10 ms·

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared of Capitalism, Not Robots

84 points by antjanus 11y ago

eevilspock 11y ago
* crickets * (after 40 min on the front page, but it's there!) How does HN, a hotbed of libertarian free-market worship that also reveres smarts and science, respond to this?
- eloisius 11y ago
  By asking which alternative model you propose.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    Socialism as practiced by many european countries seems to work fine. No big Googles happening over here, but generally people seem to be happier and less worried about their futures.
    - mpweiher 11y ago
      It's called "Social Democracy", and yes, that really is quite a different thing.
      - happyscrappy 11y ago
        They are all capitalist economies, like it or not, that is where the money comes from. If Europeans think that their particular country is not capitalist they are confused.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > They are all capitalist economies They're all (as is the United States, for that matter) modern mixed economies; capitalism as a dominant economic system proper has been largely abandoned in the developed world in favor of systems which, compared to the then-dominant system named "capitalism" by its critics, systems with comparatively strong redistributive and central regulatory systems, and often a wide array of directly-provided State services, all reforms directed at mitigating the problems for which the critics that named "capitalism" were criticizing it. Capitalism remains a significant ideology (particularly, surprisingly enough, among the capital-holding class and those who aspirationally associate with that class), and adherents to that ideology often misattribute the success of modern mixed economies compared to other alternatives to capitalism as a success of "capitalism". Really, the difference between the US and European Social Democracies is between fairly small variations in the details of the structure of a mixed economy -- variations which can have a big practical effect, and are worth discussing, to be sure.
        happyscrappy 11y ago
        You can certainly claim they are mixed, but they are all using capitalism, as much as it may bother some people to admit.
- minority-one 11y ago
  Where do people get this idea that HN is full of libertarians? If you hang around you will see most people's reactions are far to the left and libertarian answers get consistently downvoted.
- solson 11y ago
  My response to Hawking would be a question: Who or what is smart enough to decide how much wealth each person should have and design a efficient system to distribute it and what evidence do you have that the outcome would be better than a free market?
  - michaelchisari 11y ago
    You're arguing against a command economy, but there are multitudes of options when it comes to creating a more equitable society than micromanaging wealth.
- oberstein 11y ago
  Perhaps by continuing to ignore it. Hawking has some weird (if somewhat common) opinions about AI, aliens, and I guess capitalism too. He should stick to black holes. What annoys me is he often has the basic facts right. For example, fully general AI is dangerous (but not really because of Terminator-like scenarios); if there are intelligent aliens we should not expect them to be nice any more than mean, and there are good arguments to expect mean, and so we should be careful (but not because of the very unlikely scenario outlined in Signs); and in this case he's right that further automation of the economy will produce greater economic inequality, but economic inequality is a good thing, it's absolute wealth and poverty that's the real problem, and I'd bet on the trend of the poor not in fact getting poorer, on an absolute scale, continuing. See http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html
  - Florin_Andrei 11y ago
    > He should stick to black holes. I just want to point out the shallow stereotypicality of that remark. That's all.
    - oberstein 11y ago
      Fine, physics in general, then? I mean he's still my generation's (20-30-somethings) Einstein, great thinker, but Einstein had a lot of bad ideas about socialism and governance too.
- mempko 11y ago
  By quietly upvoting it while smoking some weed to quiet their cognitive dissonance.
- gaius 11y ago
  Richard Dawkins was a scientific hero too 'til his latest meltdown.
- masterleep 11y ago
  He sounds about as qualified to opine on economics as I am to give my theory about black hole physics.
- Grue3 11y ago
  Why should anyone care what some physicist (even a very smart one) thinks about politics? Same deal with Noam Chomsky. Just because they're accomplished in one branch of science doesn't make them an authority on social issues.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
    Sometimes it even makes them less reliable on social issues.
heimatau 11y ago
Well, his argument is very logical and grounded in evidence. Hypothetically, robots could cause a problem but capitalism is currently tearing the fabric of society apart due to wealth inequality. When I first saw this article, I said this to myself, "But robots...but matrix...but terminator" a few hours later, I realized the grounded logic he is conveying. Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people. People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai).
- BerislavLopac 11y ago
  I've always found this logic quite flawed: we have capitalism, and we have wealth inequality, therefore capitalism causes wealth inequality. As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality, so replacing it with something else wouldn't really change much. It's been tried numerous times, and none of those experiments managed to solve the issue of wealth inequality in a sustainable way. Capitalism is far from being an ideal system, but it works, and replacing it can cause only more pain for everyone. I can see the appeal of blaming it for everything; it's a handy scapegoat, "the devil we know" -- but I haven't seen many realistic proposals what should replace it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - azth 11y ago
