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

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

#41

Post by Florin_Andrei »

lhnz wrote: post #24
xapata wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large middle class hasn't been around all that long in the history of civilization. Maybe it's just a flash in the pan. My guess is that computer programming will be the new blue collar manufacturing job.

> In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is > a working class person who performs non-agricultural > manual labour. Blue-collar work may involve skilled > or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, > custodial work, oil field work, construction, > mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, > technical installation and many other types of > physical work. > > In contrast, the white-collar wor…

Read things less literally and you'll be less wrong.

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

#42

Post by sanderjd »

lend000 wrote: post #31
anigbrowl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be facile to ignore the massive and frequently bloody consequences of such previous economic disruptions. People didn't just go through a period of anxiety and then drift into new jobs and feel content again during previous industrial revolutions.

You frame the disruptions as if they were not a net benefit to society. Sure, governments could have banned the printing press and stayed in the dark ages (scribes would still be making a good living, though.) Edit: it all depends on tone... I still read the comment with the tone that implies disruptions as being as negative as they are positive, whereas I would frame disruptions are more positive. Granted, that's no…

That's not how I read the comment. I read it as admitting that both things can be (and probably are) true: these sorts of disruptions can be awful and bloody for the people living through them and can also be a net benefit to society. It's looking like we may very well be those people who will be living through the next one of these, so it's reasonable for us to be worried about the awfulness of the transition.

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

#43

Post by philipkglass »

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 universal basic income doesn’t give people dignity or protect them from boredom and vice,” Etzioni says.

It's funny how boredom, vice, and the indignity of receiving income without continual labor loom in importance if and only if we're talking about technological unemployment. What of people receiving Social Security, pensions, inherited wealth, royalties from patents and copyrights, rents collected on real estate...?

Some people sound like they're planning how to invent enough bullshit jobs to provide everyone a regular 9-5 schedule and a supervisor even after machines are doing all the strictly necessary labor. It's like the worst of the Protestant work ethic married to the worst proposals from Keynesianism, so it's one of those special bad ideas that people from all parts of the political spectrum can endorse. I'd rather trust adults to find their own amusements and purpose, like we trust adults who today have income-without-regular-labor, and trust the robo-police to curb those whose boredom turns to criminality.

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

#44

Post by lhnz »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #41
lhnz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is > a working class person who performs non-agricultural > manual labour. Blue-collar work may involve skilled > or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, > custodial work, oil field work, construction, > mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, > technical installation and many other types of > physical work. > > In contrast, the white-collar wor…

Read things less literally and you'll be less wrong.

Can you explain what you mean?

There seems to be little connection between the category of blue-collar work and programming other than it is a form of 'building'.

The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. That's not a literal interpretation, that's the core meaning -- programming is not analogous to physical labor or 'unskilled' work.

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

#45

Post by shams93 »

philipkglass wrote: post #43

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…

Exactly we could have a society oriented around the arts and sciences, pure creativity and discovery instead of bullshit jobs we could put the pedal to the metal in human freedom and innovation.

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

#46

Post by caseysoftware »

problems wrote: post #7

People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. I'm not so sure that this time is different - despite all the insistence, I'm sure it seemed just as serious every other time before too.

I think one big distinction this time around is how quickly things move now. Society can shift in a few generations, no problem. In a single generation, looks challenging.

But now we're talking about in the span of 5-10 years at most. We're starting to get to the point where the bottom end is bumping against how long people spend in college.

As it approaches 3-5 years, what happens? How quickly can people shift, retrain, and re-educate themselves for the new tools, concepts, or fields that are now open to them?

I don't think anyone has any answers.. but it's a line of reasoning we should explore.

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

#47

Post by Bartweiss »

lend000 wrote: post #31
anigbrowl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be facile to ignore the massive and frequently bloody consequences of such previous economic disruptions. People didn't just go through a period of anxiety and then drift into new jobs and feel content again during previous industrial revolutions.

You frame the disruptions as if they were not a net benefit to society. Sure, governments could have banned the printing press and stayed in the dark ages (scribes would still be making a good living, though.) Edit: it all depends on tone... I still read the comment with the tone that implies disruptions as being as negative as they are positive, whereas I would frame disruptions are more positive. Granted, that's no…

> You frame the disruptions as if they were not a net benefit to society

I don't think he does, though. I'd be much quicker to say that other people frame the disruptions as though they never had significant downsides; I constantly see people saying "most people found new work eventually without too much of a pay cut" as though that implies no one suffered.

More theoretically, we ought to be capable of imagining some net-positive change which causes front-end disruptions so devastating that we can't endure through to the positive result. Imagine rendering 50% of people unemployed in one year and ask whether they would all quietly drift into new jobs, or whether they would set all the data centers on fire and cancel out the progress.

I don't think things are that bad, but pretending a long-run positive exempts you from planning for short-run harms is pretty unfair.

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

#49

Post by zeteo »

philipkglass wrote: post #43

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…

> What of people receiving Social Security, pensions, inherited wealth, royalties from patents and copyrights, rents collected on real estate...?

Not exactly the definition of the creative class is it?

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

#50

Post by Florin_Andrei »

philipkglass wrote: post #43

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…

Boredom quickly becomes a non-issue when the real issue is starvation.

I'd love to get to the point where the main problem is being bored. I fear that, if the current social and political dogmas don't change, a heck of a lot of people will get kicked to the curb once AI-driven automation really takes off.

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