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> "Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us." > "Most of our

> "Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us." > "Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how powerful entities will use technology against us." FTFY. Totalitarian state != capitalism. Edit: I think this is being misunderstood. Chiang is arguing that fear of AI is really fear of how Capitalism will make use of it. But it's not just Capitalism; it's any entity powerful enough to leverage it to the detriment of the masses (for example totalitarian states). Capitalist winners are one kind of powerful entity among many.

bayindirh 6y ago
While Amazon is not a totalitarian state, its use of AI in their delivery vehicles (rightfully) came under strong fire. Maybe Amazon is a totalitarian country which I'm not aware of? This is just from top of my head. There are also other examples, like autonomous trucking?
- Ygg2 6y ago
  I think the article is wrong. Fears of Technology are really fear of technology misuse. Sure current system is capitalism, but you could construct a similar argument for any other system. E.g. in contemporary authoritarian communism with same tech level, you could get automated societal purges.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    You might be right. The essense is technology misuse. That's for sure. However, I'm wondering whether some systems come with authoritarianism bundled, so the use of technology in that way is somewhat expected. I'm not so sure about it though, since I'm not that knowledgeable about politics & systems in that breadth. At the end of the day, my comment was only to counter my parent comment, which is now edited and clarified.
gjulianm 6y ago
The book "Weapons of math destruction" contains a myriad of real examples of big data and AI punishing people and making their situation worse, in the US, with no totalitarianism needed. For example, use of AI in credit scores or policing, where the place you live will make the AI score you worse or think you're more likely to be a criminal, therefore making it harder for you to get out of any bad situation and reinforcing the "people from this zone are bad" idea.
ttt0 6y ago
Why are people downvoting comments that are pointing this out? If you don't like the discussion that the article provoked then flag down the entire article, not comments.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Anger from people belonging to one of the following 4 fragments: Up/Down: Classism Left/Right: Politics
- gjulianm 6y ago
  I didn't downvote but I do think that a lot of comments didn't bother with actually trying to read the article and understand the points. The article doesn't talk at all about totalitarianism but about people's livelihoods. Dismissing the actual fears of technology putting people out of work by saying "this just happens in totalitarian societies" does not add too much to the conversation.

bayindirh 6y ago

While Amazon is not a totalitarian state, its use of AI in their delivery vehicles (rightfully) came under strong fire. Maybe Amazon is a totalitarian country which I'm not aware of? This is just from top of my head. There are also other examples, like autonomous trucking?

Ygg2 6y ago
I think the article is wrong. Fears of Technology are really fear of technology misuse. Sure current system is capitalism, but you could construct a similar argument for any other system. E.g. in contemporary authoritarian communism with same tech level, you could get automated societal purges.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  You might be right. The essense is technology misuse. That's for sure. However, I'm wondering whether some systems come with authoritarianism bundled, so the use of technology in that way is somewhat expected. I'm not so sure about it though, since I'm not that knowledgeable about politics & systems in that breadth. At the end of the day, my comment was only to counter my parent comment, which is now edited and clarified.

gjulianm 6y ago

The book "Weapons of math destruction" contains a myriad of real examples of big data and AI punishing people and making their situation worse, in the US, with no totalitarianism needed. For example, use of AI in credit scores or policing, where the place you live will make the AI score you worse or think you're more likely to be a criminal, therefore making it harder for you to get out of any bad situation and reinforcing the "people from this zone are bad" idea.

ttt0 6y ago

Why are people downvoting comments that are pointing this out? If you don't like the discussion that the article provoked then flag down the entire article, not comments.

systemvoltage 6y ago
Anger from people belonging to one of the following 4 fragments: Up/Down: Classism Left/Right: Politics
gjulianm 6y ago
I didn't downvote but I do think that a lot of comments didn't bother with actually trying to read the article and understand the points. The article doesn't talk at all about totalitarianism but about people's livelihoods. Dismissing the actual fears of technology putting people out of work by saying "this just happens in totalitarian societies" does not add too much to the conversation.