    > As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality Check out the Islamic perspective on economics and finance. It sets certain restrictions, while keeping many things open to the requirements of the society: no interest, shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor, etc. while still allowing the opportunities to acquire wealth. It was during the days of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz[0] that it was reported that there were no more poor people left to take Zakat[1], because everyone did their duties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
Tloewald 11y ago
He's right of course. It's essentially the "billionaires in gated communities guarded by robot drones" argument. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-lords-and-end-of-people-power.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-lords-a... It's amazing how many things look like a tragedy of the commons (rather than a wonderful efficient market) when you hit boundary conditions.
enahs-sf 11y ago
I fundamentally don't understand how capitalism will work in a society where scarcity is essentially nil. It doesn't make sense. Maybe someone could explain it to me?
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  It's hard to envision how money in general would work post-scarcity.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > I fundamentally don't understand how capitalism will work in a society where scarcity is essentially nil. It doesn't make sense. "A society where scarcity is essentially nil" is the part that doesn't make sense. Particularly given the degree to which human experience of utility/disutility is demonstrated to be strongly influenced by relative rather than absolute conditions. Relative abundance doesn't really substantially change the degree to which capitalism does or does not work.
- Retric 11y ago
  The model for how Japanese Manga or High Fashion is sold may have some input on this. Basically, the what people pay for is design time and marketing not production costs. So, artificial scarcity is often used to drives up prices. AKA normal is X, but limited edition red version is 10X. The important thing to remember is I might place zero value on something, but as long as you can find a buyer then stuff has value.
- fao_ 11y ago
  It depends on the market, however I think that scarcity will end up being manufactured. Just look at the diamond market -- one or two companies effectively monopolised the entire market and rose the price and value of their product through creating artificial scarcity. I don't like the idea of this (I hold the idea of Iain M. Banks' The Culture[1] as the ideal civilization), but I think that it is required for capitalism to remain a viable system post-scarcity. I suppose one other way to do this (That would hopefully be outlawed) is the creation of a virus that wipe out all the natural sources of a product (I'm thinking mainly of foodstuffs here), leaving a single company the owner of the plant/genome/whatever. The idea is explored in one of Zach's comics: [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture [2]: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2834 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2834
ddingus 11y ago
He's right, but I am hungry for alternatives. And what does a transition look like? When I see this kind of thing, I think "of course!", but then I don't know what to advocate for, and what that might look like and how people will manage through the change.
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  > And what does a transition look like? That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
  - BerislavLopac 11y ago
    No, this is: "but then I don't know what to advocate for" Everybody "knows" that things should be changed, but nobody knows how and to what.
    - ddingus 11y ago
      Indeed. I see positive, fact based and data driven policy advocacy as most productive. Fear, worry, shame based advocacy does more harm than good. Generally, of course. Sometimes we need those things, but not as norms in the political dialog. When we are FOR things, it seems easier to work together on them to expected outcomes. Being AGAINST things is much easier, but so often leaves a hole we hope will be filled by market forces and that outcome will be better, or worthy. Sometimes it is. I believe in markets, but they do come with inherent conflicts of interest that can be difficult to manage. On this issue, it seems necessary to have a plan and a just and reasonable outcome goal.
mpweiher 11y ago
Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't happen this time either." Although there is some truth to this, the past tends to be only a limited predictor for the future ("It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra ), and of course logically this stance cannot be supported. Also, there is some grounds to believe that this time actually is different: whereas production and consumption used to expand to soak up new found productivity, we're reaching both resource limits in terms of what can be produced, and at least in the west saturation in terms of consumption. We already consume way more than we really want/need, and more and more people are realizing that their stuff is not liberating them, but rather taking them hostage. Furthermore, there also is evidence that this is already happening. Blue collar wages are stagnating or in decline, same though to a lesser extent for the middle class. Debt has soared as people try to maintain their standard of living. Robots have the capacity to help us bring about the 15 hour work week Keynes predicted, or maybe even the 4 hour work week, but we probably will have to restructure our wealth distribution mechanisms somewhat to achieve it.