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I see this sentiment expressed frequently: > "The past decades have shown that the benefits of technology are unevenly distributed, with some rich becoming sup

I see this sentiment expressed frequently: > "The past decades have shown that the benefits of technology are unevenly distributed, with some rich becoming super-rich with a good portion of the people lagging behind. However, it is also fair to say that the average well being in the world has steadily increased." The average is far less important than the median, when it comes to social stability. You could argue that the establishment of plantation slavery in the American South improved the average wealth and leisure time relative to the pre-slavery economy, but the median would be highly skewed by a few people hoarding all the wealth and enjoying all the leisure time. In the case of AI, ensuring that the results of individual productivity gains are not hoarded by the uber-wealthy is important. If AI helps an employee finish what used to be a 12-hour job in just 6 hours, why not cut the employee's working hours in half while retaining the same salary, instead of giving the executive suite another million-dollar compensation boost? A 30-hr work week, enabled by AI assistance, would mean people had more time for community engagement, family interaction, personal development and so on, leading to healthier societies.

Aerroon 4y ago
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion in the first place. Life has improved a lot for most people, but it has improved in ways that you don't really notice. Your car is safer, your apartment is safer, your neighbor's apartment is safer (so it's less likely to burn down yours), there's less crime, there's less hunger, there's more available life saving medicines etc etc. These improvements just aren't all that noticeable. But this is the stuff that really matters. Whether the wealthiest person's bank account shows an extra zero or not means very little in comparison to your kid being able to get medicine for a disease that wasn't treatable 30 years ago.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - kfkfodlnfkfdk 4y ago
    I know people below the poverty line who have access to cheap forms of insulin that didn't even exist fifty years ago because rich people funded the research They wouldn't even be alive if your lie was true
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > They wouldn't even be alive if your lie was true I'm not lying. I admit I could be wrong (although I can bring up counterexamples to yours), but I was not intentionally attempting to deceive anyone.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    If you look at any metric like life expectancy, literacy rates, child mortality, things have gotten so much better. (One exception is the US where life expectancy dropped. As was heavily discussed online the last days, this is mostly due to gun violence, traffic accidents and drug abuse which IMO are largely cultural and not due to automation)
    - timr 4y ago
      > this is mostly due to gun violence, traffic accidents and drug abuse which IMO are largely cultural and not due to automation) Not really. It's mostly due to food and metabolic disorders (i.e. diabetes, heart disease; iirc heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the US, and depending on how you group, diabetes is in the top five), which actually underscores the point. People are dying at higher rates because they can get cheap calories at a rate unprecedented in human history.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799722418556931?s=20 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799722418556931?...
        4y ago
- marcyb5st 4y ago
  While what you say is true, housing is becoming an issue pretty much in every first world country, purchase power for the bottom 50% percentile is at historical lows, young people have issues entering a job market, retirement age is constantly pushed exacerbating the difficulty's young people have in entering the job market.So, yes, quality of life is increasing in some dimensions, but it's also drastically decreasing in others. For instance, until I manage to purchase an house I felt very stressed about renting for my whole life and owning nothing of consequence. This impacted severely my mood and indirectly my quality of life.
- theonlybutlet 4y ago
  You only need to go look at the productivity & remuneration graph over the last 50 years to see that that doesn't hold. They're diverging. Inequality continues to increase, yes everyone's standard has been improving but the common man is getting less and less of that additional value-add from their additional productivity.
nmz 4y ago
That rarely happens, on the contrary, any imposed standards or regulations are simply outsourced to wherever those standards do not exist.
ARandomerDude 4y ago
> why not cut the employee's working hours in half while retaining the same salary Because every C-suite wants to see YoY and MoM growth, every single year. An easy way to get that in your scenario his have the employees suddenly become 2x as productive with no extra hiring and minimal additional cost.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  It's not only C-suites. It's also everyone of us because we like to see our retirement savings go up. Raising the floor needs to happen at a societal level through a coordinated effort like UBI. If a company were to decide to just give all productivity gains to its workers, that company would get no more funding and ultimately lose to its competitors.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> If AI helps an employee finish what used to be a 12-hour job in just 6 hours, why not cut the employee's working hours in half while retaining the same salary, instead of giving the executive suite another million-dollar compensation boost? Because that doesn't benefit the shareholders.
carlosjobim 4y ago
If you can not get your mind out of the employer/employee lie, then no progress can ever make anything better. AI is a tool to help the employee get rid of the employer.

