4 ms·

All of these "will AI destroy X" articles are so weird. It's not as if unbridled late stage capitalism [0] hasn't been undermining our longstanding institutions

All of these "will AI destroy X" articles are so weird. It's not as if unbridled late stage capitalism [0] hasn't been undermining our longstanding institutions and values. It's not as if corporate bureaucracies aren't artificial intelligences that we've been ceding control to for decades, while they increasingly become paperclip maximizers. I fully expect "AI" to turn the screws on existing power imbalances even harder, but to frame things as if we're at some watershed moment strikes me as utterly myopic. [0] as distinct from distributed free market activity. I'm coming from a libertarian perspective here.

jay_kyburz 4y ago
Perhaps off topic, but I thought late stage capitalism is the what you get as a result of libertarianism. To avoid wealth and power imbalances you need to effectively wield our democratic powers and take money from winners and redistribute it to the losers. (As taxes and regulation)
- mindslight 4y ago
  Thorough corporate welfare and regulatory capture across all industries, including the government routinely giving away trillions of dollars to banks, is not what I'd call libertarian at all. I'm open to the possibility that centralized capital accretion is inevitable, it's just not my null hypothesis and it's not the experiment we're running. Overall I identify with libertarianism because individual freedom is a powerful perspective. It's most certainly not the only perspective, but it seems to be one of the easiest to lose sight of. And notice how I left the 'l' lower case - I'd say that the US "Libertarian" party is set up to be the exact same type of corporatist bait and switch as the other parties.
  - jay_kyburz 4y ago
    Corporate welfare and regulatory capture is just corruption in my mind. It's a symptom of individuals having too much power. When I think if late stage capitalism I imagine a world where all our millions of individual businesses and are merged into just a few super conglomerates. Winners snowballing power, hovering up smaller players, all perfectly legal. That's the result of not taxing enough and blocking mergers. I don't identify with libertarianism because, although I acknowledge that some people work harder than others, there is a multitude of factors outside our own control that effect our ability to succeed.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Yep, you can probably dig up some Victorian era writings of the same nature raging against whatever was new then. People not liking change and projecting their irrational fears is nothing new. They'll spell all sorts of negative outcomes, most of which never come even close to happening. Some of the Victorian age writings on this are quite hilarious to read in the modern day because of how ludicrously wrong and cringe worthy they were. The shelf life of these articles isn't very good. AI is providing us with new tools. That's all. And there are lots of people that will use those tools in all sorts of ways. Some interesting, some misguided, some dangerous, but mostly mundane things. Some people will be more skilled using tools than others. Or have better access. I had an interesting conversation with a friend whose kids are in college and are adapting to having chat gpt available. It's great. They are using it for all sorts of things. AI won't replace us. The next generation using it will. They'll be more familiar and comfortable with it. They'll have never known a world without it. They won't get hung up on the past. And they'll move us aside without much thought. This happens every generation.

jay_kyburz 4y ago

Perhaps off topic, but I thought late stage capitalism is the what you get as a result of libertarianism. To avoid wealth and power imbalances you need to effectively wield our democratic powers and take money from winners and redistribute it to the losers. (As taxes and regulation)

mindslight 4y ago
Thorough corporate welfare and regulatory capture across all industries, including the government routinely giving away trillions of dollars to banks, is not what I'd call libertarian at all. I'm open to the possibility that centralized capital accretion is inevitable, it's just not my null hypothesis and it's not the experiment we're running. Overall I identify with libertarianism because individual freedom is a powerful perspective. It's most certainly not the only perspective, but it seems to be one of the easiest to lose sight of. And notice how I left the 'l' lower case - I'd say that the US "Libertarian" party is set up to be the exact same type of corporatist bait and switch as the other parties.
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  Corporate welfare and regulatory capture is just corruption in my mind. It's a symptom of individuals having too much power. When I think if late stage capitalism I imagine a world where all our millions of individual businesses and are merged into just a few super conglomerates. Winners snowballing power, hovering up smaller players, all perfectly legal. That's the result of not taxing enough and blocking mergers. I don't identify with libertarianism because, although I acknowledge that some people work harder than others, there is a multitude of factors outside our own control that effect our ability to succeed.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Yep, you can probably dig up some Victorian era writings of the same nature raging against whatever was new then. People not liking change and projecting their irrational fears is nothing new. They'll spell all sorts of negative outcomes, most of which never come even close to happening. Some of the Victorian age writings on this are quite hilarious to read in the modern day because of how ludicrously wrong and cringe worthy they were. The shelf life of these articles isn't very good. AI is providing us with new tools. That's all. And there are lots of people that will use those tools in all sorts of ways. Some interesting, some misguided, some dangerous, but mostly mundane things. Some people will be more skilled using tools than others. Or have better access. I had an interesting conversation with a friend whose kids are in college and are adapting to having chat gpt available. It's great. They are using it for all sorts of things. AI won't replace us. The next generation using it will. They'll be more familiar and comfortable with it. They'll have never known a world without it. They won't get hung up on the past. And they'll move us aside without much thought. This happens every generation.