271–280 of 725 posts
[flagged]
Equating “business” to “profound human intimacy” might be one of the most HackerNews comments of all time
If you disagree, feel free to argue your point instead of just scoffing at the idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is the point of Luddism! the original Luddite movement was not ipso facto opposed to progress, but rather to the societal harm caused by society-scale economic obsolescence. the entire history of technology is also powerful business interests smearing this movement as being intrinsically anti-progress, rather than directly addressing these concerns…
I think the concern in this case is that, unlike before where machines were built for other people to use, we’re now building machines that may be able to use themselves.
The real issue is that AI/robotics are machines that can theoretically replace any job -- at a certain point, there's nowhere for people to reskill to. The fact that it's been most disruptive in fields that have always been seen as immune to automation kind of underscores that point.
Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and n…
Not the AI company’s fault per se, but generally the US government does a very poor job of creating a safety net either intentionally, ineptitude or indifference.
By the way, attacks were also leveled against Chinese and Japanese California workers who were viewed as stealing the jobs of other “Americans”. So this viewpoint and tradition of behavior and capitalism is very long in US history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both marriage and job contracts are mutually binding legal agreements. You have the agency within those dynamics that the law gives you, which varies by region/jurisdiction respectively. Your partner in some (most?) cases can absolutely make an executive decision that ends your marriage, with you having no options but to accept the outcome. Your argument falls a little flat.
I'm not sure where you live, but employee contracts in the US are very rare in tech. Unions, execs, and rock stars - that's about it. The rest of us are at-will and disposable. Worker protections in the US are limited to "the machine can't eat more than two of your fingers per day" and "you can't work people more than 168 hours in a week".
[flagged]
Your marriage is a decision between you and your spouse and is a mutual decision. A job is a decision that your boss(es) made and can be taken without your consent. You don't have the ownership of your job that you do of your marriage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think every other life form on earth survives due to trading with each other? Most of human history has been some contingent contract between owner and labor, where most humans lived under some form of servitude or just pure slavery. Paradigm shift means, “I can live without being involved in a financial contract with another entity”. This is the milestone before us.
It certainly survives by working , one way or another. My point is that until now, we have never been able to find a functioning system that frees us from work (trade is just one type of work, so is hunting for survival, or photosynthesis), and until something changes dramatically (like a machine that caters to our every need), I find it hard to believe this can change.
One of the ways this shift will have momentum is that children today are going to be born into the light. They will live decades without the concept of having to make decisions around the scarcity of work and resources. They will not have the same values and viewpoints on society that, we, legacy components of the system, are currently engulfed by.
Our generation will be the last to join all other prior generations, in the boat of economic slavery, and it will be allowed to drift and sail away from port for the final time. It was a long journey, generations and generation were involved. Lots of thieving and abuse, good riddance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we should be careful attributing too much idealism to it. The Luddites were not a unified movement and people had much more urgent concerns than thinking about technological progress from a sociocentric perspective. Considering the time period with the Napoleonic Wars as backdrop I don't think anyone can blame them for simply being angry and wanting to smash the machines that made them lose their job.
>wanting to smash the machines that made them lose their job. Wondering how long before people start setting datacenters on fire.
Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and n…
The problem is that AI and advanced robotics (and matter synthesis and all that future stuff) must come with a post scarcity mindset. Maybe that mindset needs to happen before. Either way, without that social pattern, I'm afraid all this does is enshrine a type of futuristic serfdom that is completely insurmountable.
[flagged]
If your wife would rather leave you for a robot (or otherwise) then, err, yeah? That's not new with AI or robots or anything?