4 ms·

It's a cute idea, but I see two obvious issues. First, spending priorities tend to be pretty similar among politicians, with each differing only in small detail

It's a cute idea, but I see two obvious issues. First, spending priorities tend to be pretty similar among politicians, with each differing only in small details, so approximately all of the pie charts would look more or less like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:2020_US_Federal_Budget_Infographic.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... (Only about a quarter of the pie is even discretionary! The rest is on budgetary auto-pilot.) Second, how many people are well-informed enough to have an opinion on how much of the budget should be spent on AI research? How many have even thought about the question? There are a kajillion such questions, and it would be unreasonable for most citizens to put in the time to consider even a small fraction of them, considering how little a single person's vote affects them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance

wolverine876 5y ago
> how many people are well-informed enough to have an opinion on how much of the budget should be spent on AI research? Unfortunately, there is no super-human, super-political authority who can give us answers. We each get to decide who we trust and to what degree. You are free to trust Eric Schmidt to whatever degree; I might vote otherwise. Certainly nobody gets to assert authority over others by simply claiming to be an expert.
- pjscott 5y ago
  I agree, of course! But I'm trying to get at a different question: what sort of processes can be expected to give better or worse answers to the resource allocation problem? This probably can't be answered at HN comment length. Or at book length, for that matter. But I will say that I think letting individual rich people unilaterally jump on causes that they believe to be important and neglected seems like the kind of thing that will probably give better net outcomes on the margin under systems like the one we currently have.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    There's nothing magical about people who have lots of money that make them any better than you - don't let anyone convince you otherwise. It is a common foundation of dictators, to tell you how badly you need them and how one strong person will save things. And as ordinary mortals, who put on their pants one leg at a time like you do, they are just as corrupt, stupid, and biased as everyone else, including politicians, but we lack transparency or any check on their power. That's why we have democratic government: To provide a way to manage power. It belongs to us. Some powerful people would love for for you to hand them that power. People are naturally narrowminded, seeing their own experiences and interests as universal and essential and others as fringe and optional - or non-existant, because they can't possibly understand all the different experiences of the world. Wealthy people serve their own interests (which are very well-served already, I'll point out). It's like the old supply-side 'economics' claim from the 1980s: 'If we cut taxes for wealthy people, they will do good things for us' It turns out that it made them wealthier, and that was it. That's why democracy is so important and function so well (relative to other forms of government): Everyone gets a vote and therefore everyone's interests are considered - even the ones you haven't imagined, don't understand, or don't care about. If you want a reliable way to see who will get screwed, just look for who doesn't have a seat at the table. We do have systems for allocating funds, which include experts and people who study the issues, and public debate. What evidence is there that it works so poorly or could be so easily improved? I certainly don't agree with many decisions, but as I have to share the decisions with 330 million other people, that is understandable. Certainly I see what seem like more objective imperfections, but underfunding AI isn't one of them. > letting individual rich people ... Nobody is stopping anybody.
    - AlchemistCamp 5y ago
      > Nobody is stopping anybody. This thread was started by someone suggesting "we" tax Schmidt the exact 125M he decided to donate and then allocate the money as we see fit. How is that not stopping anybody?
      - wolverine876 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

> how many people are well-informed enough to have an opinion on how much of the budget should be spent on AI research? Unfortunately, there is no super-human, super-political authority who can give us answers. We each get to decide who we trust and to what degree. You are free to trust Eric Schmidt to whatever degree; I might vote otherwise. Certainly nobody gets to assert authority over others by simply claiming to be an expert.

pjscott 5y ago
I agree, of course! But I'm trying to get at a different question: what sort of processes can be expected to give better or worse answers to the resource allocation problem? This probably can't be answered at HN comment length. Or at book length, for that matter. But I will say that I think letting individual rich people unilaterally jump on causes that they believe to be important and neglected seems like the kind of thing that will probably give better net outcomes on the margin under systems like the one we currently have.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  There's nothing magical about people who have lots of money that make them any better than you - don't let anyone convince you otherwise. It is a common foundation of dictators, to tell you how badly you need them and how one strong person will save things. And as ordinary mortals, who put on their pants one leg at a time like you do, they are just as corrupt, stupid, and biased as everyone else, including politicians, but we lack transparency or any check on their power. That's why we have democratic government: To provide a way to manage power. It belongs to us. Some powerful people would love for for you to hand them that power. People are naturally narrowminded, seeing their own experiences and interests as universal and essential and others as fringe and optional - or non-existant, because they can't possibly understand all the different experiences of the world. Wealthy people serve their own interests (which are very well-served already, I'll point out). It's like the old supply-side 'economics' claim from the 1980s: 'If we cut taxes for wealthy people, they will do good things for us' It turns out that it made them wealthier, and that was it. That's why democracy is so important and function so well (relative to other forms of government): Everyone gets a vote and therefore everyone's interests are considered - even the ones you haven't imagined, don't understand, or don't care about. If you want a reliable way to see who will get screwed, just look for who doesn't have a seat at the table. We do have systems for allocating funds, which include experts and people who study the issues, and public debate. What evidence is there that it works so poorly or could be so easily improved? I certainly don't agree with many decisions, but as I have to share the decisions with 330 million other people, that is understandable. Certainly I see what seem like more objective imperfections, but underfunding AI isn't one of them. > letting individual rich people ... Nobody is stopping anybody.
  - AlchemistCamp 5y ago
    > Nobody is stopping anybody. This thread was started by someone suggesting "we" tax Schmidt the exact 125M he decided to donate and then allocate the money as we see fit. How is that not stopping anybody?
    - wolverine876 5y ago