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Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

gmalandrakis.com

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Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#321

Post by athrowaway3z »

andrewmutz wrote: post #11

If you want to understand the likely capabilities of AI technology in the future, listen to software engineers like this guy. If you want to understand the impact of AI technology on the economy, don't listen to software engineers, listen to economists.

No serious economist would claim such a thing. In fact, it was all the rage a decade ago for economists to remind everyone that they - in fact - should not be looked at to do this.

> An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#322

Post by po1nt »

Jtarii wrote: post #58
po1nt wrote: post #42

Economy is not zero sum game [1]. The fact that someone has more, doesn't mean everyone else is worse off because of it. Many hungry african kids can look upon the people from first world and ponder the same question. "How will the rich people that have everything survive now, that with AI they will have even more" except from their perspective, we are the elon musks in their eyes. https://mises.org/mises-wire/exchan…

A poor example considering Musk is responsible for a substantial increase in hunger in Africa recently.

I'm not here to defend Elon Musk, but what is the context of this?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#323

Post by carlob »

pirate787 wrote: post #141
smallmancontrov wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember that the US purged left-leaning economists during the cold war and the field re-grew under intense think-tank incentives towards the economic right, so if you think labor/capital dynamics might be important to the AI revolution you really ought to balance your "random" sampling of US economists with some Piketty (Atkinson, Stiglitz, Zucman -- but in an era where reading even one book is considered a her…

Piketty is just a marxist flailing around, backfilling data to fit his belief that communism is the solution for every problem. He's been spectacularly wrong in his predictions so far, for example he said Milei would be "devastating" for Argentina and the opposite is the case.

I'm pretty sure no Marxist considers Piketty a fellow Marxist, he's much closer to social democracy and Keynes. Piketty advocates for market economy and a global capital tax, Marxists on the other hand advocate for the violent overthrowing of capitalism and collective ownership of the means of production. Can you spot the difference?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#324

Post by hurtigioll »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #123
peterldowns wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep following this line of thought and you'll end up in the same territory as Nick Land. If you haven't read already, the xenosystems blogs would probably be quite interesting to you.

I have not, but I am curious. I think the end-state is not that interesting, but the transition could not happen overnight and seems both difficult technically and would be unlikely to happen without a fight.

Nick Land is a difficult subject to get into, because there are two of thems.

and you might discard the first one because of the second one.

Nick Land spoiler: "what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy's resources."

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#325

Post by bcjdjsndon »

Questions....

- what powers the robots? How is this power source maintained?

- when a robot is damaged, how is it repaired and where do the raw materials come from?

- when a robot simply doesn't work properly, who assesses the issue and resolves it?

- with 99% of the world population presumably starving to death, what is stopping them from overthrowing whoever is starving them to death?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#326

Post by rcxdude »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #301
jameslk wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's kinda my point. If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories made it a commodity like Swiss watches of yore[0], we'd all be buying yachts. And instead of bickering about not being able to afford yachts, people would be bickering about the rich asshole with the limited edition Aston Martin space yacht, while they could only afford the 3-speed helipad Temu yacht 0. https://www.paulgraha…

> If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories Handwaving away constraints on production on physical goods because of advances in code generation is a new one.

I think this is a deliberately somewhat fantastical hypothetical scenario (though not far off the sales pitch from humanoid robot companies).

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#327

Post by [deleted] »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #325

Questions.... - what powers the robots? How is this power source maintained? - when a robot is damaged, how is it repaired and where do the raw materials come from? - when a robot simply doesn't work properly, who assesses the issue and resolves it? - with 99% of the world population presumably starving to death, what is stopping them from overthrowing whoever is starving them to death?

[deleted]

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#328

Post by carlob »

crabmusket wrote: post #213
cousin_it wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you and the parent comment are both wrong. The right analogy is something like a new species, which consumes resources and makes more of itself. The species is "AI", or "AI-empowered organization with a handful of humans on top", whichever way you like to think of it. It doesn't have to be winner-take-all, there can be many such things running around. But the point is humans can't compete with such things and…

A data centre the size of Gormenghast, with the remains of humanity clinging like limpets to the outer walls, trying to stay warm.

> trying to stay cool

FTFY

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#329

Post by lll-o-lll »

Maxatar wrote: post #248
wyre wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe critique his ideas instead of his predictions. Piketty is an economist, not a future-teller.

What's the significance of his "ideas" with respect to economics if they don't lead to actual predictions? Why did he decide to make these predictions if his ideas supposedly have no bearing on how predictions are created? Does economics no longer even have the pretense of being a science, which by its very nature exists to make testable predictions?

If we are going to start discounting economists based on failure to correctly predict things like - interest rates - then you’re going to be chopping the entire mainstream field. If any economist was ever beholden to making accurate predictions, the field would currently be vacant.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#330

Post by cultofmetatron »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #325

Questions.... - what powers the robots? How is this power source maintained? - when a robot is damaged, how is it repaired and where do the raw materials come from? - when a robot simply doesn't work properly, who assesses the issue and resolves it? - with 99% of the world population presumably starving to death, what is stopping them from overthrowing whoever is starving them to death?

we already have a fleet of autonomous robots composed of protein that solved this problem. its not infeasible for artificially created robots to eventually be able to do this stuff on their own.
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