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I don't think the conversion we need to have is about how to stop it, its about what we do with all the unemployed artists, accountants, journalists, truck and

I don't think the conversion we need to have is about how to stop it, its about what we do with all the unemployed artists, accountants, journalists, truck and taxi drivers. Do we pay half of them to dig holes, then pay the other half to fill them? We just need to keep the economy wheel turning while everybody finds new meaningful work.

coldtea 4y ago
Who is "we"? The rich will decide, and probably that they can do without most of the "we".
- Radim 4y ago
  I agree with that sentiment, just a small correction: It's not the rich who will decide; it's the powerful. In the classical sense of "capacity to impose will" – up to and including the capacity to turn off {machines, humans, institutions}. There's a strong correlation between wealth and power, but those groups are not identical. And neither are their staying prospects in the coming years.
  - Radim 4y ago
    On seconds thoughts, interestingly, that difference between "wealth" and "power" also becomes relevant when quantifying your "most" in They can do without MOST of the "we". Like, how many people do the wealthy/powerful actually need? What level of automation will allow maintaining their lifestyle, including: 1. Biological needs: Food & a sufficiently diverse pool of mates for themselves and their children. 2. A social hierarchy large enough to flex their power beyond mere biological survival (very important to primates). I'd expect this number to be strictly smaller than for 1), so likely not a concern: as long as there are enough people to biologically sustain a population, there are enough people to subjugate. 3. Technological scaffolding to produce, maintain and bootstrap (in case of calamities) said automation. Currently humans are a necessary physical substrate for the continued inflow of energy that automation needs. I don't have the numbers but the footprint to run even a single power plant must be tremendous: a large and complex society, once you include 2nd order effects. Without energy, the machines don't go "VRRROOM" and neither does AI. And if the human population drops too low to interfere with any of these points, the automation was self-defeating. It doesn't matter how rich or powerful you were. I mean, I'm sure someone somewhere ran the numbers and has a plan ready, while the rest of us wax lyrical about "just find a new job LOL" and UBI. Although to be fair, there are also preppers, who've taken the above analysis to its logical conclusion.
    - IX-103 4y ago
      The true limit is item 2 on your list. Eventually AI can take care of the food production portion of 1 and most of item 3. The fact is that energy and secure storage are much less of a problem for AI and robots than people. For population replacement, you can get by with a couple thousand people. That's really only about a dozen large tribes. If the tribes are kept suitably insular and antagonistic (with either ritualized external marriage or slave-taking to ensure proper genetic circulation) that society might even be stable. The trick would be keeping the population stable.
lazyeye 4y ago
They just move into the more AI resistant sectors of the economy (putting a big downward pressure on wages for those remaining jobs of course).
- borissk 4y ago
  Who's going to pay for those remaining jobs? E.g. currently mostly the middle class pays for home improvements, which creates jobs for construction workers. Remove the middle class and there's a lot less demand for construction workers - so what are the IT people turned into construction workers going to do?
- whitemary 4y ago
  The low wages cannot go any lower. As it stands, poor workers in the US already don't make nearly enough to survive. They just keep increasing their debt until they either climb the ladder or die of an overdose or some other tragedy.
herbst 4y ago
That's a process that didn't start with AI but now it became obvious very fast that it gets to late to ignore. There is no model that works in a purely capitalistic setting. The reality this this issue will hit us hard, everywhere and faster every day.

coldtea 4y ago

Who is "we"? The rich will decide, and probably that they can do without most of the "we".

Radim 4y ago
I agree with that sentiment, just a small correction: It's not the rich who will decide; it's the powerful. In the classical sense of "capacity to impose will" – up to and including the capacity to turn off {machines, humans, institutions}. There's a strong correlation between wealth and power, but those groups are not identical. And neither are their staying prospects in the coming years.
- Radim 4y ago
  On seconds thoughts, interestingly, that difference between "wealth" and "power" also becomes relevant when quantifying your "most" in They can do without MOST of the "we". Like, how many people do the wealthy/powerful actually need? What level of automation will allow maintaining their lifestyle, including: 1. Biological needs: Food & a sufficiently diverse pool of mates for themselves and their children. 2. A social hierarchy large enough to flex their power beyond mere biological survival (very important to primates). I'd expect this number to be strictly smaller than for 1), so likely not a concern: as long as there are enough people to biologically sustain a population, there are enough people to subjugate. 3. Technological scaffolding to produce, maintain and bootstrap (in case of calamities) said automation. Currently humans are a necessary physical substrate for the continued inflow of energy that automation needs. I don't have the numbers but the footprint to run even a single power plant must be tremendous: a large and complex society, once you include 2nd order effects. Without energy, the machines don't go "VRRROOM" and neither does AI. And if the human population drops too low to interfere with any of these points, the automation was self-defeating. It doesn't matter how rich or powerful you were. I mean, I'm sure someone somewhere ran the numbers and has a plan ready, while the rest of us wax lyrical about "just find a new job LOL" and UBI. Although to be fair, there are also preppers, who've taken the above analysis to its logical conclusion.
  - IX-103 4y ago
    The true limit is item 2 on your list. Eventually AI can take care of the food production portion of 1 and most of item 3. The fact is that energy and secure storage are much less of a problem for AI and robots than people. For population replacement, you can get by with a couple thousand people. That's really only about a dozen large tribes. If the tribes are kept suitably insular and antagonistic (with either ritualized external marriage or slave-taking to ensure proper genetic circulation) that society might even be stable. The trick would be keeping the population stable.

lazyeye 4y ago

They just move into the more AI resistant sectors of the economy (putting a big downward pressure on wages for those remaining jobs of course).

borissk 4y ago
Who's going to pay for those remaining jobs? E.g. currently mostly the middle class pays for home improvements, which creates jobs for construction workers. Remove the middle class and there's a lot less demand for construction workers - so what are the IT people turned into construction workers going to do?
whitemary 4y ago
The low wages cannot go any lower. As it stands, poor workers in the US already don't make nearly enough to survive. They just keep increasing their debt until they either climb the ladder or die of an overdose or some other tragedy.

herbst 4y ago

That's a process that didn't start with AI but now it became obvious very fast that it gets to late to ignore. There is no model that works in a purely capitalistic setting. The reality this this issue will hit us hard, everywhere and faster every day.