again, something that debatable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)#Theories [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theor...

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#165

Post by _DeadFred_ »

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…

Video scoring people are feeling it. I think a world with Hanz Zimmer soundtracks, with Tron 2 with a Daft Punk soundtrack, is a richer world than one where soundtracks are machine generated.

Creative people actually do feel this way. There are huge discussions about it going on by actual creative people. Why are you hand waving that away and saying if they are discussing it they must not be adding any value, therefore their discussion is discarded? It's definitely a convenient position for you to take, but it doesn't seem like a real position when objectively great talent are taking the position you say only poor talent would take?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#166

Post by _DeadFred_ »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #108
sneak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But don't you know, 60 years later, after WW2, the labor market worked out. After a few minor details happened in between. So things turned out fine for the buggy drivers and you are freaking out just because you are the new buggy driver (things did not in fact work out for buggy drivers, but that's just a small detail glossed over because things worked out for people after WW2, we have no idea how buggy driver's lives turned out in our example of everything working out for buggy drivers).

Things will be fine (it might take another 60 years and a few minor details, but it will all magically work out, like it did then. Not for the buggy drivers though. They were fucked, broken people living on skid row grew so huge it was a popular trope in children's cartoons).

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#167

Post by UtopiaPunk »

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…

Mmm, kind of. Scarcity is definitely fundamental under capitalism. But what do we do in a theoretical, post-scarcity society?

The digitization of information and media combined with the Internet and widespread use of electronic devices practically means that in some important ways, we are already grappling with post-scarcity in certain fields. 600 years ago, "books" and other texts were rare and valuable, then there was an explosive transformation with the invention of the printing press. But while much easier, there was a still a laborious printing process and a copy of a book was still a valuable thing. Now, a "book" can exist as an .epub and be copied perfectly a million times practically for free. It is similarly true for movies, photos, recorded music, news articles, etc.

As a capitalist society, we've really struggled how to deal with this post-scarcity arrangement. We understand in the abstract that this stuff is important, and that creating it is a laborious process, but we do not really know how to assign copies of those works value (because, once created, they immediately become infinitely abundant). The best idea we've seem to have settled on is articifically creating scarcity by locking the digital works behind paywalls and subscription services that require an account, or maybe DRM paired with a EULA. But I think people generally, and the HN crowd specifically, understand that is a lousy arrangement.

Could energy become so abundant that it is also post-scarcity? Between fusion energy and advancements in solar, wind, and geothermal energy, maybe! It is a tantalizing vision to dream of, but what does that look like under capitalism?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#168

Post by sneak »

woile wrote: post #150
Ekaros wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in that same book there was scene about going far fast. Essentially doing that was still huge energy expenditure and done rarely. Just it being done for main character told that it was something Minds considered important. Culture is bit weird post-scarcity utopia. The space habitats are big and housing in such are plentiful. And basically just given away as toys to placate the fleshbags.

You reminded me that in the culture series a mind can teleport people through "Displacement". It's a very fast, but at the same time I don't think it serves for what OP wants, as it's very risky. It's like planes, we don't hand them spite of being very fast haha

It’s “very risky” in that it kills or fucks people up one in a million times. This is roughly 10x more dangerous than the average car trip in the USA, so, quite dangerous.

As TPOG is basically a scathing social commentary of the global west, the fact that something as low risk as driving to and from work for five days in a row was regarded as so dangerous as to only be undertaken in life or death necessity was not lost on me. Cars are insanity.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#169

Post by sneak »

gpderetta wrote: post #69
sneak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others. If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expe…

In "look to windward", on an orbital, limited tickets for a concert for a famous composer are assigned randomly. A black market forms for those tickets, mostly based on barter as of course they don't have money.

Unless they’d outlawed money, some unit of account and medium of exchange must emerge naturally, even in a post-scarcity society.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#170

Post by sneak »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #165
sneak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Video scoring people are feeling it. I think a world with Hanz Zimmer soundtracks, with Tron 2 with a Daft Punk soundtrack, is a richer world than one where soundtracks are machine generated. Creative people actually do feel this way. There are huge discussions about it going on by actual creative people. Why are you hand waving that away and saying if they are discussing it they must not be adding any value, therefo…

No movie studio would choose AI slop when people like John Williams or Hans Zimmer exist. That’s a ridiculous argument. It’s such a simple way to differentiate and compete. Whatever Williams cost, Lucas made it back 100x.

If AI gets good enough to replace them, then we can have a different discussion - but I don’t think you get truly great art without the full spectrum of human emotion and experience - that is, full AGI. In that case, all jobs are toast and we don’t need to have this discussion.

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