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

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241–250 of 268 posts

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

#241
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea from the CP Grey video on automation: Better technology did not make more better jobs for horses. Horses are still around, but the population peaked around the turn of the century (19th-20th). How good does automation have to get before large portions of the population find themselves in the same position as early 20th century horses.

People can do mental labor. Horses can't. Automation can't.

Automation can absolutely do manual labor. How do you think cars used to be made in the past? By workers manually attaching the parts together. Today however we have giant machines that perform those tasks.

It's only a matter of time before other forms of manual labor are automated. It won't happen all at once, but gradually.

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

#242
Well, I dint know what they decded the ethics were for biotechnology, but genetically engineering seeds so that farmers depend on the auxiliary herbicides from singular corporations strikes me as unethical. Not to mention that farmers are reliant on those same corporations for seed itself. Seeds that have been cultivated for hundreds of thousands of years are getting replaced with zombie varieties that disrupt ecologies. This is a crisis. We are losing our collective seed memory.

To me, capitalism is not about free markets, it's about debt markets. Maybe that's because the only capitalism I've ever known is ideologically restricted. Its champions are often hypocrites of their religion, where income from rent is deemed productive while work done by a mother in taking care of her children is consumptive and indebted.

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

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can do mental labor. Horses can't. Automation can't.

Automation can absolutely do manual labor. How do you think cars used to be made in the past? By workers manually attaching the parts together. Today however we have giant machines that perform those tasks. It's only a matter of time before other forms of manual labor are automated. It won't happen all at once, but gradually.

I said mental labour, not manual.

Yes, most physical labor may be automated... eventually, a lot of that is still fairly far off - we don't even have completely automated farms yet.

I'm more talking things like development, writing, design, marketing and sales. Things like that we'll probably always want some human touch to, even if it can be machine assisted in some ways.

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

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the whole idea is that if people have their basic needs met, they'll be able to be more creative and productive. Homeless people are the perfect counter example.

No. Homeless people almost all have mental illness, substance abuse problems, or some combination of the two. I'm not seeing why you and the OP think they are representative of the general population in any way. They are, pretty much by definition, people who are too messed up to function in society.

Why wouldn't people with mental illness or substance abuse problems be able to be creative and productive if their basic needs were met?

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does come up? In the case of pensions and royalties, it is wealth from prior work, so it's not really in the same category morally (for a culture that believes in the virtue of work). Social security and inherited wealth definately do have a sort of stigma attached to them though, precisely because of the lifestyles that "trust fund children" tend to live, and because the poor are already stigmatized in general. T…

Maybe I haven't been listening at the right times, but I've never heard someone suggesting that we should raise the retirement age or cut Social Security benefits because old people will be bored or lack dignity if they're not compelled to remain in waged labor. (I have heard other arguments for raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, but not the they-must-remain-busy argument). A freestanding belief in the "…

"Early Retirement May Be The Kiss Of Death, Study Finds": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/early-retirement-may-be-...

"Study: Later retirement may help prevent dementia": http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/15/study-r...

Other references are easy to find. Giving up the structure and purpose of one's life and building a new one on your own is not an easy transition to make, regardless of what young people think.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If UBI is garnishable/attachable, credit card companies could simply wait to get paid from a slice of future UBI payments, meaning there might be increased risk of over-extension. (I haven't thought deeply enough about whether it should or shouldn't be garnishable. I lean towards the idea that it shouldn't, but then that makes it less valuable in certain ways.)

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/sally-herigstad-... > Another rule is that they cannot take more than the excess of your earnings over 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (currently $7.25 per hour). That means $217.50 per week (30 X $7.25) is safe from any garnishment at all. 30 7.25 52 = $11,310 You are largely immune to garnishment on a $12k/year UBI (for instance) under existing law. Bankruptcy wo…

Thanks for that data!

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

#247
I don't find many articles talking about how AI integration in the industry could lower the production costs in many markets, that would allow consumers to be able to buy products cheaper, so they could work less to be able to pay basic stuff.

Also it would allow people to be more capable to scale multiple tasks, for instance: instead of being a taxi driver you become the manager of a driver less taxi.

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

#248
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why do people still work 40+ hour weeks" Mostly it's about upbringing. People are taught to have expectations for themselves and they strive to fulfill them. 15h would be bare subsistence for most, and that's not good enough. The minute they can live their expectations without work they usually check out; e.g. 45 year old "retired" government workers bankrupting their muni/county/state with union negotiated pensions…

Both something that doesn't exist, and also something you've mischaracterized. Pensions are delayed payments for work already done.

>> Pensions are delayed payments for work already done.

That's your view, not mine. Bankrupt governments are a fact for the both of us.

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

#249
post #237

That threat has many thinkers entertaining the idea of a universal basic income, a guaranteed living wage paid by the government to anyone left out of the workforce. But McAfee believes this would only make the problem worse, because it would eliminate the incentive for entrepreneurship and other activity that could create new jobs as the old ones fade away. Others question the psychological effects of the idea. “A u…

A point i'm always surprised is not discussed much in the basic income debate is loss of control. Whenever a job is performed by a person, that person has the power to refuse doing the job or put their own spin on it. The effect is that there some basic checks of ethics. This keeps businesses from doing things blatantly against the interests of society and ensures that CEOs with grand visions of shaping humanity are…

Many things that people do without it being "a job" have a significant impact on shaping society. To the degree that your concern is legitimate (and I think to some degree it is) it is a concern about automation irrespective of basic income.

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Existing forms of social assistance in Western countries often are available to non-citizens and are usually more strongly linked to past payments into the system and/or intention to work and contribute to the system when they can. For obvious practical reasons (a suggested stipend of $10k PPP is well above the median salary internationally) if one destroys the link with work contributions, then numbers must be manag…

> Existing forms of social assistance in Western countries often are available to non-citizens and are usually more strongly linked to past payments into the system and/or intention to work and contribute to the system when they can. Most social assistance programs in the US are not linked to past payments, the most notable exception being social security, which pays only retirees. And limiting benefits to people who…

> Then it's a good thing a UBI isn't built on that, since its purpose is to provide a safety net without creating the poverty trap that existing means-tested programs do by withdrawing benefits at rates approaching or sometimes even exceeding 100% of marginal income for low and middle income people.

You're responding to an entire subthread revolving around the idea that the great benefit of UBI is that it allows adults (except foreign ones) to "find their own amusements and purpose" and avoid "bullshit jobs" and the social acceptability of it as a permanent and exclusive income source...

There are many ways of designing welfare systems to avoid the "welfare trap" of excessive effective marginal rates of income taxation, of which UBI is probably the least efficient.

The only argument which favours UBI over more modest alternate welfare reforms more specifically targeted at reducing benefit withdrawal rates at the margin is the frequently-made philosophical argument that it's fundamentally unreasonable if not immoral to make handouts contingent on willingness to work and pressure them to take jobs. I'm simply pointing out that few, if any of the people making that argument are opposed to subjecting foreigners to similar indignities if they seek to enter the country, and moreover the sustainability of a UBI is entirely dependent on people not lucky enough to be citizens needing to work for a living for the foreseeable future.

Needless to say, advocates of systems of social assistance not built on the principle that it's entirely unreasonable to ask people to work and/or assess their fitness to do so are not guilty of the same level of staggering hypocrisy when accepting the status quo of work requirements and thresholds imposed on foreigners seeking to enter a country.

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