4 ms·

With the advent of AI, wealth inequality is probably going to widen. Manual work is getting less and less valuable while ownership of the machines that do the w

by mg 5y ago

With the advent of AI, wealth inequality is probably going to widen. Manual work is getting less and less valuable while ownership of the machines that do the work is getting more and more valuable. I wonder if the wealth inequality is growing via transfer - aka "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" - or if everybody is getting richer and the rich just get richer faster? A good way to look at this might be some measure of the living standard / quality of life. Over the last 10 years for example - did it go up for everyone? Or did it go up for some and down for some?

sidlls 5y ago
"A good way to look at this might be some measure of the living standard / quality of life." We have a lower percentage of the populace that is poor--but they still live with little or no access to health care, in poor housing with problems (pests, access to clean resources, food supply, rampant violent criminal activity, etc.) and in other conditions such that they may as well be in corrugated metal shanties with dirty water and little/no access to electricity and other "amenities". The living standard and quality of life for poor americans is marginally better than for poor people in third-world countries. We put a better spin on it and (ab)use statistics to paint a better picture.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "The living standard and quality of life for poor americans is marginally better than for poor people in third-world countries" I have no experience of third world countries, but if I am destined to be poor, I would rather live in ex-soviet block countries like Czech Republic. They gave half-decent public services, healthcare, etc.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The difficult portion of quality of life to quantify and even describe is volatility and possibility to move up the ladder.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  From experience in third world countries I'd say it's quite accurate, being poor in a country with ~3000$ GDP per capita is not that different from being very poor in America.
nerdponx 5y ago
I don't have good sources handy right now, but from the research I've read, it seems mostly like (on a multi-decade scale) the poorest have gotten moderately richer, the middle classes has stagnated at best, the upper-middle class has gotten moderately richer, and the richest have gotten much much richer.
boringg 5y ago
Actually I am not sure ownership of the machines, I think it is ownership of the algorithms as the machines are commodity and lose value over time.
- asdff 5y ago
  Can you cite an algorithm that today needs to be licensed for use? All the underlying algorothms anyone is going to be using are going to be publicly available. I don't pay a severance to Markov, Poisson, or Bayes.
- mg 5y ago
  Hard to say how this will play out. When I say "machines", I mean a combination of hardware and software. And these machines will be "machines that build machines". Including new software.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  "means of production". Machines is not to be taken literally, I believe. Whether people get replaced by AI/ML/Algos for middle-management decision-making, or they get replaced by kiosks and hamburger assembly devices at a fast food hut, there will be the owners of the means of production, and there will be the newly unemployed workers. The fear expressed by the OP (and me) is over the long run, how will we keep the owners of all that capital and production from wringing out the lower 90% to the point where "snow crash" reads like a documentary?
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    > how will we keep the owners of all that capital and production from wringing out the lower 90%? Tax machines like you tax employees.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Really you mean tax capital. Saldy there is still the issue of control that capital would afford you in such a scenario.
missedthecue 5y ago
In my experience, manual work seems to be getting more and more valuable, at least in the US, and it's because you cannot computerize wiring a house or pouring a concrete foundation or plumbing a bathroom.
at-fates-hands 5y ago
>> or is everybody getting richer but the rich get richer faster? There is some truth to this statement. Just a few years ago (20018), the US added a record number of millionaires: The number of millionaire households in the U.S. jumped by more than 700,000 last year, thanks to surging stock prices and housing values, according to a new report. The U.S. now has more than 11 million millionaire households, according to Spectrem Group, up more than 6 percent from 2016. The number of new millionaires and the total population of millionaires set records. Spectrem defines millionaire households as those with at least $1 million in investible assets, not including primary residence. Since the financial crisis, the number of millionaire households has nearly doubled. In 2009, there were just under 6 million millionaire households. It’s grown every year since, and is now well past the precrisis level of 9 million millionaires. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/us-added-700000-new-millionaires-in-2017.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/us-added-700000-new-milliona...
mprovost 5y ago
During the Industrial Revolution the owners of the factories became richer and richer and the workers got poorer and poorer. I seem to remember some quote about the workers "seizing the means of production"... I wonder what that looks like with AI?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  It looks like abolishing intellectual property and making all source code into a libre license, really.

