7 ms·

The Problem with AI Is the Problem with Capitalism

55 points by eatonphil 4y ago

anon291 4y ago
This statement is why I am not the kind of person who reads Jacobin, despite it's usual good writing's > you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next on the list to go. I'm sorry... This sounds awful. Relaxing is good in moderation. Work is good for the human soul though.
- forty 4y ago
  It depends on the job probably :)
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Not really - humans become attached to whatever job they have, generally. There are NYC trash crews who couldn’t imagine leaving.
    - forty 4y ago
      That's what people who like their job like to believe :) I'd say that for many people, the only thing they like about their job is the money. you might be right though that it probably depends more on the couple (person, job) than on the job itself.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      Pick a few hundred people at random and pay them 2x their current salary/wage, no strings attached. See how many stay at their current job.
- MayeulC 4y ago
  Well, it has to do with your fundamental needs. "Relaxing" is not being stressed about them. If I didn't need to work to live decently, I'd likely still work, but differently. Maybe part-time at a bakery? I'd focus on other topics, probably some longer-term research subjects. It's also true that it's very easy to go down the "lazy" path, and probably much less enriching.
  - anon291 4y ago
    I've lived long enough to know that while I pursue lots of long-term research type projects in my spare time; the vast majority of people would spend their relaxing time on online games, gambling, and other useless pursuits. Sorry, but it's just true. I've seen it in my own family.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  The full picture depends on what is done with the surplus generated by the workers
- koch 4y ago
  He's not saying people will stop doing things. People love to do things. People even love to work - on things that matter to them, where they can have responsibility and autonomy. Right now "work" is what other people want you do to, and it's attached to your livelihood. That's what we have the capability of escaping. Would you stop working for other people if you didn't have to?
  - anon291 4y ago
    Sure, I agree with you, and if the author had said something like "AI will free us from drudgery so that we can pursue more meaningful pursuits" I may agree with him. However, he said people could get a pension and relax. You are interpreting the word relax (which means to seek rest and recreation) to be the opposite of what it means (you claim that 'relax' means to do meaningful work). I'm not sure why you're doing this.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      Meaningful work can be very relaxing. I really like coding my own personal projects. Many times I do it precisely to find flow and relax. Same with designing parts to 3D print, or printing them afterwards. Solving real world problems that I care about can be extremely rewarding and often quite relaxing. I actually think most of the stress from work comes from the fact that you either perform or you might not have enough for food and shelter, for yourself and your family. Take that away and failure becomes nothing more than an opportunity to learn. I find that very relaxing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  But the plan under a capitalist system would be that you're going to have the things you like to do automated, the work, one way or another because it's an opportunity for someone to make money? Under a socialist society, there is less incentives to drive everything so hard because people can relax a little. Yes, people will be free to choose and push things further, but not so desperate for doing so. The drive to hard and spooky "AGIs" would probably slow down too, right now it's happening at such break next pace because of economic incentives are so strong for doing so. I was freaking out quite a bit about the future, until someone on here mentioned socialism a few days ago, and I chilled out because ultimately, I think that's where we'll end up, at least some form of it, and it actually made me feel better. I've lived in countries which people would consider "socialist", and it was awesome, so I'm not worried about it. Also don't forget that societies have existed with many "happy citizens" not doing really much of anything, Rome, and many indigenous cultures, yes they had to do some work for food, but mostly had a pretty good carefree lives without "jobs".
  - anon291 4y ago
    Criticizing Jacobin does not mean one is an unapologetic capitalist. Not sure why hacker news, which prides itself on supposed openness to new ideas, is playing the false dichotomy game when it comes to this subject.
- outime 4y ago
  Work generally isn't good for the human soul but meaningful (whatever that means for each individual) work is. Most of the jobs aren't very meaningful and they're done solely to survive. Let's not kid ourselves, most of the people here including myself have jobs they like or even love but outside of this bubble a big percentage of jobs are rather miserable.
  - anthony_d 4y ago
    The thing is that everything is ultimately meaningless. Maybe you’re 5 or 6 levels removed, maybe it’s only 1 level removed but it’s still meaningless. Work _creates_ meaning. It doesn’t have to and you’re free to not find satisfaction in your work, but you get to choose. There is no creature that lives without work. Why should any of us be otherwise? My post probably isn’t going to convince you but read some Marcus Aurelius or another stoic and maybe they will.
    - anon291 4y ago
      Exactly this. Constant relaxation is bad for the human psyche
- fluxinflex 4y ago
  And where has that gotten us? An internet that can't be trusted, people stuck in bullshit jobs (David Graeber words) and retirement and health systems that don't work. Yet another bank crisis. Yet another war. And people still living in poverty. Hm. For me, you can give it to the birds or rather to the AIs. I'll take the beach any day.
  - anon291 4y ago
    The alternatives are not Jacobism or capitalism. There are multitudes of economic systems. False dichotomies get us nowhere.
simple-thoughts 4y ago