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't happen this time either." Which is, of course, false in its premise -- it happened with the technological developments which were happening alongside the development of the economic system which would become dominant in the developed world of the time, which would later be named "capitalism" by its critics, and was mitigated to a certain degree (but not, by any stretch of the imagination, solved) when capitalism was largely replaced in the developed world with modern "mixed economies" which limit the capitalist property system through the adoption of redistributive and socialized regulatory mechanisms while retaining the capitalist arrangement in outline (in the developed world, this approach has prevailed, for now, over both retaining -- or reverting to -- capitalism without compromising its structure and abandoning its property structure outright.)
  - hammock 11y ago
mixedmath 11y ago
I was the one who wrote that question to Stephen Hawking. Now that it's been brought up here, perhaps it would be nice to ask the question here. How does HN feel about technological unemployment?
- calibraxis 11y ago
  The fact that people fear technological unemployment — freedom — is a sign we live under an idiotic system.
  - rskar 11y ago
    Freedom, as in freedom from work? The supposed upside of that freedom is based on the assumption that one is still somehow entitled to some of that good stuff that AI/robots may bring. But that's exactly the issue. Right now we understand "capitalism" (stakeholders entitled to dividends) and "barter" (parties entitled to swap) as the sort of entitlements that underpin all others, and both of these leverage property rights. A sovereignty/government would then tap into these plus holdings of property itself by levying tributes/taxes, from which it may then redistribute portions as some other forms of entitlement. Or not; it's still an open debate on whether and how sovereignty/government might counterbalance via entitlements (such as basic income schemes, etc.) the social changes that technological unemployment could bring. In the meantime, the facts are that most people must strike bargains in order to obtain most (or possibly all) of the material needs of their lifestyles (and possibly also provide for dependents), and that the most usual bargaining to be struck involves their offer of labor; hence their reasons for all the dreading about technological unemployment. If most could clearly find their way to situations where employment wasn't a requirement towards getting their material needs met, then such fears would abate.
Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
You should note, this is an extremely misleading article. He is in fact worried about AI. Hawkings wrote this in the same thread: You’re right: media often misrepresent what is actually said. The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence. A superintelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble. You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants. Please encourage your students to think not only about how to create AI, but also about how to ensure its beneficial use. This was what her wrote when asked about technological unemployment: If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
- oberstein 11y ago
  Thanks for bringing out his AI comment, it seems much more aligned with the main superintelligence research community now than when I read his thoughts last. Updated.
RRRA 11y ago
I like how it takes a well known figure to state the obvious and get people to actually talk about the basic flaws of a system...
damosneeze 11y ago
It would be nice if the elephant in the room were addressed: We are Not in a capitalist society. We are in a corporatist society. It took a joint collaboration between corporations and government to blow up the economy with the 2008 financial crisis. And then the government bailed out the financial elites. In a capitalist society, those who failed would go under. In fact, we probably wouldn't have reached that crisis point, because the Fed would not exist (and would not be manipulating interest rates), there would be no revolving door between corporations and government (Former Goldman Sachs CEO becomes Treasury Secretary, promptly gives trillions of dollars to Wall St; Former senior executive for Monsanto becomes head of FDA). Granted, pure capitalism is not exactly possible given the flawed existence of humans and our fragile societies. But let's at least call our current system what it is: corporatism. Maybe even with a dash of nepotism, militarism and fascism.
- minority-one 11y ago
  You're the only voice of reason on this thread. What we should be really scared of is a population whose majority clamors for democracy yet prefers to trust government over holding representatives accountable. The problem is the people have been rendered powerless through mis-education to the point they've forgotten their non-interventionist history. Keeping guns is necessary but not sufficient for the government to fear its people. People have also been convinced the only way to get educated is to go into debt, since independent thought is ridiculed on mainstream entertainment venues. That gives governments an opportunity to control what people learn. It goes on and on but it all starts with what you rightfully noted, that this is no Capitalism, but Corporatism. I wouldn't expect a university professor (even an economist) to understand this finer point as I know first-hand those people either have approved opinions or they don't have a job in academia. For those who only dabble in economics (and here I include up to Ph.Ds in Economics) here's a hint: if your economy only has one money, and its price is centrally controlled, as interest rates are by the Fed in the U.S., what you have is not Capitalism, because no saving of capital is taking place.