by mg 5y ago

sidlls 5y ago

"A good way to look at this might be some measure of the living standard / quality of life." We have a lower percentage of the populace that is poor--but they still live with little or no access to health care, in poor housing with problems (pests, access to clean resources, food supply, rampant violent criminal activity, etc.) and in other conditions such that they may as well be in corrugated metal shanties with dirty water and little/no access to electricity and other "amenities". The living standard and quality of life for poor americans is marginally better than for poor people in third-world countries. We put a better spin on it and (ab)use statistics to paint a better picture.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"The living standard and quality of life for poor americans is marginally better than for poor people in third-world countries" I have no experience of third world countries, but if I am destined to be poor, I would rather live in ex-soviet block countries like Czech Republic. They gave half-decent public services, healthcare, etc.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The difficult portion of quality of life to quantify and even describe is volatility and possibility to move up the ladder.
sudosysgen 5y ago
From experience in third world countries I'd say it's quite accurate, being poor in a country with ~3000$ GDP per capita is not that different from being very poor in America.

nerdponx 5y ago

I don't have good sources handy right now, but from the research I've read, it seems mostly like (on a multi-decade scale) the poorest have gotten moderately richer, the middle classes has stagnated at best, the upper-middle class has gotten moderately richer, and the richest have gotten much much richer.

boringg 5y ago

Actually I am not sure ownership of the machines, I think it is ownership of the algorithms as the machines are commodity and lose value over time.

asdff 5y ago
Can you cite an algorithm that today needs to be licensed for use? All the underlying algorothms anyone is going to be using are going to be publicly available. I don't pay a severance to Markov, Poisson, or Bayes.
mg 5y ago
Hard to say how this will play out. When I say "machines", I mean a combination of hardware and software. And these machines will be "machines that build machines". Including new software.
unethical_ban 5y ago
"means of production". Machines is not to be taken literally, I believe. Whether people get replaced by AI/ML/Algos for middle-management decision-making, or they get replaced by kiosks and hamburger assembly devices at a fast food hut, there will be the owners of the means of production, and there will be the newly unemployed workers. The fear expressed by the OP (and me) is over the long run, how will we keep the owners of all that capital and production from wringing out the lower 90% to the point where "snow crash" reads like a documentary?
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > how will we keep the owners of all that capital and production from wringing out the lower 90%? Tax machines like you tax employees.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Really you mean tax capital. Saldy there is still the issue of control that capital would afford you in such a scenario.

missedthecue 5y ago

In my experience, manual work seems to be getting more and more valuable, at least in the US, and it's because you cannot computerize wiring a house or pouring a concrete foundation or plumbing a bathroom.

at-fates-hands 5y ago

>> or is everybody getting richer but the rich get richer faster? There is some truth to this statement. Just a few years ago (20018), the US added a record number of millionaires: The number of millionaire households in the U.S. jumped by more than 700,000 last year, thanks to surging stock prices and housing values, according to a new report. The U.S. now has more than 11 million millionaire households, according to Spectrem Group, up more than 6 percent from 2016. The number of new millionaires and the total population of millionaires set records. Spectrem defines millionaire households as those with at least $1 million in investible assets, not including primary residence. Since the financial crisis, the number of millionaire households has nearly doubled. In 2009, there were just under 6 million millionaire households. It’s grown every year since, and is now well past the precrisis level of 9 million millionaires. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/us-added-700000-new-millionaires-in-2017.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/us-added-700000-new-milliona...

mprovost 5y ago

During the Industrial Revolution the owners of the factories became richer and richer and the workers got poorer and poorer. I seem to remember some quote about the workers "seizing the means of production"... I wonder what that looks like with AI?

sudosysgen 5y ago
It looks like abolishing intellectual property and making all source code into a libre license, really.