Whenever I read one of these communist stories, I immediately think of the 1985 film “Brazil.” Who decides who gets what and how much? Whatever person or institution has the ability to allocate resources holds the power over the recipients. At least in a capitalist system, the power is supposed to be held by the people who invest their capital into marketplace winners. A bureaucratic system of allocation doesn’t incentivize efficiency.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > Who decides who gets what and how much? The answer to that would be not to make such choices. Everyone gets the same amount, whether they're unemployed or a billionaire.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    I can see that maybe working with a lot of things, but what to do about housing? Land is non-fungible, and if more people want to live in a place than its currently built capacity allows for, "everyone gets the same amount" doesn't mean much.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      I don't think UBI needs to allow people to live in their preferred location. It's a social welfare program. If they want to live in an expensive city, they can get a job to augment the UBI. Or they can live somewhere less expensive.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  There are two varieties of communism you should understand. The dominant form of communism has been Marxist Leninist, with centralized power, vanguard parties, authoritarian leadership, heavy bureaucracy etc Another form that deserves attention is what has been called libertarian communism, a kind of anarchism. The goal is the same but without authoritarian power hierarchies. Marxist Leninist communism is an enemy to this. You can still have leadership and roles and rules, but done through other cooperative frameworks such as sociocracy (consent based, not consensus based)
weatherlight 4y ago
@moderators This is talking about a very real fear, in the tech world and I think it was a mistake to flag it.
bsenftner 4y ago
This is a fantastic essay, from the perspective it identifies the underlying issue with AI is Capitalism's destructive creation cycle will no longer include humans, beyond the owners. The transition to that economy is a short matter of time. That will last until competition lobbies an AI owned corporation and then we're completely out of the loop.
RivieraKid 4y ago
But... even if AI replaces all mental work (it won't), non-mental work won't disappear. In this hypothetical scenario, mental workers would transition to physical workers. There will be more construction workers, doctors, plumbers, hairdressers. This means the society will be able to produce and consume more and / or work less. And the society would be less equal. The drawback for some "white collar" workers would be that it would mean a decrease in wage and status. The talk about unemployment and a need for UBI is economically illiterate. In fact, I would argue UBI would be less needed in that scenario. Because the point of UBI is really to decrease income inequality - which would be less of a problem than today.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  In "all mental work" do you include the work of designing robots? But anyway, "and the society would be less equal" is really unwarranted. That's exactly the article's point. Wealth distribution doesn't need to be related to the labor demand, it is only this way today because of politicy decisions.
  - RivieraKid 4y ago
    Yes. And like I said, I obviously don't expect all mental work to be replaceable by GPT-4 level AI. Oh sorry, I meant to say that the society would be less inequal and more equal.
pzo 4y ago
Not sure why it got flagged but article has interesting experiment: > How about this: once your job is automated, you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next. It would be interesting if once your job is automated you get e.g. 1/3 or 1/2 of your salary - suddenly probably a lot of people would be actively helping to automate their job - sharing training data, labeling, testing, etc. Then you would move to some other industry and help to automate it as well.
- dogma1138 4y ago
  Ok, and what happens to the next generation? Also if you can live on a half or a third of your salary you are in a far more privileged position than most.
  - pzo 4y ago
    Good point about next generation. I guess this could be only interim solution until we automate most industries or those most essential just to at least cover bottom of maslov piramid. Living on half salary would just be to still motivate people to upskill themselves or don't be completely lazy. For the same reason unemployment benefits or UBI would cover only essential expenses as well. Otherwise what's the alternative? UBI I see only possible to be implemented post-scarcity globally - I doubt rich countries like USA would be willing to provide UBI for developing countries in current system and those latter are unlikely to be the winner in AI race.
    - dogma1138 4y ago
      UBI is a dystopian nightmare it takes away the voice and power from the majority of the population. I really don’t know why people are even considering this disaster.
      - xboxnolifes 4y ago
        I don't understand this position that UBI takes away the voice and power from the population. How? I can understand that the situation where UBI exists may be one where the population loses power, but I fail to see how UBI itself removes the power.
ChatGTP 4y ago
Why was this flagged?
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Forbidden source.
  - bundie 4y ago
    wut?
    - weatherlight 4y ago
      Any from Jacobin seems to get flagged regardless of content.
      - ChatGTP 4y ago
        My respect for this website just went down a lot. God knows how many alternative views I’m missing because of this censorship.
      - fluxinflex 4y ago
        That's not quite true -> https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com there are plenty of non-flagged articles there.
ouid 4y ago
So this is not a new argument, and the rhetoric is intended to be inflammatory clickbait. Somehow it evokes a dichotomy between "communism and capitalism", despite having essentially no definition for either of these things. So let's give it a shot. Roughly speaking, Communism is where no one is allowed to have private property, and Capitalism is where all property is privately held. This is a nice definition because it defines a whole family of government structures, partially ordered by what a person is allowed to own, and it also demonstrates that the top and bottom elements of this order are both terrible, and therefore serve as perfect strawmen for people advocating moving "up or down" the order. Owning other people, or private armies, is not in the best interest of society. On the other hand, not having a mechanism by which you express preferences is a disaster of efficiency. Likewised not having any personal incentive to work prevents people from exchanging labor in ways that benefit each party, and is also obviously not in the best interest of society. No one worth listening to disagrees with any of this, but they always imagine their opponent to be advocating for the top or bottom element. "Capitalism vs Communism". Pick a set of things you think people should be able to own, and how the government should go about allocating the rest, and then do yourself an intellectual favor, and never use the words Capitalism or Communism again, except in explaining the problem with the dichotomy. Government is a much more subtle problem than that, and you're not participating in that subtlety in good faith when you use argue against the strawmen.