  - damosneeze 11y ago
    Great points. On the topic of mainstream education, my brother is "unschooling" his children. They went to public school for one year, then he saw what was happening not only with the level of standardized education, but also the drills to "prepare" for school shootings. Schools prepare not by hiring security guards, but by having realistic simulations of a shooter, and having the children cower under their desks. Welcome to the new normal: Dept of Education's standards for dealing with ~~nuclear~~ handgun proliferation. i visited my brother last year and it was interesting to see his kids interact socially. this is typically one of the big arguments that comes up for homeschooled children: How will your children grow socially? How will they learn to interact? After watching them at their golf practice, surrounded by tons of other kids, it was clear: my brother's kids were leaders, and the other kids were mostly followers. his kids learn what they want, guided by their father's loose curriculum. They started learning algebra at 7, with the assistance of some very clever iPad apps. They read. They play games. And most of all, they enjoy life. They're not just waiting for recess. Or high school. Or college. Or their first job. Those kids will be just fine.
rsync 11y ago
Are they different ? Is a construct that is built up and acquires a direction and momentum that grows beyond human reins and sense any different than a robot ? They're both machines, which makes them distinct from humans and human decisions and human reasoning. We should neither be on guard against "robots" or capitalism[1] - rather, we should be on guard against machines in all their forms as they tend to affect humans without the safeguard of human reasoning. I paraphrase Herbert: Thou shalt not suffer a machine to rule over you. [1] ... or democracy or catholicism ...
kazinator 11y ago
> As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. "The rest", as a complement to "super rich" in the above, clearly means "not super rich". This necessarily includes various categories such as "merely rich, but short of super", as well as "well-off", "struggling", and "flat broke". The poverty line is an abstraction that demarcates zones in a political field. What it means to be "poor" is a moving target. Someone from the 1600's would laugh at what constitutes a "poor" person today. How can someone be poor and have all that stuff (automobile, iPad, high speed Internet, 50" TV, ...), and weigh 300 pounds, too? And still alive at 45 years old, and smiling---with no missing teeth when doing so. What's more, working only 5 days a week for some 7 hours a day.
aggieben 11y ago
It would help if the writers who want to complain about inequality knew what bourgeoisie means.
thoman23 11y ago
I'm going to dumb it down a bit, and say that I like to think of two movies with different visions of a technologically advanced future: WALL-E and Elysium (aka that Matt Damon movie where all the rich people live on the space station). In WALL-E, nobody works and everybody (well, everybody that survived the initial apocalypse anyway) lives the literal fat life while robots serve them all equally. In Elysium, the abundance of health and life that comes from technological advances are hoarded away for exclusive use by the wealthy. Of the 2 visions, I always found the Elysium model to be much more likely...actually I would argue inevitable. Given human nature, I just can't foresee a world where everyone lounges around in equally-served harmony. No...there will always be an elite, and the elite will find a way to procure and consume a vastly disproportionate amount of resources. Even in the movie Elysium, after the proletariat storm the space castle at the end, any "victory" will be short-lived and will just produce a new elite. So I guess I'm suggesting that the proclaimed political/economic system is irrelevant. The reality ends up looking pretty much the same in either case. And that reality will probably not be pretty once human labor is fully commoditized through technology.
- zo1 11y ago
  The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you get into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological advances for exclusive use? For that matter, what is wealth in such a context anyways? What are they wealthy of? Magical mythical currency that they exchange with other rich people? No, they have to give it to someone to do something. Even if it means giving it to the soldiers that have to police the ever-growing population below. Really, the whole story just relies on an unproven notion that "wealthy people are evil", as that is the only motive that can hold up. Why couldn't the poor simply pool their resources together (government?) and buy one of these things from the rich people. I'm really bothered that the narrative in the media and movies is constantly presented as "the poor rise up against the evil rich".
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you get into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological advances for exclusive use? Right now today this minute there are poor children in India living near garbage dumps picking through other people's litter. http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-pickers http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-... http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_environment/pdf_hazards_pollution/IIED_hunt_indiachildren.pdf http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_env... Have a look at the image tab here: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers Your second paragraph is just saying "trickle down works" when we know it doesn't.
dynomight 11y ago
There must be a law, or observation, concerning a balance of effort expended between 'labor replaced by tech' & 'hassle created by the labor saving tech'.

