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> It's an uncomfortable thought but one we must face up to if it is to be managed politically, economically and socially. Call me a doomer, but I doubt there's

by kypro 3y ago

> It's an uncomfortable thought but one we must face up to if it is to be managed politically, economically and socially. Call me a doomer, but I doubt there's anything we can actually do to stop mass inequality in a future dominated by AI. I worry political options here won't work because people misunderstand the roots of political power today. What I'm about to say is a very clear idea in my head, but I struggle to explain it well. In a democracy power is distributed to all citizens, but the reason this system is stable is because those citizens have real collective power. Historically this power has been physical – no single entity had more physical might than the armed resistance of its collective citizens. But today that power is mostly economic. Politicians must appeal both to businesses and citizens to remain in power and businesses must appeal to people to sell their goods and services and to attract employees. The most powerful entity in a capitalist democracy is the people since they are both voters and consumers. The issue I have is that if 95% of your population is unemployed there's no longer much value in people economically. Additionally whatever demand they have is purely artificial and coming from the state in the form of welfare. We need to remember true value isn't money. Money is what we use to acquire resources that are truly valuable to us. Things like food, planes, oil and gold. If those who have access to AI can now acquire these things without trading with humans or employing them then businesses no longer need to care about humans at all. Food can be acquired without humans. Jets can be built without humans. Oil can be drilled without humans. Etc... Similarly politicians will find that if the reason they value money is so they can acquire resources and businesses can easily provide all the resource they might want then there's really no economic gain to represent the people. In this AI dystopian world I imagine you'll have a handful of resource creating businesses and the owners of these businesses simply trade resources with each other. An additional problem we face with say some kind of redistribution of AI created wealth is that businesses are not tied to any nation. Assuming our political systems can avoid corruption and issue a 99% tax on companies leverage AI they might as well just leave. Then you can say, well we'll nationalise the businesses instead then, which is fair enough, but then you have the corruption issues again because how would we humans collective prevent state corruption if we're literally all just a drain on the state's resources and have no physical way to resist? Why wouldn't the state just say screw these leaches if that's what is in their economic interest? Like I say, I can't explain this idea very well so sorry for this long rambly comment, but to try to end on something constructive here I think what we need to be thinking about now isn't what the correct rate of tax is in a world of AI, but how do we ensure people retain their collective power against businesses and the state? If we have no collective power then we should assume that with time any solution we try to implement will fail.

zackmorris 3y ago
Dirty hands clean money. What you're saying about the devaluing of human labor is becoming the central challenge of our lives. Because our human value doesn't actually change, but a measure of our productivity is assigned to us by the status quo. We work harder and harder but food and rent go up faster than we can keep up with. If a government can't provide its population the means to sustain itself, then the people democratically overthrow it, sometimes violently as history shows. Meaning that the poor and working class now perceive GDP growth as violence against them perpetrated by a corrupt elite of moneyed interests, since wages started diverging from productivity in the 1970s as we transitioned to trickle-down economics. AKA the battle of main street vs wall street. At some point, working to survive becomes so arduous that it's easier to just go off-grid or remove the bosses French revolution-style. So AI/automation becomes an actuarial problem. How high can wealth inequality become before millions of people come after the uber-rich with torches and pitchforks? Meaning that UBI is no longer a question of if, but when. The wealthy will push for it in coming decades for their own survival.
- kypro 3y ago
  > our human value doesn't actually change, but a measure of our productivity is assigned to us by the status quo Disagree strongly with this. Our productivity is measurable and has always been the benchmark for which we have been compensated whether self-employed or employed. As our productivity has increased we have always made more in real-terms. Apart from short-term blips there's no exceptions to this. Secondly, a system in which humans are given more than their collective productivity (economic value) will always be unstable. For example, if you owned an AI business in which you're handing people more economic value than they're giving you'd be better off just leaving the country because the relationship is parasitical and senseless. > If a government can't provide its population the means to sustain itself, then the people democratically overthrow it, sometimes violently as history shows. A government doesn't really create any value in an economy. In the Western capitalist model the private sector creates all of the wealth and the government simply syphons a chunk off the top and redistributes it. The reason the government can do this is because people have collective economic power, otherwise businesses would simply ignore the demands of governments. But in a world where humans provide neither economic demand or supply businesses won't care what you want. For example, how do you propose we "overthrow" a government in a world where we're all government dependants and out gunned by the government? Are you going to go on a hunger strike or something? If you can't fight or withhold your labour you have no power. And if the people collective have no power government will obviously be corrupted and no longer represent people – why would they? This is this core issue I'm really trying to get at here. Simply demanding UBI can not work. We must first ensure humans retain their economic power or humans collectively have no leverage. I'm 100% with you on the sentiment of your argument, but pragmatically I think you (and most people) underestimate how difficult this is.

by kypro 3y ago

zackmorris 3y ago

Dirty hands clean money. What you're saying about the devaluing of human labor is becoming the central challenge of our lives. Because our human value doesn't actually change, but a measure of our productivity is assigned to us by the status quo. We work harder and harder but food and rent go up faster than we can keep up with. If a government can't provide its population the means to sustain itself, then the people democratically overthrow it, sometimes violently as history shows. Meaning that the poor and working class now perceive GDP growth as violence against them perpetrated by a corrupt elite of moneyed interests, since wages started diverging from productivity in the 1970s as we transitioned to trickle-down economics. AKA the battle of main street vs wall street. At some point, working to survive becomes so arduous that it's easier to just go off-grid or remove the bosses French revolution-style. So AI/automation becomes an actuarial problem. How high can wealth inequality become before millions of people come after the uber-rich with torches and pitchforks? Meaning that UBI is no longer a question of if, but when. The wealthy will push for it in coming decades for their own survival.

kypro 3y ago
> our human value doesn't actually change, but a measure of our productivity is assigned to us by the status quo Disagree strongly with this. Our productivity is measurable and has always been the benchmark for which we have been compensated whether self-employed or employed. As our productivity has increased we have always made more in real-terms. Apart from short-term blips there's no exceptions to this. Secondly, a system in which humans are given more than their collective productivity (economic value) will always be unstable. For example, if you owned an AI business in which you're handing people more economic value than they're giving you'd be better off just leaving the country because the relationship is parasitical and senseless. > If a government can't provide its population the means to sustain itself, then the people democratically overthrow it, sometimes violently as history shows. A government doesn't really create any value in an economy. In the Western capitalist model the private sector creates all of the wealth and the government simply syphons a chunk off the top and redistributes it. The reason the government can do this is because people have collective economic power, otherwise businesses would simply ignore the demands of governments. But in a world where humans provide neither economic demand or supply businesses won't care what you want. For example, how do you propose we "overthrow" a government in a world where we're all government dependants and out gunned by the government? Are you going to go on a hunger strike or something? If you can't fight or withhold your labour you have no power. And if the people collective have no power government will obviously be corrupted and no longer represent people – why would they? This is this core issue I'm really trying to get at here. Simply demanding UBI can not work. We must first ensure humans retain their economic power or humans collectively have no leverage. I'm 100% with you on the sentiment of your argument, but pragmatically I think you (and most people) underestimate how difficult this is.