55 points by eatonphil 4y ago

This statement is why I am not the kind of person who reads Jacobin, despite it's usual good writing's > you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next on the list to go. I'm sorry... This sounds awful. Relaxing is good in moderation. Work is good for the human soul though.

forty 4y ago
It depends on the job probably :)
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Not really - humans become attached to whatever job they have, generally. There are NYC trash crews who couldn’t imagine leaving.
  - forty 4y ago
    That's what people who like their job like to believe :) I'd say that for many people, the only thing they like about their job is the money. you might be right though that it probably depends more on the couple (person, job) than on the job itself.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    Pick a few hundred people at random and pay them 2x their current salary/wage, no strings attached. See how many stay at their current job.
MayeulC 4y ago
Well, it has to do with your fundamental needs. "Relaxing" is not being stressed about them. If I didn't need to work to live decently, I'd likely still work, but differently. Maybe part-time at a bakery? I'd focus on other topics, probably some longer-term research subjects. It's also true that it's very easy to go down the "lazy" path, and probably much less enriching.
- anon291 4y ago
  I've lived long enough to know that while I pursue lots of long-term research type projects in my spare time; the vast majority of people would spend their relaxing time on online games, gambling, and other useless pursuits. Sorry, but it's just true. I've seen it in my own family.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
The full picture depends on what is done with the surplus generated by the workers
koch 4y ago
He's not saying people will stop doing things. People love to do things. People even love to work - on things that matter to them, where they can have responsibility and autonomy. Right now "work" is what other people want you do to, and it's attached to your livelihood. That's what we have the capability of escaping. Would you stop working for other people if you didn't have to?
- anon291 4y ago
  Sure, I agree with you, and if the author had said something like "AI will free us from drudgery so that we can pursue more meaningful pursuits" I may agree with him. However, he said people could get a pension and relax. You are interpreting the word relax (which means to seek rest and recreation) to be the opposite of what it means (you claim that 'relax' means to do meaningful work). I'm not sure why you're doing this.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    Meaningful work can be very relaxing. I really like coding my own personal projects. Many times I do it precisely to find flow and relax. Same with designing parts to 3D print, or printing them afterwards. Solving real world problems that I care about can be extremely rewarding and often quite relaxing. I actually think most of the stress from work comes from the fact that you either perform or you might not have enough for food and shelter, for yourself and your family. Take that away and failure becomes nothing more than an opportunity to learn. I find that very relaxing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ChatGTP 4y ago
But the plan under a capitalist system would be that you're going to have the things you like to do automated, the work, one way or another because it's an opportunity for someone to make money? Under a socialist society, there is less incentives to drive everything so hard because people can relax a little. Yes, people will be free to choose and push things further, but not so desperate for doing so. The drive to hard and spooky "AGIs" would probably slow down too, right now it's happening at such break next pace because of economic incentives are so strong for doing so. I was freaking out quite a bit about the future, until someone on here mentioned socialism a few days ago, and I chilled out because ultimately, I think that's where we'll end up, at least some form of it, and it actually made me feel better. I've lived in countries which people would consider "socialist", and it was awesome, so I'm not worried about it. Also don't forget that societies have existed with many "happy citizens" not doing really much of anything, Rome, and many indigenous cultures, yes they had to do some work for food, but mostly had a pretty good carefree lives without "jobs".
