Society as a whole, or one percenters like him?
The massive economic productivity gains from AI will improve the lives of very few if some form of fair fiscal redistribution is not be put in place.
Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
331–340 of 668 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a lot of the gains from the Dotcom boom are being paid back in negative value for the average person at this point. We have automated systems that waste our time when we need support, product features that should have a one-time-cost being turned into subscriptions, a complete usurping of the ability to distribute software or build compatible replacements, etc.. The Dotcom boom was probably good for everyone in s…
If you're ever been to a third world country then you'd see how this is completely untrue. The dotcom boom has revolutionized the way of life for people in countries like India. Even for the average person in America, the ability to do so many activities online that would have taken hours otherwise (eg. shopping, research, DMV/government activities, etc). The fact that we see negative consequences of this like social…
I think you’re putting too much weight on cost (time, money), and not enough weight on “quality of life”, in your analysis.
For sure, we can shop faster, and (attempt) research and admin faster. But…
Shopping: used to be fun. You’d go with friends or family, discuss the goods together, gossip, bump into people you knew, stop for a sandwich, maybe mix shopping and a cinema or dinner trip. All the while, you’d be aware of other peoples’ personal space, see their family dynamics. Queuing for event tickets brought you shoulder to shoulder with the crowd before the event began… Today, we do all this at home; strangers (and communities) are separated from us by glass, cables and satalites, rather than by air and shouting distance. I argue that this time saving is reducing our ability to socialise.
Research: this is definitely accelerated, and probably mostly for the better. But… some kinds of research were mingled with the “shopping” socialisation described above.
Admin: the happy path is now faster and functioning bureaucracy is smoother in the digital realm. But, it’s the edge cases which are now more painful. Elderly people struggle with digital tech and prefer face to face. Everyone is more open to more subtle and challenging threats (identity theft, fraud); we all have to learn complex and layered mitigation strategies. Also: digital systems are very fragile: they leak private data, they’re open to wider attack surfaces, they need more training and are harder to intuit without that training; they’re ripe for capture by monopolists (Google, Palantir).
The time and cost savings of all these are not felt by the users, or even the admins of these systems. The savings are felt only by the owners of the systems.
Technologgy has saved billions of person-hours individual costs, in travel, in physical work. Yet, wemre working longer, using fewer ranges of motions, are less fit, less able to tolerste others’ differences and the wealth gap is widening.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It will benefit all people but it will disproportionally benefit more rich people. Yes: you'll be homeless and living under a bridge, but you'll have an LLM therapist on your phone to console you. That's a benefit!
No they don't want that, because it could lead to an uprising against them. They want us provided with the essentials in exchange for being dutiful workers, so we have something to lose. Everyone should live in pods stacked together, eat insects, not drive our own automobiles around or fly places, we should be able to get our entertainment and everything to keep ourselves happy from their subscription entertainment s…
That would be https://marshallbrain.com/manna
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, not that many people had modems.
In the late 90s to 2001? Many people were still using modems at that time. Cable or DSL wasn't even an option for a considerable percentage of the population.
Not still using, flat out modemless. Lots of guys got their hand on a mouse for the first time only after Windows XP launched. Which was after the collapse.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It will benefit all people but it will disproportionally benefit more rich people. Yes: you'll be homeless and living under a bridge, but you'll have an LLM therapist on your phone to console you. That's a benefit!
No they don't want that, because it could lead to an uprising against them. They want us provided with the essentials in exchange for being dutiful workers, so we have something to lose. Everyone should live in pods stacked together, eat insects, not drive our own automobiles around or fly places, we should be able to get our entertainment and everything to keep ourselves happy from their subscription entertainment s…
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Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will benefit all people but it will disproportionally benefit more rich people.
Not necessarily. The benefits may barely trickle down, and the conditions for the majority could degrade overall.
Based on what evidence? The last few times this happened the whole world benefitted.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the average person actually better off after the late 90’s internet is probably a harder question than it might seem. The long tail may be closer to what I want, but the quality is also generally lower. YouTube just doesn’t support a team of talented writers, Amazon is mostly filled with junk, etc. Social media and gig work is a mixed bag. Junk e-mail etc may not be a big deal, but those kinds of downsides do erod…
The political instability that came with social media isn't great, either.
Ah yes. The popular ~14000 year stable period disrupted by social media.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thought experiment - Startrek replicators are real. This basically means almost everything can be built without human involvement. The guy who owns the replicators is the richest. The wealth gap is so massive you get revolts (because we're educated, not serfs, right?) So then government needs to step in. Either tax->ubi?, socialize it, or make it a state asset? Regardless, that's the goal of AGI/robotics/etc.
If you can make many replicators, money stops making much sense. You probably end up with energy (if these devices take a lot of energy to operate) as the new currency. My gut says that _somehow_ the middle class will get screwed as always, but I struggle to articulate the way that abundant cheap goods lead to that outcome. Maybe because the very few that control the replicators will be able to cut people they don’t…
You probably end up with energy (if these devices take a lot of energy to operate) as the new currency.
Seems analogous to LLM's: replicators replicate but do not create. Information would then seem to the proper choice for a new currency..
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#339Yesterday, I asked an LLM to create a browser plugin and it got 98% correct in its first try.
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Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#340The big question is what "society" he is talking about? Is it the "society" that includes all people, or the "society" that includes only rich people?
That's a very relevant question. And as your question implies, we all know which society the billionaires talk about. But AI is just a technology like any other. It does have the potential to bring great benefits to humanity if developed with that intent. It's the corruptive influence of the billionaire and autocrat greed that turns all technologies against us. When I say benefits to humanity, I don't mean the AI slo…
What are the actual benefits? Where are all these medicines that humans couldn’t develop on their own? Have we not been able to develop medicine? What theorems are meaningful and impactful that humans can’t prove without AI? I don’t know what a solution to the climate crisis is but what would it even say that humans wouldn’t have realistically thought of?