AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain • Hacker News Board

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#51

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #41

sudosysgen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there are. If you have good knowledge of the economy and of production mechanisms you can simply not do anything that could cause a crash. The issue is getting the knowledge to behind with, obviously. Inequality is necessary to some level but empirically it's possible to make it much smaller. Empirically the USSR had a single economic crisis without exogenous cause which was caused by incorrect accounting o…

> If you have good knowledge of the economy and of production mechanisms you can simply not do anything that could cause a crash But we don't have that knowledge. Economists disagree on many foundational questions. At some point, economics shades into psychology and we certainly don't have theories that predict human behavior. I don't discount the possibility that knowledge can help economies run more smoothly but yo…

I mean knowledge of the real economy. What materials there are and what is done with it. That's all you need in a planned economy to avoid crises.

I said that the USSR had one economic crisis that wasn't due to exogenous circumstances. Which is true.

I agree that free markets outperformed them. I'm saying there is clearly potential for improvement since the USSR was so dysfunctional and was planned with pen and paper.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#52

Post by lumost » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #38

aaronchall wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how it's possible, but nearly every sentence you wrote is completely wrong.

I made a typo which I corrected (s/world/US/), other than that I don't see anything wrong.

A central planning economy requires calculating desired outputs and required inputs through multiple layers of a supply chain. The resultant outputs through each layer of the economy, exports, and imports have a direct value that was in fact measured in the soviet currency of Ruble's - these Ruble's could be exchanged for dollars and provide a useful GDP figure in any desired currency. The basket of goods a given amount of these Ruble's could buy internally vs. their dollar equivalent elsewhere also provides a reasonable measure of Purchasing Power Parity.

One can also bypass the production component and measure GDP in terms of the incomes in Ruble's paid to Soviet workers in combination with the export/import figures to arrive at a reasonable estimate.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#53

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #48

lucian1900 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR was unaffected by the Great Depression, unlike all capitalist countries. It’s because it used planning for use instead of markets for profit.

The USSR didn't have the great depression, but they did have the HoloDomor or terror famine of Ukraine between 1932 and 1933 and the wider Soviet Famine of that period. The history of the famine later went on to inspire the book Animal Farm and were a pure artifact of the central planning economy forcing the export of the very food required to feed millions of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://e…

Yes, the Soviet famines were due to erroneous data due to dysfunctional bureacracies.

Which is exactly why "pen and paper" are an issue.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#54

Post by lumost » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #53

lumost wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR didn't have the great depression, but they did have the HoloDomor or terror famine of Ukraine between 1932 and 1933 and the wider Soviet Famine of that period. The history of the famine later went on to inspire the book Animal Farm and were a pure artifact of the central planning economy forcing the export of the very food required to feed millions of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://e…

Yes, the Soviet famines were due to erroneous data due to dysfunctional bureacracies. Which is exactly why "pen and paper" are an issue.

Calling the famine an issue of erroneous data does a disservice to the victims. Millions of people don't starve while having their food confiscated at gun point due to an accounting error.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#55

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #52

sudosysgen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a typo which I corrected (s/world/US/), other than that I don't see anything wrong.

A central planning economy requires calculating desired outputs and required inputs through multiple layers of a supply chain. The resultant outputs through each layer of the economy, exports, and imports have a direct value that was in fact measured in the soviet currency of Ruble's - these Ruble's could be exchanged for dollars and provide a useful GDP figure in any desired currency. The basket of goods a given amo…

This is not in fact true.

The basket of goods didn't have any fixed ruble price, as much of it was free.

Much of production was never given a full price in rubles, as a large part of it was by direct resource allocation.

You can indeed estimate it using a basket of goods and their equivalent values, but not with income and import/export + exchange rates because you're then removing all natural wealth.

It's a very difficult problem. You can make an estimation, but it's still an estimation, that is, for hard GDP. For PPP I agree the numbers are accurate, but that's not what was being discussed.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#56

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #42

sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about computerization of the planning process. I don't think PESEL counts. As far as I remember Poland didn't computerize any input/output economic tables or forecast consumption from purchase data or anything of the sort that was proposed in the 50s.

There was a little of that too, for example SIZ, SPIS and CENPLAN. They were introduced partially and never functioned as designed of course, after all it was a communist country :) If you can read Polish here are some references: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H9O7Cs... https://bcpw.bg.pw.edu.pl/Content/1720/PDF/16atibz_krajowy.p...

Yes, they were introduced partially as experiments. As far as I'm aware though there was never an automated input/output calculation which is the real step #1 of cybernetic planning.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#57

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #54

sudosysgen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Soviet famines were due to erroneous data due to dysfunctional bureacracies. Which is exactly why "pen and paper" are an issue.

Calling the famine an issue of erroneous data does a disservice to the victims. Millions of people don't starve while having their food confiscated at gun point due to an accounting error.

It's the proximate cause. As we all know it had horrible effects. Had the USSR been able to accurately measure food production it wouldn't have happened, so it is indeed the proximal cause.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#58

Post by lucian1900 » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #49

lucian1900 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR was unaffected by the Great Depression, unlike all capitalist countries. It’s because it used planning for use instead of markets for profit.

Wasn't the Great Famine in 1932 and 1933 a direct result of central (mis-)planning? PS: also I wonder if you actually experienced living in a centrally planned economy, the East German economy for instance stumbled from one crisis into the next, not as bad as the Soviet Union under Stalin obviously (as in: people didn't starve to death), but a healthy economy is pretty much the opposite of the "real socialist" econom…

There had been periodic environmental famines in Eastern Europe for centuries. The one in the 30s in Ukraine was exacerbated by landlords (kulaks) refusing to sell food to the state for lower prices and even destroying grain and cattle in an effort to raise prices. Incomplete information meant central planning was slow to react to both of these problems and many did starve, but of course capitalist countries also exaggerated the numbers.

My parents and extended family lived in România before 89, they describe quickly improving conditions, in some ways better than today. Guaranteed homes, education and jobs went a long way, for example.

All of the Eastern European economies also started off semi-feudal with little industry when compared to Western Europe. They were also under constant attack and blockade from the capitalist countries, that’s what the Cold War was about.

Regardless of all that, it’s a fact that the Soviet economy was unaffected by the Great Depression, which was the whole point on planned economies.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#59

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ankalagon wrote: post #2

Would the communist central price-fixing have benefited from AI? I mean, could the fixing of consumer prices have been automated by an AI system? Maybe using machine learning?

It wouldn't even need AI for massive benefit. Simply automating and authenticating data about which factory is producing what using what inputs would have been absolutely massive.

Re: AI and Communism: Narratives of AI Behind the Iron Curtain

#60

Post by sudosysgen » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

Proven wrote: post #32

pietrovismara wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allende tried something similar in Chile with project Cybersyn. Not AI yet but it shows how the economy could be centrally planned using technology. Shame that Pinochet's coup ended the experiment.

> Not AI yet but it shows how the economy could be centrally planned using technology. Nonsense. Hayek explained why that can't work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fatal_Conceit Of course, it can be planned - Lenin and Stalin showed that. Just make an AI that emulates those two geniuses. But the results would be equally great like they were in Soviet Russia or Mao's China. Why would anyone in a centrally planned…

Hayek did not, actually. His argument for it can't work but it can work using markets assumes P=NP and that humans are capable of running algorithms that computers can't, but only when they act as perfectly self interested rational actors.