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Replacement.ai

replacement.ai

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Re: Replacement.ai

#621

Post by tuatoru »

JimDabell wrote: post #336
TechSquidTV wrote: post #86

Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and n…

> robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. Taking work away from people is practically the definition of technology. We invent things to reduce the effort needed to do things. Eliminating work is a good thing, that’s why inventing things is so popular! What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant, meaning we get more done for the same amount of effort performed b…

This time actually is different, though.

If everything that a human can do, a robot can do better and cheaper, then humans are completely shut out of the production function. Humans have a minimum level of consumption that they need to stay alive whether or not they earn a wage; robots do not.

Since most humans live off wages which they get from work, they are then shut out of life. The only humans left alive are those who fund their consumption from capital rents.

Re: Replacement.ai

#622

Post by jrflowers »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #452

A problem with anti-AI discourse is there are three seperate groups who rarely communicate, and if they do they just talk past each other 1. Rationalists/EA's who moderately-strongly believe AI scaling will lead to ASI in the near future and the end of all life (Yud, Scott Alexander) 2. Populist climate-alarmists who hate AI for a combination of water use, copyright infringement, and decimation of the human creative…

There are quite a few people that are a combination of 2 and 3. It is perfectly reasonable to both dislike a company and also believe that it’s run by charlatans.

Re: Replacement.ai

#623

Post by Atreiden »

riazrizvi wrote: post #168
andai wrote: post #155

https://replacement.ai/complaints At the bottom of this page, there is a form you can fill out. This website says they will contact your local representative on your behalf. (And forward you any reply.) Here's the auto-generated message: I am a constituent living in [state] with urgent concerns about the lack of guardrails surrounding advanced AI technologies. It is imperative that we act decisively to establish stro…

Oh, too bad. I initially shared it on LinkedIn but deleted it once I saw this. I’m all for establishing in the mind of the commons, that displacing humans from the economy is inane, and to see the open dialogue on the subject. I’m not up for some little team to try to control things.

What you call "some little team" others might call grassroots politics. And it's the alternative to top-down partisan politics.

Ideas are nice, and important, but there needs to be an action vector for those ideas to have practical value.

Re: Replacement.ai

#624

Post by fluoridation »

tuatoru wrote: post #621
JimDabell wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. Taking work away from people is practically the definition of technology. We invent things to reduce the effort needed to do things. Eliminating work is a good thing, that’s why inventing things is so popular! What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant, meaning we get more done for the same amount of effort performed b…

This time actually is different, though. If everything that a human can do, a robot can do better and cheaper, then humans are completely shut out of the production function. Humans have a minimum level of consumption that they need to stay alive whether or not they earn a wage; robots do not. Since most humans live off wages which they get from work, they are then shut out of life. The only humans left alive are tho…

If humans who don't own robots are not producing and therefore not earning, then they're also not buying. Who are the robot owners selling their products to?

Re: Replacement.ai

#625

Post by xivzgrev »

TechSquidTV wrote: post #86

Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and n…

It's not so black and white - it depends on the scale

We as a society get to decide what is done in our society. If robots replace a few jobs but make goods cheaper for everyone that's a net positive for society.

If robots replace EVERYONE's job, where everyone has no income anymore that's clearly a huge negative for society and it should be prevented.

Re: Replacement.ai

#626

Post by eru »

bittercynic wrote: post #374
didibus wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them. -- Frank Herbert, Dune The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others. Those who will own machines that can match humans will have unprecedented power over others. In effect they'll grow more and more to be the government. Even now, compan…

>The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others. Often, yes, but in a more functional society it would be the mechanism we collectively use to prevent a few people from amassing excessive wealth and power.

That's just one particular set of preferences. Different people have different priorities.

Re: Replacement.ai

#627

Post by unscaled »

marnett wrote: post #320
CamperBob2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we be better off today if the Luddites had prevailed? No? Well, what's different this time? Oh, wait, maybe they did prevail after all. I own my means of production, even though I'm by no means a powerful, filthy-rich capitalist or industrialist. So thanks, Ned -- I guess it all worked out for the best!

The Amish seem to be doing fine — and I don’t know if their way of life is under as much existential risk of upheaval and change as everyone else’s

The Amish approach to technology is completely different from the Luddites, and it doesn't teach us anything about whether we, as a society, should accept or reject a certain technology.

