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
#2Middle class is not some fundamental type of entity. New class types might arise for future AI supported life.
Or maybe population would reduce to a level sufficient to maintain new type of living which would be comfortable/luxurious in terms of what we think today.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#3Middle class is not some fundamental type of entity. New class types might arise for future AI supported life. Or maybe population would reduce to a level sufficient to maintain new type of living which would be comfortable/luxurious in terms of what we think today.
So, like Brave New World?
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#4So the unemployed would need to find a way to support themselves by their own work, by cooperation and by using automation as well. A combination of solar technology, robotics, AI and classic engineering could be a formula for self reliance.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#5AI will eliminate a lot of jobs, sure. So have many other advances in the past. It seems like the decline of organized labor unions would be a bigger threat to the Middle Class than technology.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#6Skynet probably wasn't built for its own sake. It was probably built to protect the people who owned Skynet from the people that didn't.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#7People 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.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#8Some fear that after squeezing immigration—which would put a brake on the kind of entrepreneurship McAfee calls for—the White House will move to bottle up automation and artificial intelligence.
Sounds bizarre but totally possible. If you haven't heard of Aleksandr Dugin then it's time to play catch-up, because even if you think he's batshit insane he's quite influential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin
People in the developed world have come to take technological progress for granted because of the inexorable economic logic. But with automation, adherence to default axioms about basic concepts like property ownership inevitably leads to most of the capital being concentrated in very few hands, resulting in some sort of modern serfdom. Nationalist programs implicitly depend on autarky, and the goal of nationalism is not maximum collective utility but rather vitalism - continuous improvement through the struggle for survival. Conflict, even defeat, is preferable for nationalists to ennui.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#9People 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.
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.
Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class
#10People 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.
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.