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What if investing in AI tech like LLMs eventually allows knowledge workers to be more productive with fewer resources, and therefore ultimately frees up more pe

by FLT8 3y ago

What if investing in AI tech like LLMs eventually allows knowledge workers to be more productive with fewer resources, and therefore ultimately frees up more people to focus on the so-called major problems? Maybe we can invest more human hours in speeding up the path to zero emissions and energy abundance, or re-planting deserts, or cleaning up forever chemicals / microplastics, or helping at-risk kids, etc etc.

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
not disagreeing, but sidenote, many of the issues causing the human issues may be semi orthogonal to the level of technology going forward. We already have enough resources for the poor amd hungry and homeless. Its behavioural issues we dont know how to fix. How to bootstrap a crackhead into a bank teller, so to speak. i hope the bottom 10% rung on a dyson sphere society doesnt just look like hungry homeless people, but on a space station.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > Its behavioural issues we dont know how to fix Or how to tax labor no greater than capital. Or view quality education and healthcare for children, and keeping their parents out of survival mode, as a much better investment for everyone, than funding the adventures of overly war happy presidents. I am enthusiastically agreeing with you. Behavioral changes at the top and bottom of society are most of the problem - not tech.
  - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
    I live in japan and they have implemented what you are requesting. ive recently been to a relatives house here where they live off government handouts despite having jobs. the government pays the woman for having children. as you can imagine this is a perverse incentive. She and her four ish children have jobs. Despite collectively having more than 100k a year to work with, they live in essentially a dirty crack house with a toilet that hasnt worked for years. They fight over money and emotionally blackmail family to get 1-10k dollars at a time, and never pay it back. Being poor like this is not a money problem. Its a behaviour problem. You cant fix this by giving them money. They just spend it on alcohol and cigarettes. Having interacted with them I know they arent obviously stupid and they are educated. My wife attended the same strict japanese school. Very high quality compared to an average american school, they made it up through calculus as high schoolers. She still remembers reiman sums 15 years later. Your current perception of the world isnt quite right. It sounds like youve got this magic fix in your head, but in reality it just wouldnt work. Youre ignoring the thing you profess to actually care about... the people.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      > Behavioral changes at the top and bottom of society are most of the problem (Added emphasis) I agree with everything you say, lots of irresponsible people and culture. But that isn't the whole story. The wealthy and asset owners also tilt the economy toward themselves and away from labor and the less wealthy in many ways. Poor outcomes for young individuals do have strong correlations, with strong causal support, to low income districts with poor health and education resources, poor safety, and poverty level parents. That is a circular problem created by treating the education, health, and safety of children as a "local" issue, instead of what it obviously is, a national issue. Also, housing is a problem for many working people, while the rich magnify the problem by using the limited availability of real estate as a useful financial instrument to park money, making profitable returns based on exclusivity and productive economic growth elsewhere which increases further investment in land, even if the land is underutilized. This is due to the perverse incentive of taxation on total land and development value instead of just the land. (Development on land should be encouraged, not taxed. Other developent and property isn't "wealth" taxed. Whereas, the underlying land is limited, so taxing those who make it unavailable for others is a community neutral bargain - and makes the underutilization of land unprofitable.) This goes on and on ... regulation capture, use of personal loans against personal property give wealthy asset owners liquidity events that fund high lifestyles without any taxes associated with it, taxes on labor that increase beyond tax rates on capital and for corporations, etc. The rich and asset ownership classes use government policy to actively tilt things there way, on the backs of those who's primary "asset" is their labor value, throughout society.

by FLT8 3y ago

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago

not disagreeing, but sidenote, many of the issues causing the human issues may be semi orthogonal to the level of technology going forward. We already have enough resources for the poor amd hungry and homeless. Its behavioural issues we dont know how to fix. How to bootstrap a crackhead into a bank teller, so to speak. i hope the bottom 10% rung on a dyson sphere society doesnt just look like hungry homeless people, but on a space station.

Nevermark 3y ago
> Its behavioural issues we dont know how to fix Or how to tax labor no greater than capital. Or view quality education and healthcare for children, and keeping their parents out of survival mode, as a much better investment for everyone, than funding the adventures of overly war happy presidents. I am enthusiastically agreeing with you. Behavioral changes at the top and bottom of society are most of the problem - not tech.
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  I live in japan and they have implemented what you are requesting. ive recently been to a relatives house here where they live off government handouts despite having jobs. the government pays the woman for having children. as you can imagine this is a perverse incentive. She and her four ish children have jobs. Despite collectively having more than 100k a year to work with, they live in essentially a dirty crack house with a toilet that hasnt worked for years. They fight over money and emotionally blackmail family to get 1-10k dollars at a time, and never pay it back. Being poor like this is not a money problem. Its a behaviour problem. You cant fix this by giving them money. They just spend it on alcohol and cigarettes. Having interacted with them I know they arent obviously stupid and they are educated. My wife attended the same strict japanese school. Very high quality compared to an average american school, they made it up through calculus as high schoolers. She still remembers reiman sums 15 years later. Your current perception of the world isnt quite right. It sounds like youve got this magic fix in your head, but in reality it just wouldnt work. Youre ignoring the thing you profess to actually care about... the people.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    > Behavioral changes at the top and bottom of society are most of the problem (Added emphasis) I agree with everything you say, lots of irresponsible people and culture. But that isn't the whole story. The wealthy and asset owners also tilt the economy toward themselves and away from labor and the less wealthy in many ways. Poor outcomes for young individuals do have strong correlations, with strong causal support, to low income districts with poor health and education resources, poor safety, and poverty level parents. That is a circular problem created by treating the education, health, and safety of children as a "local" issue, instead of what it obviously is, a national issue. Also, housing is a problem for many working people, while the rich magnify the problem by using the limited availability of real estate as a useful financial instrument to park money, making profitable returns based on exclusivity and productive economic growth elsewhere which increases further investment in land, even if the land is underutilized. This is due to the perverse incentive of taxation on total land and development value instead of just the land. (Development on land should be encouraged, not taxed. Other developent and property isn't "wealth" taxed. Whereas, the underlying land is limited, so taxing those who make it unavailable for others is a community neutral bargain - and makes the underutilization of land unprofitable.) This goes on and on ... regulation capture, use of personal loans against personal property give wealthy asset owners liquidity events that fund high lifestyles without any taxes associated with it, taxes on labor that increase beyond tax rates on capital and for corporations, etc. The rich and asset ownership classes use government policy to actively tilt things there way, on the backs of those who's primary "asset" is their labor value, throughout society.