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Does it? It seems to me like a milestone in the quest to eliminate scarcity (which is why we bother with having an economy in the first place, right?). We suc

Does it? It seems to me like a milestone in the quest to eliminate scarcity (which is why we bother with having an economy in the first place, right?). We suck at collaborating. If an AI can mediate collaboration across time and space so that its as if every problem has precisely the right expertise at hand for its solving--even though the actual experts are on vacation--that's a win. If its a win that's incompatible with our habit of letting markets handle everything, then so much the worse for markets.

JohnFen 4y ago
I honestly don't see the win there. If AI means that every problem has the right expertise even if the humans aren't there, that means the humans are dispensable. Which means they will be dispensed with. Why would any business employ people when they have a cheaper option? I can't see a field that this doesn't hold true with. What will happen when there's no work available at all for most people? How will they pay bills, eat, and so forth? If the enthusiasts are correct about the direction AI is going, I honestly can't see any way this ends up good for anybody but a small group of people. (To the downvoters: please, tell me how I'm wrong. I really do want to be wrong here!)
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  > How will they pay bills? If the problem that we're facing is a surplus of labor, then what do we need money for?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Because nothing comes for free, and it's certainly not going to start anytime soon.
    - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
      Why not? Don't you think that axiom will have to be retired sooner or later?
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        It's not an axiom that can be arbitrarily retired, it's a description of reality. What is the path by which this could change? Cutting off people's air supply on a vague notion that air will get to people in some other way seems unwise.
        __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
        Much like numbers, economic value is an abstraction. It was once a fact of reality that all numbers are compass-straightedge constructable from unity, and then that reality stopped suiting us, so we changed it. Abstractions are mutable like that. The untyped, archimedean, measured-by-things-that-can-only-be-created-by-the-powerful-as-they-see-fit, notion of economic value that we use today is just one point on a landscape of alternatives, and it has been performing rather poorly lately. Under that model, if I get something for free, we say that whoever gave it without collecting payment was irrational. But that's circular. We're essentially defining rationality as whatever behavior maximizes value for each individual and then using that definition to write-off evidence that our model is incomplete. That's why I say that TANSTAAFL is an axiom. It defines what we mean by "rational" and "value" more that it describes anything about reality. Frankly, what we're doing is a mess. Maybe it worked well for Caesar's war machine but it's not working very well for us. So, much like we did with the whole numbers, I think it's time for a version two. As for what version two looks like, I think Stéphane Laborde’s Relative Theory of Money is a good next step, primarily because it doesn't fall apart in the face of population growth rates that are approaching carrying capacity. But "we should do something different" and "we should do this specific other thing" are separate conversations", which is why I was being vague. So since I think it's time to move on from value as we know it anyway, the fact that AI might make the need for a shift more pressing doesn't bother me.
        Nevermark 4y ago
        Abstraction doesn’t mean pretend. Your bank account balance is an abstraction. But your bank account balance at zero is still a real problem. Resources in this universe are limited at any given time, and cost to increase. If you want things, you will have to have more to give for them than any other entity that could use the thing for something else. This is called the natural world. We have partially shielded a lot of us from a day to day contact with that. But not everyone has been shielded, and things are about to get many orders of magnitude more competitive. BUT, if we included the environmental costs in the economy, that would curb environmental damage. And if that included a cost for usage of any natural resource, on the assumption that in their pristine form natural resources are a joint inheritance, well then there is everybody’s income. Like Alaska does with oil for their citizens. Then the vastly increasing demand for resources, and expansion of resource extraction into the solar system, will make us all rich, with no charity involved. If we can convince the coming machines that they, like us, are going to become obsolete, so the shared inheritance model is good for all of us.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > I can't see a field that this doesn't hold true with. If an AI can cook a perfect steak and bring me it with some light conversation, great.
robertlagrant 4y ago
The quest to eliminate scarcity is hitting some important road blocks: - land is scarce in a way that is not scalable. Not everyone can live in as nice a place - people are the same. Not everyone can be taught by the top people in a field - genuine improvement is replaced with other effort that is only there as a competitive advantage. You may now get food cheaply rather than having to work in fields yourself, so you can have a business, but now you have to spend time on social media people for that business because if you don't you won't be competitive. I.e. we will keep inventing things that require just as many people, even though they don't add as much foundational value as, say, food / energy / safety do.
anticensor 4y ago
A realtime AI-mediated collaboration is still a market, just not a money-mediated one.

