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The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

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Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#281

Post by pibaker »

It should not take more than one brain cell to realize that in an era when employment is already perceived as precarious, you are not going to earn any public favors by telling people you are taking their jobs and making them obsolete. Doubly not so when you offer no alternative path towards building personal wealth. Triply not so when you address none of the economic problems people face like housing or healthcare costs but make others, like social cohesion and energy prices worse.

If the industry continue to gleefully ignore public discontent over AI impact on society, I imagine what might happen is a public backlash that would make the post Chernobyl anti nuclear sentiment look tame.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#283

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

neonstatic wrote: post #276
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think frontier AI research should be outlawed until such time as there's a broad consensus on how society ought to deal with it. This would have to be coordinated internationally to be effective, but I think that would be achievable if the US sent a credible signal by forcibly shutting down any one of the major labs.

This is never going to happen. Is something can be done, it will be done.

There were historical worries about whether a ban would be feasible, but frontier AI research as we understand it today requires large amounts of specialized compute. Even if we couldn't or wouldn't destroy the chips, we could imprison anyone who tries to start a large training run, the same way we imprison anyone who tries to buy enriched uranium.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#284

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

alexjplant wrote: post #278
Tyrubias wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you term “a broader cultural movement of generalised hate” is just a reflection of people’s dissatisfaction and fear regarding the state of the world. They’re seeing wages stagnate and prices go up. They hear news about how well the stock market is doing, but they don’t see any of those benefits. They see their politicians spend money on war and destruction but refuse to spend money on social programs. At the sa…

Did people act like this in the 70s too when we had stagflation, mass unemployment, gas rationing, Vietnam, Nixon, etc. to contend with? I ask that sincerely because I wasn't around then. The US got a ton of cool music and cinema during that decade (disco and soft rock excepted) but the rest of it sounds even worse than things are now.

People acted like this constantly, the 70s are incredibly sanitized in the popular imagination. A government strike force murdered 4 student protesters at Kent State in 1970; Boston had 40 race riots between 1974 and 1976.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#285

Post by spwa4 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #194
spwa4 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the problem with 3 out of 4 of your challenges is that, right now, it means young people need to work more to achieve them. Money is an issue, but money by itself cannot solve it, it really needs to be backed with more people working. That's not going to happen, in fact, less people will work. So without AI, the path forward is obvious: those 3 will become worse. Lowering retirement age, raising minimum wage, and…

> Obviously AI will massively increase the output of the economy, and people will figure out what to do with that, as people will want a shitload of things done. Which means the problem you're identifying will be trivial to solve, and we'll figure something out. Historically, that "we'll figure something out" has usually meant the economical wipeout of large parts of the population, sooner or later followed either by…

> Historically, that "we'll figure something out" has usually meant the economical wipeout of ...

Uh, historically everything has usually meant the economical wipeout of large parts of the population. It still means that in most third world countries. Economic power is not the huge differentiator here.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#286

Post by happytoexplain »

neonstatic wrote: post #276
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think frontier AI research should be outlawed until such time as there's a broad consensus on how society ought to deal with it. This would have to be coordinated internationally to be effective, but I think that would be achievable if the US sent a credible signal by forcibly shutting down any one of the major labs.

This is never going to happen. Is something can be done, it will be done.

>If something can be done, it will be done.

What does this mean? It's obviously false on its face.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#287

Post by happytoexplain »

hackable_sand wrote: post #273
troosevelt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you lived on 12k? 24k puts you near poverty level. $1k per month will cover food expenses, it won't cover transport, shelter, and certainly not medical. On 12k per year you have enough money for food and praying that an emergency doesn't happen. It's hard enough living on 40k, and I'm not even in a place where costs are expensive.

[flagged]

How is not wanting to live in poverty using the poor as a foil? How is it hypocritical/fake to care about people who are in situations that I don't want to be in? Isn't that just logical?

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#288

Post by andriamanitra »

ggsp wrote: post #180
troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

Fair warning: I’m quite ignorant in terms of economics, so this is a naïve way of looking at it. The question that always pops up for me when it comes to UBI applied to the current capitalist system: even if you did actually come up with the money somehow (which is a pretty huge if as you say), once everyone has X “base money” per month, doesn’t that mean the cost of living (specifically renting) will rise to match t…

The cost of living would certainly rise somewhat but the point is that UBI is redistributive: the same absolute amount to everyone raises low incomes by a larger percentage than high incomes. Long term effects are hard to predict but in the short term it would mean the poor doing slightly better while the middle class is slightly worse off. The non-working (owning) class would be mostly unaffected as assets are insulated from inflation.

Another factor to consider is that putting more money in the hands of people in need of means producing becomes more profitable and thus more investment and resources are directed towards . If we assume the economy works the way the proponents of capitalism say it does, this should eventually drive the cost of living back down.

But personally I think the biggest benefit of UBI would be the reduction in number of people who are desperate enough to accept work – both legal and illegal – that is unfairly compensated, inhumane and/or immoral. The existence of that class of people is the driving force behind many societal problems. Exorbitant amounts of resources are wasted treating the symptoms of those problems instead of fixing the root cause.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#289

Post by hackable_sand »

slg wrote: post #254
globalnode wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but violence doesnt work either, even if you conquer a whole nation (or social class or insert w/e here), you didnt really win and oneday they will get their revenge, so you're better off trying the non-violent way

Does anyone else see the disconnect between how Americans talk about our history compared to how we talk about political violence of today? How can we glorify Thomas Jefferson and teach kids about him saying "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" only to then condemn the spilling of any modern blood? Truly what is the difference between torching a warehouse of…

I don't think anyone should be glorifying Jefferson.

You could have written L'Overture instead and it would have been a great example.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#290

Post by ori_b »

bwhiting2356 wrote: post #244
happytoexplain wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (most?) adults do not have time to write an appreciable amount of software outside their jobs. Further, this doesn't address the enormous impact that losing the option of doing something you find engaging and don't hate for a job has on mental wellbeing, life satisfaction, just being happy at all, etc.

We can have 2 out of 3: * artisanal, handmade products * affordable products, not just for the rich * well-paid workers This was true of clothing, agriculture, and will also be true of SaaS. I choose affordable products and well-paid workers, but that requires embracing automation.

Are you claiming that software is unaffordable? I get the sense that it was so cheap people were unhappy with how much was shoved into places where it was unwanted.
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