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> What happens to social mobility in the post GPT world[?] If the technology pans out the way the techno-enthusiasts hope it will, upward social mobility will

> What happens to social mobility in the post GPT world[?] If the technology pans out the way the techno-enthusiasts hope it will, upward social mobility will be nearly eliminated... unless there's some kind of successful Luddite revolution against the technology and the people that own it. But that's not going to happen: there are all kinds of social pressure against revolution, as well as strict gun control in most places. Anyone who tries to resist their obsolescence will soon find themselves either ridiculed and condemned or in jail. Of course, downward social mobility will accelerate, and be celebrated by idiot technologists who just want to build tech, and don't really care to think about the consequences of the technologies they build on real people.

CuriouslyC 4y ago
I don't think social mobility will be eliminated, I think the variance of individual mobility will just be radically increased. This technology will allow entrepreneurs and solo content creators to accomplish a lot more, but it'll also eliminate a lot of safe career paths. As a result, if you don't want to be stuck in the underclass doing manual labor or customer service, you'll need to either be brilliant, well connected, start a business or create content of some sort that attracts an audience you can monetize. The people who do well will do very well, but a lot of people who would have done decently before are going to fail.
- crop_rotation 4y ago
  Your points all resonate with me. But the end result is same, the opportunities available for social mobility to an average person would reduce. I am not even sure of the 2nd and 3rd order effects. How would an industry like hospitality survive if most of the knowledge work based jobs are gone.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I don't think social mobility will be eliminated, I think the variance of individual mobility will just be radically increased. Those round to the same number: 0.
- mattgreenrocks 4y ago
  > The people who do well will do very well, but a lot of people who would have done decently before are going to fail. How is this not a huge problem? The vast majority of people are not exceptional. Cutting out that middle band of ability and resources is a surefire recipe for social unrest.
  - namaria 4y ago
    >Cutting out that middle band of ability and resources is a surefire recipe for social unrest. I don't know, the US has been pushing that envelope for 40+ years and people are still paying taxes...
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > I don't know, the US has been pushing that envelope for 40+ years and people are still paying taxes... And people can push the "meth consumption" envelope for years before they finally die from it, too. Getting away with unsustainable practices for X amount of time doesn't prove they're sustainable and won't end in collapse. It just means collapse can take more than X amount of time.
      - namaria 4y ago
        Nothing is sustainable. This is a concept invented to thwart questioning the environmental impacts of industrial activity. "Oh we can do it 'sustainably'". To claim AI tools will strip out the wealth of the middle class and cause unrest can be disproved by the fact that it was beaten to it by the US corporations by over a generation. The "middle class" was an invention of post war US to reward the soldiers who fought in Europe and the Pacific. Things are just reverting to a more long (as in multiple centuries) trend behavior of economies. Few haves, lots of have-nots and barely anything in between.
    - mattgreenrocks 4y ago
      We can only LARP as ubermensch alpha males for so long. Eventually something will give; I suspect it will be a generational divide like none other. Arguably you see the seeds of this already with things like incels opting out of conventional aspirations.
anonyfox 4y ago
you vastly underestimate civilians. probably not a single gun is needed. a crowd of people at some point will walk into the billionaire's home and make him agree with handing over his wealth. They might call the police, but all thats needed is the officers ignoring the call willingly. Why should they defend those billionaires? What should they do? Rich people depend on many individual poor laborers, all of them can simply decide to no longer accept his state of affairs and there is lietrally nothing the billionaires could do against it. Ideally, defund the police and so on, so that every state worker also is keen on getting that wealth redistribution done.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > you vastly underestimate civilians. probably not a single gun is needed. a crowd of people at some point will walk into the billionaire's home and make him agree with handing over his wealth. I'm not underestimating civilians. If what you're suggesting was at all realistic, China would be a democracy and Trump would still be president. Sure, tens of millions of unarmed people with a single mind could probably do anything (like a mass of zombies can), but you'll never actually get that. There are numerous mechanisms preventing such a mass from forming, and more to dismantle and negate it afterwards.
  - anonyfox 4y ago
    you assume that the vast majority of people in china are outright unhappy with their government right now, I don't think that this is the case. And trump is simply an idiot that only get enough votes somehow because both parties in the US are a joke to begin.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > you assume that the vast majority of people in china are outright unhappy with their government right now, I don't think that this is the case. I'm not talking about right now. > And trump is simply an idiot that only get enough votes somehow because both parties in the US are a joke to begin. Trump literally had "a crowd of people at some point ... walk into the [government's] home and make [them] agree with handing over [power]." How did that go?
CatWChainsaw 4y ago
It's not that they don't think about the consequences, it's that, as useful idiots, they think they'll be protected from them. It will be delicious when reality finally dawns on them. They helped build the big club, and they didn't even get to be in it.

