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

The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 118 posts

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#21

Post by majormajor »

dozerly wrote: post #3

Maybe we need a better-scaling legal system that does not take years to resolve simple disputes. I am not convinced AI can replace lawyers, but more people having access to the law without extremely costly fees does sound good to me.

Moving from an adversarial each-party-has-lawyers-presenting-as-extreme-a-case-as-possibly-can-be-made-for-their-side system to something more like expert arbitrators and independent/court fact-finders would avoid the 'bury them in paperwork and filings' lawyer-cost explosions.

Usually the concerns I've seen are around the lines of "the experts are gonna favor the powerful incumbents who they see a lot" buttttt if our system is already doing that AND costing way more anyway, barring entry entirely to many, is that so much worse? Even assuming we can't try to regulate that?

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#22

Post by simonw »

> AI-induced demand is overwhelming bureaucracies built for the analogue age—from Dutch municipal-tax appeals to the Canadian privacy regulator to parking-ticket tribunals in every major city. In Britain workers now ask large language models, rather than human lawyers, to help them sue their bosses quickly and cheaply. Claims have surged and backlogs grown. A case filed today may not be heard until 2030.

This is an example of a larger pattern: AI assistance breaks any human system which was designed for a world in which bureaucratic friction keeps volume manageable.

Turns out that's a whole lot of human systems.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#23

Post by Eueudhsbsj32 »

underlipton wrote: post #5

I'll read the article once I can get past the paywall, but something important to note in the meantime: "The tragedy of the commons" was debunked years ago: https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false... The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a…

Isn't Ostrom just saying that with effective regulations informed by local knowledge, it is possible for shared resources to be successfully managed?

The "tragedy of the commons" is just what happens in the absence of effective rules governing the use of a resource when individuals are free to act in their own interests.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#24

Post by jackvalentine »

Even the “pre-case” legal stuff is out of control. In my Australian organisation we’ve noticed a deluge of what I can only call “privacy demands” that talk the talk… but have the jurisdiction or subject legislation wrong.

But AI told them they could demand these things (even if it would be illegal for us to comply! Think KYC stuff.) and they don’t have the skill to criticise the AI or know when to stop.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#25

Post by rfv6723 »

underlipton wrote: post #5

I'll read the article once I can get past the paywall, but something important to note in the meantime: "The tragedy of the commons" was debunked years ago: https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false... The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a…

Ostrom didn’t “debunk” the tragedy of the commons. She showed that it can be avoided when you have stable communities, clear boundaries, repeated interactions, monitoring, and real consequences for free riders.

The problem is that those conditions are much harder to maintain in a highly mobile, anonymous modern society. When people can easily enter, exit, and dump costs on strangers, trust and enforcement break down — which is basically where the tragedy of the commons comes from.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#26

Post by ang_cire »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #12
jmyeet wrote: post #9

So I have to wonder if this article written about clogging up employment courts with AI-generated cases is itself generated because the premise (in the title and the article) refers to the "tragedy of the commons", which was debunked almost 20 years ago. For a bit of history, the term was the title of a 1968 essay [1] based in part on ideas that originated earlier. It becamse popular as a driver for privatization of…

It's the first time I hear something like this; if that's true, then this must be one major case of meaning shift, because since forever I've known and used and seen used this term to refer to the flaws of privatization. The solution to tragedy of the commons is literally a central authority . It's, like, the opposite of "driver of privatization".

Tragedy of the Commons was specifically the idea that cooperation would fail due to selfish competition, so some force was needed to administer it.

Economists used it to argue both for privatization and against, but always for top-down, authoritative control.

In the US, it was almost always used as an anti-"socialist" argument for privatization, by arguing that the free market would in fact be an analogue for the "natural" competition, because as we all know the Free Market always finds the most equitable and consumer-desired outcome.

I'd imagine in Europe it was more common to argue for government management.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#27

Post by kian »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #12
jmyeet wrote: post #9

So I have to wonder if this article written about clogging up employment courts with AI-generated cases is itself generated because the premise (in the title and the article) refers to the "tragedy of the commons", which was debunked almost 20 years ago. For a bit of history, the term was the title of a 1968 essay [1] based in part on ideas that originated earlier. It becamse popular as a driver for privatization of…

It's the first time I hear something like this; if that's true, then this must be one major case of meaning shift, because since forever I've known and used and seen used this term to refer to the flaws of privatization. The solution to tragedy of the commons is literally a central authority . It's, like, the opposite of "driver of privatization".

Tragedies of the commons are often aimed to be 'resolved' through central authority, but another way of stating what's happening there is that they are being resolved by someone being granted the ownership right over the commons (in the cases you're mentioning, government). Therefor, it hasn't exactly meaning-shifted, but 'contextual' implications of the term for the reader are definitely bimodal with respect to privatization.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#28

Post by diogocp »

underlipton wrote: post #5

I'll read the article once I can get past the paywall, but something important to note in the meantime: "The tragedy of the commons" was debunked years ago: https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false... The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a…

> The features of successful systems

The tragedy of the commons is what happens in the unsuccessful systems.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#29

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

Gander5739 wrote: post #19
theptip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this article quite myopic. This is not a “tragedy of the commons”, it’s just a deficit of state capacity. The state needs to use AI to make bureaucracy instantaneous. That’s the only option, unless you ban AI for this kind of thing (not gonna happen).

So how do you propose to deal with the inevitable errors using AI would cause?

You cant fool me. It's AI all the way down.

Re: The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

#30

Post by eddythompson80 »

majormajor wrote: post #21
dozerly wrote: post #3

Maybe we need a better-scaling legal system that does not take years to resolve simple disputes. I am not convinced AI can replace lawyers, but more people having access to the law without extremely costly fees does sound good to me.

Moving from an adversarial each-party-has-lawyers-presenting-as-extreme-a-case-as-possibly-can-be-made-for-their-side system to something more like expert arbitrators and independent/court fact-finders would avoid the 'bury them in paperwork and filings' lawyer-cost explosions. Usually the concerns I've seen are around the lines of "the experts are gonna favor the powerful incumbents who they see a lot" buttttt if ou…

How is that different from the current system? Wouldn’t you just bury those fact-finders in paperwork? Or are you trying to shift the cost and responsibility of the discovery phase to the court instead? Would the court pass it through to the plaintiffs/defendants like the lawyers do or is it just covered by the state?
Post reply on HN