84 points by antjanus 11y ago

* crickets * (after 40 min on the front page, but it's there!) How does HN, a hotbed of libertarian free-market worship that also reveres smarts and science, respond to this?

eloisius 11y ago
By asking which alternative model you propose.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  Socialism as practiced by many european countries seems to work fine. No big Googles happening over here, but generally people seem to be happier and less worried about their futures.
  - mpweiher 11y ago
    It's called "Social Democracy", and yes, that really is quite a different thing.
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      They are all capitalist economies, like it or not, that is where the money comes from. If Europeans think that their particular country is not capitalist they are confused.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > They are all capitalist economies They're all (as is the United States, for that matter) modern mixed economies; capitalism as a dominant economic system proper has been largely abandoned in the developed world in favor of systems which, compared to the then-dominant system named "capitalism" by its critics, systems with comparatively strong redistributive and central regulatory systems, and often a wide array of directly-provided State services, all reforms directed at mitigating the problems for which the critics that named "capitalism" were criticizing it. Capitalism remains a significant ideology (particularly, surprisingly enough, among the capital-holding class and those who aspirationally associate with that class), and adherents to that ideology often misattribute the success of modern mixed economies compared to other alternatives to capitalism as a success of "capitalism". Really, the difference between the US and European Social Democracies is between fairly small variations in the details of the structure of a mixed economy -- variations which can have a big practical effect, and are worth discussing, to be sure.
        happyscrappy 11y ago
        You can certainly claim they are mixed, but they are all using capitalism, as much as it may bother some people to admit.
minority-one 11y ago
Where do people get this idea that HN is full of libertarians? If you hang around you will see most people's reactions are far to the left and libertarian answers get consistently downvoted.
solson 11y ago
My response to Hawking would be a question: Who or what is smart enough to decide how much wealth each person should have and design a efficient system to distribute it and what evidence do you have that the outcome would be better than a free market?
- michaelchisari 11y ago
  You're arguing against a command economy, but there are multitudes of options when it comes to creating a more equitable society than micromanaging wealth.
oberstein 11y ago
Perhaps by continuing to ignore it. Hawking has some weird (if somewhat common) opinions about AI, aliens, and I guess capitalism too. He should stick to black holes. What annoys me is he often has the basic facts right. For example, fully general AI is dangerous (but not really because of Terminator-like scenarios); if there are intelligent aliens we should not expect them to be nice any more than mean, and there are good arguments to expect mean, and so we should be careful (but not because of the very unlikely scenario outlined in Signs); and in this case he's right that further automation of the economy will produce greater economic inequality, but economic inequality is a good thing, it's absolute wealth and poverty that's the real problem, and I'd bet on the trend of the poor not in fact getting poorer, on an absolute scale, continuing. See http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  > He should stick to black holes. I just want to point out the shallow stereotypicality of that remark. That's all.
  - oberstein 11y ago
    Fine, physics in general, then? I mean he's still my generation's (20-30-somethings) Einstein, great thinker, but Einstein had a lot of bad ideas about socialism and governance too.
mempko 11y ago
By quietly upvoting it while smoking some weed to quiet their cognitive dissonance.
gaius 11y ago
Richard Dawkins was a scientific hero too 'til his latest meltdown.
masterleep 11y ago
He sounds about as qualified to opine on economics as I am to give my theory about black hole physics.
Grue3 11y ago
Why should anyone care what some physicist (even a very smart one) thinks about politics? Same deal with Noam Chomsky. Just because they're accomplished in one branch of science doesn't make them an authority on social issues.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
  Sometimes it even makes them less reliable on social issues.

heimatau 11y ago

Well, his argument is very logical and grounded in evidence. Hypothetically, robots could cause a problem but capitalism is currently tearing the fabric of society apart due to wealth inequality. When I first saw this article, I said this to myself, "But robots...but matrix...but terminator" a few hours later, I realized the grounded logic he is conveying. Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people. People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai).