CuriouslyC 4y ago

I don't think social mobility will be eliminated, I think the variance of individual mobility will just be radically increased. This technology will allow entrepreneurs and solo content creators to accomplish a lot more, but it'll also eliminate a lot of safe career paths. As a result, if you don't want to be stuck in the underclass doing manual labor or customer service, you'll need to either be brilliant, well connected, start a business or create content of some sort that attracts an audience you can monetize. The people who do well will do very well, but a lot of people who would have done decently before are going to fail.

crop_rotation 4y ago
Your points all resonate with me. But the end result is same, the opportunities available for social mobility to an average person would reduce. I am not even sure of the 2nd and 3rd order effects. How would an industry like hospitality survive if most of the knowledge work based jobs are gone.
tablespoon 4y ago
> I don't think social mobility will be eliminated, I think the variance of individual mobility will just be radically increased. Those round to the same number: 0.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
> The people who do well will do very well, but a lot of people who would have done decently before are going to fail. How is this not a huge problem? The vast majority of people are not exceptional. Cutting out that middle band of ability and resources is a surefire recipe for social unrest.
- namaria 4y ago
  >Cutting out that middle band of ability and resources is a surefire recipe for social unrest. I don't know, the US has been pushing that envelope for 40+ years and people are still paying taxes...
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > I don't know, the US has been pushing that envelope for 40+ years and people are still paying taxes... And people can push the "meth consumption" envelope for years before they finally die from it, too. Getting away with unsustainable practices for X amount of time doesn't prove they're sustainable and won't end in collapse. It just means collapse can take more than X amount of time.
    - namaria 4y ago
      Nothing is sustainable. This is a concept invented to thwart questioning the environmental impacts of industrial activity. "Oh we can do it 'sustainably'". To claim AI tools will strip out the wealth of the middle class and cause unrest can be disproved by the fact that it was beaten to it by the US corporations by over a generation. The "middle class" was an invention of post war US to reward the soldiers who fought in Europe and the Pacific. Things are just reverting to a more long (as in multiple centuries) trend behavior of economies. Few haves, lots of have-nots and barely anything in between.
  - mattgreenrocks 4y ago
    We can only LARP as ubermensch alpha males for so long. Eventually something will give; I suspect it will be a generational divide like none other. Arguably you see the seeds of this already with things like incels opting out of conventional aspirations.

anonyfox 4y ago

you vastly underestimate civilians. probably not a single gun is needed. a crowd of people at some point will walk into the billionaire's home and make him agree with handing over his wealth. They might call the police, but all thats needed is the officers ignoring the call willingly. Why should they defend those billionaires? What should they do? Rich people depend on many individual poor laborers, all of them can simply decide to no longer accept his state of affairs and there is lietrally nothing the billionaires could do against it. Ideally, defund the police and so on, so that every state worker also is keen on getting that wealth redistribution done.

tablespoon 4y ago
> you vastly underestimate civilians. probably not a single gun is needed. a crowd of people at some point will walk into the billionaire's home and make him agree with handing over his wealth. I'm not underestimating civilians. If what you're suggesting was at all realistic, China would be a democracy and Trump would still be president. Sure, tens of millions of unarmed people with a single mind could probably do anything (like a mass of zombies can), but you'll never actually get that. There are numerous mechanisms preventing such a mass from forming, and more to dismantle and negate it afterwards.
- anonyfox 4y ago
  you assume that the vast majority of people in china are outright unhappy with their government right now, I don't think that this is the case. And trump is simply an idiot that only get enough votes somehow because both parties in the US are a joke to begin.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > you assume that the vast majority of people in china are outright unhappy with their government right now, I don't think that this is the case. I'm not talking about right now. > And trump is simply an idiot that only get enough votes somehow because both parties in the US are a joke to begin. Trump literally had "a crowd of people at some point ... walk into the [government's] home and make [them] agree with handing over [power]." How did that go?

CatWChainsaw 4y ago

It's not that they don't think about the consequences, it's that, as useful idiots, they think they'll be protected from them. It will be delicious when reality finally dawns on them. They helped build the big club, and they didn't even get to be in it.