- anon291 4y ago
  Criticizing Jacobin does not mean one is an unapologetic capitalist. Not sure why hacker news, which prides itself on supposed openness to new ideas, is playing the false dichotomy game when it comes to this subject.
outime 4y ago
Work generally isn't good for the human soul but meaningful (whatever that means for each individual) work is. Most of the jobs aren't very meaningful and they're done solely to survive. Let's not kid ourselves, most of the people here including myself have jobs they like or even love but outside of this bubble a big percentage of jobs are rather miserable.
- anthony_d 4y ago
  The thing is that everything is ultimately meaningless. Maybe you’re 5 or 6 levels removed, maybe it’s only 1 level removed but it’s still meaningless. Work _creates_ meaning. It doesn’t have to and you’re free to not find satisfaction in your work, but you get to choose. There is no creature that lives without work. Why should any of us be otherwise? My post probably isn’t going to convince you but read some Marcus Aurelius or another stoic and maybe they will.
  - anon291 4y ago
    Exactly this. Constant relaxation is bad for the human psyche
fluxinflex 4y ago
And where has that gotten us? An internet that can't be trusted, people stuck in bullshit jobs (David Graeber words) and retirement and health systems that don't work. Yet another bank crisis. Yet another war. And people still living in poverty. Hm. For me, you can give it to the birds or rather to the AIs. I'll take the beach any day.
- anon291 4y ago
  The alternatives are not Jacobism or capitalism. There are multitudes of economic systems. False dichotomies get us nowhere.

simple-thoughts 4y ago

Whenever I read one of these communist stories, I immediately think of the 1985 film “Brazil.” Who decides who gets what and how much? Whatever person or institution has the ability to allocate resources holds the power over the recipients. At least in a capitalist system, the power is supposed to be held by the people who invest their capital into marketplace winners. A bureaucratic system of allocation doesn’t incentivize efficiency.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> Who decides who gets what and how much? The answer to that would be not to make such choices. Everyone gets the same amount, whether they're unemployed or a billionaire.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  I can see that maybe working with a lot of things, but what to do about housing? Land is non-fungible, and if more people want to live in a place than its currently built capacity allows for, "everyone gets the same amount" doesn't mean much.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    I don't think UBI needs to allow people to live in their preferred location. It's a social welfare program. If they want to live in an expensive city, they can get a job to augment the UBI. Or they can live somewhere less expensive.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
There are two varieties of communism you should understand. The dominant form of communism has been Marxist Leninist, with centralized power, vanguard parties, authoritarian leadership, heavy bureaucracy etc Another form that deserves attention is what has been called libertarian communism, a kind of anarchism. The goal is the same but without authoritarian power hierarchies. Marxist Leninist communism is an enemy to this. You can still have leadership and roles and rules, but done through other cooperative frameworks such as sociocracy (consent based, not consensus based)

weatherlight 4y ago

@moderators This is talking about a very real fear, in the tech world and I think it was a mistake to flag it.

bsenftner 4y ago

This is a fantastic essay, from the perspective it identifies the underlying issue with AI is Capitalism's destructive creation cycle will no longer include humans, beyond the owners. The transition to that economy is a short matter of time. That will last until competition lobbies an AI owned corporation and then we're completely out of the loop.