BerislavLopac 11y ago
I've always found this logic quite flawed: we have capitalism, and we have wealth inequality, therefore capitalism causes wealth inequality. As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality, so replacing it with something else wouldn't really change much. It's been tried numerous times, and none of those experiments managed to solve the issue of wealth inequality in a sustainable way. Capitalism is far from being an ideal system, but it works, and replacing it can cause only more pain for everyone. I can see the appeal of blaming it for everything; it's a handy scapegoat, "the devil we know" -- but I haven't seen many realistic proposals what should replace it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- azth 11y ago
  > As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality Check out the Islamic perspective on economics and finance. It sets certain restrictions, while keeping many things open to the requirements of the society: no interest, shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor, etc. while still allowing the opportunities to acquire wealth. It was during the days of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz[0] that it was reported that there were no more poor people left to take Zakat[1], because everyone did their duties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat

Tloewald 11y ago

He's right of course. It's essentially the "billionaires in gated communities guarded by robot drones" argument. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-lords-and-end-of-people-power.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-robot-lords-a... It's amazing how many things look like a tragedy of the commons (rather than a wonderful efficient market) when you hit boundary conditions.

enahs-sf 11y ago

I fundamentally don't understand how capitalism will work in a society where scarcity is essentially nil. It doesn't make sense. Maybe someone could explain it to me?

Florin_Andrei 11y ago
It's hard to envision how money in general would work post-scarcity.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I fundamentally don't understand how capitalism will work in a society where scarcity is essentially nil. It doesn't make sense. "A society where scarcity is essentially nil" is the part that doesn't make sense. Particularly given the degree to which human experience of utility/disutility is demonstrated to be strongly influenced by relative rather than absolute conditions. Relative abundance doesn't really substantially change the degree to which capitalism does or does not work.
Retric 11y ago
The model for how Japanese Manga or High Fashion is sold may have some input on this. Basically, the what people pay for is design time and marketing not production costs. So, artificial scarcity is often used to drives up prices. AKA normal is X, but limited edition red version is 10X. The important thing to remember is I might place zero value on something, but as long as you can find a buyer then stuff has value.
fao_ 11y ago
It depends on the market, however I think that scarcity will end up being manufactured. Just look at the diamond market -- one or two companies effectively monopolised the entire market and rose the price and value of their product through creating artificial scarcity. I don't like the idea of this (I hold the idea of Iain M. Banks' The Culture[1] as the ideal civilization), but I think that it is required for capitalism to remain a viable system post-scarcity. I suppose one other way to do this (That would hopefully be outlawed) is the creation of a virus that wipe out all the natural sources of a product (I'm thinking mainly of foodstuffs here), leaving a single company the owner of the plant/genome/whatever. The idea is explored in one of Zach's comics: [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture [2]: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2834 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2834

ddingus 11y ago

He's right, but I am hungry for alternatives. And what does a transition look like? When I see this kind of thing, I think "of course!", but then I don't know what to advocate for, and what that might look like and how people will manage through the change.

Florin_Andrei 11y ago
> And what does a transition look like? That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
- BerislavLopac 11y ago
  No, this is: "but then I don't know what to advocate for" Everybody "knows" that things should be changed, but nobody knows how and to what.
  - ddingus 11y ago
    Indeed. I see positive, fact based and data driven policy advocacy as most productive. Fear, worry, shame based advocacy does more harm than good. Generally, of course. Sometimes we need those things, but not as norms in the political dialog. When we are FOR things, it seems easier to work together on them to expected outcomes. Being AGAINST things is much easier, but so often leaves a hole we hope will be filled by market forces and that outcome will be better, or worthy. Sometimes it is. I believe in markets, but they do come with inherent conflicts of interest that can be difficult to manage. On this issue, it seems necessary to have a plan and a just and reasonable outcome goal.

mpweiher 11y ago

Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't happen this time either." Although there is some truth to this, the past tends to be only a limited predictor for the future ("It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra ), and of course logically this stance cannot be supported. Also, there is some grounds to believe that this time actually is different: whereas production and consumption used to expand to soak up new found productivity, we're reaching both resource limits in terms of what can be produced, and at least in the west saturation in terms of consumption. We already consume way more than we really want/need, and more and more people are realizing that their stuff is not liberating them, but rather taking them hostage. Furthermore, there also is evidence that this is already happening. Blue collar wages are stagnating or in decline, same though to a lesser extent for the middle class. Debt has soared as people try to maintain their standard of living. Robots have the capacity to help us bring about the 15 hour work week Keynes predicted, or maybe even the 4 hour work week, but we probably will have to restructure our wealth distribution mechanisms somewhat to achieve it.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Right. The usual counter is the following: "This was predicted every time we had technological upheavals, and it never happened. Therefore it won't happen this time either." Which is, of course, false in its premise -- it happened with the technological developments which were happening alongside the development of the economic system which would become dominant in the developed world of the time, which would later be named "capitalism" by its critics, and was mitigated to a certain degree (but not, by any stretch of the imagination, solved) when capitalism was largely replaced in the developed world with modern "mixed economies" which limit the capitalist property system through the adoption of redistributive and socialized regulatory mechanisms while retaining the capitalist arrangement in outline (in the developed world, this approach has prevailed, for now, over both retaining -- or reverting to -- capitalism without compromising its structure and abandoning its property structure outright.)
- hammock 11y ago