Aerroon 4y ago

I'm not sure I agree with that assertion in the first place. Life has improved a lot for most people, but it has improved in ways that you don't really notice. Your car is safer, your apartment is safer, your neighbor's apartment is safer (so it's less likely to burn down yours), there's less crime, there's less hunger, there's more available life saving medicines etc etc. These improvements just aren't all that noticeable. But this is the stuff that really matters. Whether the wealthiest person's bank account shows an extra zero or not means very little in comparison to your kid being able to get medicine for a disease that wasn't treatable 30 years ago.

JohnFen 4y ago
[flagged]
- kfkfodlnfkfdk 4y ago
  I know people below the poverty line who have access to cheap forms of insulin that didn't even exist fifty years ago because rich people funded the research They wouldn't even be alive if your lie was true
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > They wouldn't even be alive if your lie was true I'm not lying. I admit I could be wrong (although I can bring up counterexamples to yours), but I was not intentionally attempting to deceive anyone.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  If you look at any metric like life expectancy, literacy rates, child mortality, things have gotten so much better. (One exception is the US where life expectancy dropped. As was heavily discussed online the last days, this is mostly due to gun violence, traffic accidents and drug abuse which IMO are largely cultural and not due to automation)
  - timr 4y ago
    > this is mostly due to gun violence, traffic accidents and drug abuse which IMO are largely cultural and not due to automation) Not really. It's mostly due to food and metabolic disorders (i.e. diabetes, heart disease; iirc heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the US, and depending on how you group, diabetes is in the top five), which actually underscores the point. People are dying at higher rates because they can get cheap calories at a rate unprecedented in human history.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799722418556931?s=20 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799722418556931?...
      - 4y ago
marcyb5st 4y ago
While what you say is true, housing is becoming an issue pretty much in every first world country, purchase power for the bottom 50% percentile is at historical lows, young people have issues entering a job market, retirement age is constantly pushed exacerbating the difficulty's young people have in entering the job market.So, yes, quality of life is increasing in some dimensions, but it's also drastically decreasing in others. For instance, until I manage to purchase an house I felt very stressed about renting for my whole life and owning nothing of consequence. This impacted severely my mood and indirectly my quality of life.
theonlybutlet 4y ago
You only need to go look at the productivity & remuneration graph over the last 50 years to see that that doesn't hold. They're diverging. Inequality continues to increase, yes everyone's standard has been improving but the common man is getting less and less of that additional value-add from their additional productivity.

nmz 4y ago

That rarely happens, on the contrary, any imposed standards or regulations are simply outsourced to wherever those standards do not exist.

ARandomerDude 4y ago

> why not cut the employee's working hours in half while retaining the same salary Because every C-suite wants to see YoY and MoM growth, every single year. An easy way to get that in your scenario his have the employees suddenly become 2x as productive with no extra hiring and minimal additional cost.

ajmurmann 4y ago
It's not only C-suites. It's also everyone of us because we like to see our retirement savings go up. Raising the floor needs to happen at a societal level through a coordinated effort like UBI. If a company were to decide to just give all productivity gains to its workers, that company would get no more funding and ultimately lose to its competitors.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> If AI helps an employee finish what used to be a 12-hour job in just 6 hours, why not cut the employee's working hours in half while retaining the same salary, instead of giving the executive suite another million-dollar compensation boost? Because that doesn't benefit the shareholders.

carlosjobim 4y ago

If you can not get your mind out of the employer/employee lie, then no progress can ever make anything better. AI is a tool to help the employee get rid of the employer.