To be more exact, there is no evidence that historical Luddites were ideologically opposed to machine use in the textile industry. The Luddites seemed to have been primarily concerned with wages and labor conditions, but used machine-breaking as an effective tactic. But to the extent that Luddites did oppose to machines, and the way we did come to understand the term Luddite later, this opposition was markedly different from the way Amish oppose technology.

The Luddites who did oppose the use of industrial textile production machines were opposed to other people using these machines as it hurt their own livelihood. If it was up to them, nobody would have been allowed to use these machines. Alternatively, they would be perfectly happy if their livelihood could have been protected in some other manner, because that was their primary goal, but failing that they took action depriving other people from being able to use machines to affect their livelihood.

The Amish, on the other hand, oppose a much wider breadth of technology for purely ideological reasons. But they only oppose their own use if this technology. The key point here is that the Amish live in a world where everybody around them is using the very technologies they shun, and they do not make any attempt to isolate themselves from this world. The Amish have no qualms about using modern medicines, and although they largely avoid electricity and mechanized transportation, they still make significant use of diesel engine-based machinery, especially for business purposes and they generally don't avoid chemical fertilizers or pesticides either.

So if we want to say Amish are commercially successful and their life is pretty good, we have to keep in mind that they aren't a representation of how our society would look if we've collectively banned all the technologies they've personally avoided. Without mass industrialization, there would be no modern healthcare that would eliminate child mortality and there would be no diesel engines, chemical fertilizers and pesticides that boost crop yields and allow family farm output to shoot way past subsistence level.

In the end, the only lesson that the Amish teach us is that you can selectively avoid certain kinds of technologies and carve yourself a successful niche in an wider technologically advanced community.

Re: Replacement.ai

#628

Post by mlyle »

skeaker wrote: post #553
mlyle wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Humans derive a lot of meaning from being useful and valued. Sure, humans relying on jobs for income is a problem with transitions. But people finding purpose in jobs is a problem, too. Right now how we get there is being "forced to' -- and indeed that's a bug. But if we transition to a future where it's pretty hard to find useful work, that's a problem, even if the basic needs for survival are still being met. I…

Not to sound harsh but this is a personal flaw. It's hard to find a better way to phrase it than "you need to get a life outside of work." Many, many people would kill to have not needed to work for the last 25 years because they have better things to use their time on outside of it.

I've done plenty of those self-actualizing things. I've learned to fly airplanes. I've done hobby projects. I've gotten into astronomy. I've learned to make things in many kinds of ways (carpentry, sheetmetal, machining, welding, 3d printing, lithography) and have overkilled so many projects. I've gone to my kids' games. I've 100%-ed a lot of RPGs. I've travelled. I've read too many books.

But I want to be -useful-, too. I enjoy helping and working with kids in my current job more than I enjoy filling my time in empty ways (well, up to a point: summer sure feels nice, too :).

Money gave me the freedom to define the relationship with work in the way that works best for me; and it turned out that's more valuable to me than the ability to escape work entirely.

Re: Replacement.ai

#629

Post by latexr »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #521
bilekas wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a brilliant piece of satire. "A Modest Proposal" for the AI age. There's some truth in all satire though. I'm just shocked YC hasn't nuked the link from the front page.

> I'm just shocked YC hasn't nuked the link from the front page. I'm not. People dump on VCs and YC all the time here and it's frequently on the front page.

Indeed. dang has even stated multiple times that when a story is critical of a YC company on HN, the policy is to moderate less, not more.

Re: Replacement.ai

#630

Post by thunky »

strogonoff wrote: post #221
TechSquidTV wrote: post #86

Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and n…

“Robots coming for your jobs” is a valid argument against robots even if they can do those jobs better and faster, under two assumptions: 1) humans benefit from having jobs and 2) human benefit is the end goal. Both are fairly uncontroversial: many humans not only benefit from jobs but in fact often depend on jobs for their livelihoods, and (2) should be self-evident. This can change if the socioeconomic system is qu…

> 1) humans benefit from having jobs and 2) human benefit is the end goal.

There's no law of nature saying that a human must work 40 hours per week or starve.

The current dependence on work is a consequence, not a goal.

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