Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 268 posts

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#171

Post by maverick_iceman »

anigbrowl wrote: post #9
problems wrote: post #7

People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. I'm not so sure that this time is different - despite all the insistence, I'm sure it seemed just as serious every other time before too.

It would be facile to ignore the massive and frequently bloody consequences of such previous economic disruptions. People didn't just go through a period of anxiety and then drift into new jobs and feel content again during previous industrial revolutions.

Exactly what were the bloody consequences of tractors or printing presses? If you just say a large number of wars/civil unrest took place during the industrial revolution then the periods before it were no less bloody.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#172

Post by maverick_iceman »

anigbrowl wrote: post #114
lend000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You frame the disruptions as if they were not a net benefit to society. Sure, governments could have banned the printing press and stayed in the dark ages (scribes would still be making a good living, though.) Edit: it all depends on tone... I still read the comment with the tone that implies disruptions as being as negative as they are positive, whereas I would frame disruptions are more positive. Granted, that's no…

I agree with you about the net benefit in purely economic terms, but it's easy to overweight the benefit when you were born after the costs were paid. Industrialization of production also inevitably led to the industrialization of warfare and we know how that turned out. I can't say with any certainty that we're definitely better off than if WW2 had never happened. Suppose it had not, and that there had been slower t…

Technological changes caught WW2? A manic dictator, German resentment over Treaty of Versailles had nothing to do with it?

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#173

Post by prodigal_erik »

dragontamer wrote: post #19
rick_perez wrote: post #11

We don't need AI to end the middle class. Services like Uber are replacing what used to be a stable job by fewer drivers with a job now done by many more drivers for peanuts. It's almost a way of taking an industry and redistributing the wealth.

> Services like Uber are replacing what used to be a stable job by fewer drivers with a job now done by many more drivers for peanuts. Right idea, wrong complaint. GPS is the automated tool that killed the Taxi. There was a time when it took specialized knowledge to know the layout of a city. GPS took away the one edge the Taxi-industry had... experience in driving and roads. Uber is just the first major company to t…

The driver's GPS made driving more accessible. But the passenger's GPS was even more important, because tourists finally know when they're being ripped off.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#174

Post by codexon »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #108
optimuspaul wrote: post #74

Once everything is automated there will be little need for money, we'll all be kings! Damn hell ass kings!

This is the bit I can't understand about the nay sayers. AI promises a world of everything you could want. The problem is the current way of assigning goods (money for labour) is obsolete. The really funny thing (to me) is the people who'd benefit most by this are the ones wailing the most. It's the disconnects that confuse me the most. "What about houses, how can we afford a house without a job?" is a complaint I he…

> Like for some reason AI won't reduce construction costs to near 0.

Ok and how will you pay the guy who owns the lumber if you have nothing he wants? And the guy who owns the construction bots? And the owner of the land?

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#175

Post by noisy_boy »

laughfactory wrote: post #132

The problem with UBI is inflation. Give everyone another $1000/month (or whatever) and all you've done is make every existing dollar in the economy worth less.

This is exactly the question I don't see answered. How will you handle increased prices? Unless instead of $1000/pm, you give an equivalent purchasing power/quota based on normal/average/reasonable per-capita consumption. Like a token that allows you to buy a certain amount of food/clothes/medicines etc. So what happens if I don't need to buy anymore clothes today but need more medicines but another guy is in a reverse situation? How about we translate this purchasing quota into points and have an exchange for people to trade them? Did we re-invent barter system/money in another form?

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#176

Post by maverick_iceman »

lhnz wrote: post #44
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read things less literally and you'll be less wrong.

Can you explain what you mean? There seems to be little connection between the category of blue-collar work and programming other than it is a form of 'building'. The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. That's not a literal interpretation, that's the core meaning -- programming is not analogous to physical labor or 'unskilled' work.

A welder's job doesn't require too much physical labor and a lot of skill but it would still be classified as blue collar.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#177

Post by maverick_iceman »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
wnevets wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. were they wrong tho?

They weren't. All of the things the OP listed resulted in dramatic (and often very disruptive and painful) changes for the Middle Class. Personally, I hate the whole "people have been saying this forever" type dismissals. They are "mid-brow", as PG would call it: they look intelligent on the surface by giving the illusion of a broader perspective, but don't actually address the point being brought up and don't add an…

I don't see how they don't address the point being brought up. They explicitly point out past scenarios where these sort of predictions were wrong. I think the peddlers of these predictions are disingenuous and intellectually lazy. If they want others to take them seriously they need to explain why their predictions don't fall under the same criticisms.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#178

Post by maverick_iceman »

prodmerc wrote: post #38
problems wrote: post #7

People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. I'm not so sure that this time is different - despite all the insistence, I'm sure it seemed just as serious every other time before too.

"Forever" is before the space race, before everyone was driving instead of riding, before everyone had the Internet, TV or even radios in their home. Every step in industrialization has hurt a lot of people, and their number is increasing every time. This time it's going to be millions. I don't know if that's enough for a critical mass of sorts for some huge revolt, it may be.

Communists are dreaming of the revolution since 1848, it never arrives.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#179

Post by maverick_iceman »

pygy_ wrote: post #95
problems wrote: post #7

People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. I'm not so sure that this time is different - despite all the insistence, I'm sure it seemed just as serious every other time before too.

Tell that to the surplus horses that bootstrapped the pet food industry when Ford democratized cars...

They got jobs in the glue factory. ;)

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#180

Post by maverick_iceman »

rrggrr wrote: post #23

>McAfee pointed to newly collected data that shows a sharp decline in middle class job creation since the 1980s. False. McAfee will find a corresponding increase in middle class jobs in India and China and elsewhere for the same time period. The narrative that says automation has destroyed the middle class is demonstrably overstated to the point of being close to false. Employers arbitraged labor rates across borders…

Absolutely. A lot of these people don't seem to see the world beyond US. If x job losses in the US is compensated by 2x-3x job gains in India/China, why is that a bad thing? Are Westerns somehow more worthy than people from third world countries?
Post reply on HN