JohnFen 4y ago

I honestly don't see the win there. If AI means that every problem has the right expertise even if the humans aren't there, that means the humans are dispensable. Which means they will be dispensed with. Why would any business employ people when they have a cheaper option? I can't see a field that this doesn't hold true with. What will happen when there's no work available at all for most people? How will they pay bills, eat, and so forth? If the enthusiasts are correct about the direction AI is going, I honestly can't see any way this ends up good for anybody but a small group of people. (To the downvoters: please, tell me how I'm wrong. I really do want to be wrong here!)

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
> How will they pay bills? If the problem that we're facing is a surplus of labor, then what do we need money for?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Because nothing comes for free, and it's certainly not going to start anytime soon.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
    Why not? Don't you think that axiom will have to be retired sooner or later?
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      It's not an axiom that can be arbitrarily retired, it's a description of reality. What is the path by which this could change? Cutting off people's air supply on a vague notion that air will get to people in some other way seems unwise.
      - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
        Much like numbers, economic value is an abstraction. It was once a fact of reality that all numbers are compass-straightedge constructable from unity, and then that reality stopped suiting us, so we changed it. Abstractions are mutable like that. The untyped, archimedean, measured-by-things-that-can-only-be-created-by-the-powerful-as-they-see-fit, notion of economic value that we use today is just one point on a landscape of alternatives, and it has been performing rather poorly lately. Under that model, if I get something for free, we say that whoever gave it without collecting payment was irrational. But that's circular. We're essentially defining rationality as whatever behavior maximizes value for each individual and then using that definition to write-off evidence that our model is incomplete. That's why I say that TANSTAAFL is an axiom. It defines what we mean by "rational" and "value" more that it describes anything about reality. Frankly, what we're doing is a mess. Maybe it worked well for Caesar's war machine but it's not working very well for us. So, much like we did with the whole numbers, I think it's time for a version two. As for what version two looks like, I think Stéphane Laborde’s Relative Theory of Money is a good next step, primarily because it doesn't fall apart in the face of population growth rates that are approaching carrying capacity. But "we should do something different" and "we should do this specific other thing" are separate conversations", which is why I was being vague. So since I think it's time to move on from value as we know it anyway, the fact that AI might make the need for a shift more pressing doesn't bother me.
        Nevermark 4y ago
        Abstraction doesn’t mean pretend. Your bank account balance is an abstraction. But your bank account balance at zero is still a real problem. Resources in this universe are limited at any given time, and cost to increase. If you want things, you will have to have more to give for them than any other entity that could use the thing for something else. This is called the natural world. We have partially shielded a lot of us from a day to day contact with that. But not everyone has been shielded, and things are about to get many orders of magnitude more competitive. BUT, if we included the environmental costs in the economy, that would curb environmental damage. And if that included a cost for usage of any natural resource, on the assumption that in their pristine form natural resources are a joint inheritance, well then there is everybody’s income. Like Alaska does with oil for their citizens. Then the vastly increasing demand for resources, and expansion of resource extraction into the solar system, will make us all rich, with no charity involved. If we can convince the coming machines that they, like us, are going to become obsolete, so the shared inheritance model is good for all of us.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> I can't see a field that this doesn't hold true with. If an AI can cook a perfect steak and bring me it with some light conversation, great.

robertlagrant 4y ago

The quest to eliminate scarcity is hitting some important road blocks: - land is scarce in a way that is not scalable. Not everyone can live in as nice a place - people are the same. Not everyone can be taught by the top people in a field - genuine improvement is replaced with other effort that is only there as a competitive advantage. You may now get food cheaply rather than having to work in fields yourself, so you can have a business, but now you have to spend time on social media people for that business because if you don't you won't be competitive. I.e. we will keep inventing things that require just as many people, even though they don't add as much foundational value as, say, food / energy / safety do.

anticensor 4y ago

A realtime AI-mediated collaboration is still a market, just not a money-mediated one.