mixedmath 11y ago

I was the one who wrote that question to Stephen Hawking. Now that it's been brought up here, perhaps it would be nice to ask the question here. How does HN feel about technological unemployment?

calibraxis 11y ago
The fact that people fear technological unemployment — freedom — is a sign we live under an idiotic system.
- rskar 11y ago
  Freedom, as in freedom from work? The supposed upside of that freedom is based on the assumption that one is still somehow entitled to some of that good stuff that AI/robots may bring. But that's exactly the issue. Right now we understand "capitalism" (stakeholders entitled to dividends) and "barter" (parties entitled to swap) as the sort of entitlements that underpin all others, and both of these leverage property rights. A sovereignty/government would then tap into these plus holdings of property itself by levying tributes/taxes, from which it may then redistribute portions as some other forms of entitlement. Or not; it's still an open debate on whether and how sovereignty/government might counterbalance via entitlements (such as basic income schemes, etc.) the social changes that technological unemployment could bring. In the meantime, the facts are that most people must strike bargains in order to obtain most (or possibly all) of the material needs of their lifestyles (and possibly also provide for dependents), and that the most usual bargaining to be struck involves their offer of labor; hence their reasons for all the dreading about technological unemployment. If most could clearly find their way to situations where employment wasn't a requirement towards getting their material needs met, then such fears would abate.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

You should note, this is an extremely misleading article. He is in fact worried about AI. Hawkings wrote this in the same thread: You’re right: media often misrepresent what is actually said. The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence. A superintelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble. You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants. Please encourage your students to think not only about how to create AI, but also about how to ensure its beneficial use. This was what her wrote when asked about technological unemployment: If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

oberstein 11y ago
Thanks for bringing out his AI comment, it seems much more aligned with the main superintelligence research community now than when I read his thoughts last. Updated.

RRRA 11y ago

I like how it takes a well known figure to state the obvious and get people to actually talk about the basic flaws of a system...

damosneeze 11y ago

It would be nice if the elephant in the room were addressed: We are Not in a capitalist society. We are in a corporatist society. It took a joint collaboration between corporations and government to blow up the economy with the 2008 financial crisis. And then the government bailed out the financial elites. In a capitalist society, those who failed would go under. In fact, we probably wouldn't have reached that crisis point, because the Fed would not exist (and would not be manipulating interest rates), there would be no revolving door between corporations and government (Former Goldman Sachs CEO becomes Treasury Secretary, promptly gives trillions of dollars to Wall St; Former senior executive for Monsanto becomes head of FDA). Granted, pure capitalism is not exactly possible given the flawed existence of humans and our fragile societies. But let's at least call our current system what it is: corporatism. Maybe even with a dash of nepotism, militarism and fascism.

minority-one 11y ago
You're the only voice of reason on this thread. What we should be really scared of is a population whose majority clamors for democracy yet prefers to trust government over holding representatives accountable. The problem is the people have been rendered powerless through mis-education to the point they've forgotten their non-interventionist history. Keeping guns is necessary but not sufficient for the government to fear its people. People have also been convinced the only way to get educated is to go into debt, since independent thought is ridiculed on mainstream entertainment venues. That gives governments an opportunity to control what people learn. It goes on and on but it all starts with what you rightfully noted, that this is no Capitalism, but Corporatism. I wouldn't expect a university professor (even an economist) to understand this finer point as I know first-hand those people either have approved opinions or they don't have a job in academia. For those who only dabble in economics (and here I include up to Ph.Ds in Economics) here's a hint: if your economy only has one money, and its price is centrally controlled, as interest rates are by the Fed in the U.S., what you have is not Capitalism, because no saving of capital is taking place.
- damosneeze 11y ago
  Great points. On the topic of mainstream education, my brother is "unschooling" his children. They went to public school for one year, then he saw what was happening not only with the level of standardized education, but also the drills to "prepare" for school shootings. Schools prepare not by hiring security guards, but by having realistic simulations of a shooter, and having the children cower under their desks. Welcome to the new normal: Dept of Education's standards for dealing with ~~nuclear~~ handgun proliferation. i visited my brother last year and it was interesting to see his kids interact socially. this is typically one of the big arguments that comes up for homeschooled children: How will your children grow socially? How will they learn to interact? After watching them at their golf practice, surrounded by tons of other kids, it was clear: my brother's kids were leaders, and the other kids were mostly followers. his kids learn what they want, guided by their father's loose curriculum. They started learning algebra at 7, with the assistance of some very clever iPad apps. They read. They play games. And most of all, they enjoy life. They're not just waiting for recess. Or high school. Or college. Or their first job. Those kids will be just fine.