RivieraKid 4y ago

But... even if AI replaces all mental work (it won't), non-mental work won't disappear. In this hypothetical scenario, mental workers would transition to physical workers. There will be more construction workers, doctors, plumbers, hairdressers. This means the society will be able to produce and consume more and / or work less. And the society would be less equal. The drawback for some "white collar" workers would be that it would mean a decrease in wage and status. The talk about unemployment and a need for UBI is economically illiterate. In fact, I would argue UBI would be less needed in that scenario. Because the point of UBI is really to decrease income inequality - which would be less of a problem than today.

marcosdumay 4y ago
In "all mental work" do you include the work of designing robots? But anyway, "and the society would be less equal" is really unwarranted. That's exactly the article's point. Wealth distribution doesn't need to be related to the labor demand, it is only this way today because of politicy decisions.
- RivieraKid 4y ago
  Yes. And like I said, I obviously don't expect all mental work to be replaceable by GPT-4 level AI. Oh sorry, I meant to say that the society would be less inequal and more equal.

pzo 4y ago

Not sure why it got flagged but article has interesting experiment: > How about this: once your job is automated, you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next. It would be interesting if once your job is automated you get e.g. 1/3 or 1/2 of your salary - suddenly probably a lot of people would be actively helping to automate their job - sharing training data, labeling, testing, etc. Then you would move to some other industry and help to automate it as well.

dogma1138 4y ago
Ok, and what happens to the next generation? Also if you can live on a half or a third of your salary you are in a far more privileged position than most.
- pzo 4y ago
  Good point about next generation. I guess this could be only interim solution until we automate most industries or those most essential just to at least cover bottom of maslov piramid. Living on half salary would just be to still motivate people to upskill themselves or don't be completely lazy. For the same reason unemployment benefits or UBI would cover only essential expenses as well. Otherwise what's the alternative? UBI I see only possible to be implemented post-scarcity globally - I doubt rich countries like USA would be willing to provide UBI for developing countries in current system and those latter are unlikely to be the winner in AI race.
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    UBI is a dystopian nightmare it takes away the voice and power from the majority of the population. I really don’t know why people are even considering this disaster.
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      I don't understand this position that UBI takes away the voice and power from the population. How? I can understand that the situation where UBI exists may be one where the population loses power, but I fail to see how UBI itself removes the power.

ChatGTP 4y ago

Why was this flagged?

the_only_law 4y ago
Forbidden source.
- bundie 4y ago
  wut?
  - weatherlight 4y ago
    Any from Jacobin seems to get flagged regardless of content.
    - ChatGTP 4y ago
      My respect for this website just went down a lot. God knows how many alternative views I’m missing because of this censorship.
    - fluxinflex 4y ago
      That's not quite true -> https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com there are plenty of non-flagged articles there.

ouid 4y ago

So this is not a new argument, and the rhetoric is intended to be inflammatory clickbait. Somehow it evokes a dichotomy between "communism and capitalism", despite having essentially no definition for either of these things. So let's give it a shot. Roughly speaking, Communism is where no one is allowed to have private property, and Capitalism is where all property is privately held. This is a nice definition because it defines a whole family of government structures, partially ordered by what a person is allowed to own, and it also demonstrates that the top and bottom elements of this order are both terrible, and therefore serve as perfect strawmen for people advocating moving "up or down" the order. Owning other people, or private armies, is not in the best interest of society. On the other hand, not having a mechanism by which you express preferences is a disaster of efficiency. Likewised not having any personal incentive to work prevents people from exchanging labor in ways that benefit each party, and is also obviously not in the best interest of society. No one worth listening to disagrees with any of this, but they always imagine their opponent to be advocating for the top or bottom element. "Capitalism vs Communism". Pick a set of things you think people should be able to own, and how the government should go about allocating the rest, and then do yourself an intellectual favor, and never use the words Capitalism or Communism again, except in explaining the problem with the dichotomy. Government is a much more subtle problem than that, and you're not participating in that subtlety in good faith when you use argue against the strawmen.