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The AI Layoff Trap

arxiv.org

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Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#61

Post by xyzal »

lukan wrote: post #57
xyzal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the mandatory speed limit in my country was reduced from 60km/h to 50km/h in cities, 95 percent of people instantly adapted.

But that is pretty much the same rule, just the numbers slightly adjusted. What do you think would happen if they changed traffic from the right to the left lane?

Heh, that would be surely funny :) But most people at least know there is a new permit law and if they are not sure, they are to seek expert guidance. The model is even with explicit notification unable to reflect upon this fact. How it is supposed to be useful then?

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#62

Post by Epa095 »

semiinfinitely wrote: post #8

neo-luddism dressed up in economic jargon. the authors suggest the only effective tool is to tax companies based on how much automation they achieve. Penalizing efficiency is a guaranteed recipe for stagnation and if we'd done this at any point in our past we would have not made it out of the dark ages

Note that it's usual that companies gets tax on surplus, not income. So we are already 'punishing' the efficient ones, we are just doing it in a relatively neutral way.

In systems with progressive income tax, the total tax income from a company with 1 employee making X$ is more than if the company had 2 employees making X/2$, so essentially 'punishing' using highly skilled labour over more less skilled ones.

There are no perfect taxes, and current tax systems have adapted from a lot of practical concerns. Some of those is that's it's easier to tax money as they are moving around vs when they are sitting still (wealth or property tax), and it's easier to tax people than abstract entities like companies, since people have a harder time moving. And for the same reason, it's easier to tax the middle class than the owner class, since the richer you are the easier it is to move yourself and those you care about to wherever taxes are low these days.

All these practical concerns have made it such one of the most common ways for the state to get a share of the productivity of its society, is from income tax. But this is not a 'economic law' that if must be like that. If more and more of the productivity and wealth creation in society is produced such that there is little employment income involved, we will have to find other ways to tax it.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#63

Post by palmotea »

isoprophlex wrote: post #21

So... the solution is basically "pay tax on the demand that you're destroying". We can all hate on the premise (ai is good enough to do this) and/or the solution presented (centrally enforced taxation), but you gotta admit: the messaging from SV's AI leaders about how "ai will take all your jobs" is confused as fuck, because if so, who will be on the consuming end of things?

> the messaging from SV's AI leaders about how "ai will take all your jobs" is confused as fuck, because if so, who will be on the consuming end of things?

Maybe SV's AI leaders and other assorted trillionaires. A capitalist economy that drops any pretense of serving the needs of anyone except a tiny elite.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#64

Post by palmotea »

Closi wrote: post #19
doesnt_know wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get where faster? Get what over with? Aren’t you talking about destroying livelihoods? Pushing people into poverty and/or homelessness? What is the benefit exactly?

I guess the argument would go that a new economic model will be required at that stage. There isn't much point in having people do jobs they don't like which are trivial to automate just for money, but at the point where there isn't enough economically useful things for everyone to do, the current system falls down. > What is the benefit exactly? Well one benefit would be international competitiveness. The country th…

> I guess the argument would go that a new economic model will be required at that stage.

> ...but at the point where there isn't enough economically useful things for everyone to do, the current system falls down.

Not necessarily. To quote the Bobs from Office Space: "He won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it will just work itself out naturally." No need to change, just let the plebs die out.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#65

Post by lukan »

xyzal wrote: post #61
lukan wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is pretty much the same rule, just the numbers slightly adjusted. What do you think would happen if they changed traffic from the right to the left lane?

Heh, that would be surely funny :) But most people at least know there is a new permit law and if they are not sure, they are to seek expert guidance. The model is even with explicit notification unable to reflect upon this fact. How it is supposed to be useful then?

Oh, most people would know in theory for sure, but if they go into driving, habit would kick in and they end up on the wrong lane pretty quickly.

At least that is what happened to me in australia and I only had a year of driving practice back then, but driving on the right side was already deeply ingrained and I had to be really aware of what I did.

But to be clear, I am not arguing models have real understanding of anything - I know they don't. My point was humans can be similar in pretending to have understood something, but if their core was modeled different, they will fall into old patterns again quickly.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#66

Post by ralfd »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #43
semiinfinitely wrote: post #8

neo-luddism dressed up in economic jargon. the authors suggest the only effective tool is to tax companies based on how much automation they achieve. Penalizing efficiency is a guaranteed recipe for stagnation and if we'd done this at any point in our past we would have not made it out of the dark ages

I agree, and I often wonder why companies pay any tax at all, rather than just hitting the shareholders as their wealth grows. There was a post a few months ago about taxing unrealized gains that was very interesting I thought. The company itself has an impact on our society and needs to be "governed", so it seems reasonable for them to pay for that governance. Actually, it seems unfair that you can claim no profit a…

Companies do generally act as tax collectors rather than the final bearers of the cost, as taxes just increase the price for the end consumer.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#67

Post by bwhiting2356 »

debatem1 wrote: post #45
bwhiting2356 wrote: post #28

If robotics progress starts to pick up, I'll take this more seriously. Right now, there's practically infinite demand for labor in construction, manufacturing, agriculture and many other industries. All kinds us good projects that could be happening, if you dig into why, labor intensive work is a factor. Why didn't the hydroponics project take off? Why is that still an empty lot instead of a new home? Why isn't there…

So you work in one of these fields, right? Hydroponics, homebuilding, theatre construction, pothole repair?

I currently work as a software engineer, but I've worked in the past in restaurants (dishwasher/prep cook), doordashing, as a musician, as moving help. If AI automates software I'll just do something else.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#68

Post by bwhiting2356 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #42
bananaflag wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I am always disappointed in how little there is automated in construction and how slow humans are in this activity. It feels like an exclave of the Dark Ages in the Information Age.

Construction is interesting because productivity has actually fallen in recent decades.

Safety and quality have increased.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#69

Post by boring-human »

semiinfinitely wrote: post #8

neo-luddism dressed up in economic jargon. the authors suggest the only effective tool is to tax companies based on how much automation they achieve. Penalizing efficiency is a guaranteed recipe for stagnation and if we'd done this at any point in our past we would have not made it out of the dark ages

I don't disagree. However, if we change nothing, one likely alternative outcome is planet of 100 trillionaires, 10000 concubines, and an ever-shrinking ghetto of scavenging paupers. The solution is to turn the un-meritocratic nature of this particular bit of technical change against it.

As the value of labor plummets, more GDP will accrue to capital. But to whose, exactly? Let's categorize individual investing performance as a function of luck, corruption and skill. Only skill is meritocratic, and there is no good reason to reward the other two. Things have trended away from skill in recent decades.

As AI automation progresses, it provides more of the skill. Eventually all investing decisions will be AI-based, democratizing the process but effectively leaving luck and corruption in control of who wins.

At that point, there's just no good reason to reward individual investment performance. Since luck averages out, corruption will largely determine who the 100 trillionaires are.

The solution is to tax away the portion of investment returns that are not based on skill, which will trend towards 100%.

Re: The AI Layoff Trap

#70

Post by pjmlp »

bwhiting2356 wrote: post #28

If robotics progress starts to pick up, I'll take this more seriously. Right now, there's practically infinite demand for labor in construction, manufacturing, agriculture and many other industries. All kinds us good projects that could be happening, if you dig into why, labor intensive work is a factor. Why didn't the hydroponics project take off? Why is that still an empty lot instead of a new home? Why isn't there…

Lucky not to live around small towns that were killed by the introduction of robotics?

Yes there is some demand for labour in fields like agriculture , and many rather not pick the work and survive elsewhere, because feudal lords rather pay peanuts for the hard work.

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