rsync 11y ago

Are they different ? Is a construct that is built up and acquires a direction and momentum that grows beyond human reins and sense any different than a robot ? They're both machines, which makes them distinct from humans and human decisions and human reasoning. We should neither be on guard against "robots" or capitalism[1] - rather, we should be on guard against machines in all their forms as they tend to affect humans without the safeguard of human reasoning. I paraphrase Herbert: Thou shalt not suffer a machine to rule over you. [1] ... or democracy or catholicism ...

kazinator 11y ago

> As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. "The rest", as a complement to "super rich" in the above, clearly means "not super rich". This necessarily includes various categories such as "merely rich, but short of super", as well as "well-off", "struggling", and "flat broke". The poverty line is an abstraction that demarcates zones in a political field. What it means to be "poor" is a moving target. Someone from the 1600's would laugh at what constitutes a "poor" person today. How can someone be poor and have all that stuff (automobile, iPad, high speed Internet, 50" TV, ...), and weigh 300 pounds, too? And still alive at 45 years old, and smiling---with no missing teeth when doing so. What's more, working only 5 days a week for some 7 hours a day.

aggieben 11y ago

It would help if the writers who want to complain about inequality knew what bourgeoisie means.

thoman23 11y ago

I'm going to dumb it down a bit, and say that I like to think of two movies with different visions of a technologically advanced future: WALL-E and Elysium (aka that Matt Damon movie where all the rich people live on the space station). In WALL-E, nobody works and everybody (well, everybody that survived the initial apocalypse anyway) lives the literal fat life while robots serve them all equally. In Elysium, the abundance of health and life that comes from technological advances are hoarded away for exclusive use by the wealthy. Of the 2 visions, I always found the Elysium model to be much more likely...actually I would argue inevitable. Given human nature, I just can't foresee a world where everyone lounges around in equally-served harmony. No...there will always be an elite, and the elite will find a way to procure and consume a vastly disproportionate amount of resources. Even in the movie Elysium, after the proletariat storm the space castle at the end, any "victory" will be short-lived and will just produce a new elite. So I guess I'm suggesting that the proclaimed political/economic system is irrelevant. The reality ends up looking pretty much the same in either case. And that reality will probably not be pretty once human labor is fully commoditized through technology.

zo1 11y ago
The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you get into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological advances for exclusive use? For that matter, what is wealth in such a context anyways? What are they wealthy of? Magical mythical currency that they exchange with other rich people? No, they have to give it to someone to do something. Even if it means giving it to the soldiers that have to police the ever-growing population below. Really, the whole story just relies on an unproven notion that "wealthy people are evil", as that is the only motive that can hold up. Why couldn't the poor simply pool their resources together (government?) and buy one of these things from the rich people. I'm really bothered that the narrative in the media and movies is constantly presented as "the poor rise up against the evil rich".
- DanBC 11y ago
  > The problem with Elysium is that it just does not sound plausible once you get into the meat of it. Why would the rich "hoard" their technological advances for exclusive use? Right now today this minute there are poor children in India living near garbage dumps picking through other people's litter. http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-pickers http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-... http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_environment/pdf_hazards_pollution/IIED_hunt_indiachildren.pdf http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_env... Have a look at the image tab here: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=child+waste+pickers Your second paragraph is just saying "trickle down works" when we know it doesn't.

dynomight 11y ago

There must be a law, or observation, concerning a balance of effort expended between 'labor replaced by tech' & 'hassle created by the labor saving tech'.