4 ms·

I’d go work at McDonalds for a PS5 or whatever, even if I didn’t have to pay for rent and food.

arp242 3y ago
Sure, but it's not clear if there are enough people who will do that. And we also need to ask the question: what if there aren't enough jobs? Everyone without a job should just live off the bare basic necessities without entertainment? Or what will that look like? There's a lot of optimistic views about UBI, but here is what I think it will be like realistically: poverty. Surviving, but not really living. The bare minimum to not riot in the streets. This is how these sort of things have usually worked out in the past. "Bread and circuses" etc. As I said, I'm skeptical that all this post-scarcity everything-is-automated future will come to pass any time soon, but if it does, we almost certainly need to do more than UBI. A lot more. Sam Altman is mentioned in this article: OpenAI is built on all of our work. Whether that's "fair use" or "pilfered" is a matter of opinion, but neither view changes the fact that OpenAI takes the works of our culture that we all contributed to and uses it for private profits it keeps to itself. That's not really a huge social problem if it's "just" a company – maybe you can consider it unfair, but that's something else. But if OpenAI and companies like it really do eat the world as the AI maximalists claim it will we end up with a situation where an exceedingly tiny minority will have an enormous percentage of the world's wealth, all of which is very directly built on the public's work, and it's no longer "just" a company with handsome profits. That entire situation will be spectacularly untenable. So what do we do with that? The entire "OpenAI is a foundation for the public good" thing went out the window as soon as green bits of paper became involved (and of course that was going to happen). That's not the bit Sam Altman wants to talk about. "Silicon Valley philosophy" like this is usually only remarkable in how profoundly shallow and self-serving it is.
anon-sre-srm 3y ago
Go apply to McDonald's now then because I don't believe anyone sane would work a shit job they didn't have to simply for a trinket.

Sure, but it's not clear if there are enough people who will do that. And we also need to ask the question: what if there aren't enough jobs? Everyone without a job should just live off the bare basic necessities without entertainment? Or what will that look like? There's a lot of optimistic views about UBI, but here is what I think it will be like realistically: poverty. Surviving, but not really living. The bare minimum to not riot in the streets. This is how these sort of things have usually worked out in the past. "Bread and circuses" etc. As I said, I'm skeptical that all this post-scarcity everything-is-automated future will come to pass any time soon, but if it does, we almost certainly need to do more than UBI. A lot more. Sam Altman is mentioned in this article: OpenAI is built on all of our work. Whether that's "fair use" or "pilfered" is a matter of opinion, but neither view changes the fact that OpenAI takes the works of our culture that we all contributed to and uses it for private profits it keeps to itself. That's not really a huge social problem if it's "just" a company – maybe you can consider it unfair, but that's something else. But if OpenAI and companies like it really do eat the world as the AI maximalists claim it will we end up with a situation where an exceedingly tiny minority will have an enormous percentage of the world's wealth, all of which is very directly built on the public's work, and it's no longer "just" a company with handsome profits. That entire situation will be spectacularly untenable. So what do we do with that? The entire "OpenAI is a foundation for the public good" thing went out the window as soon as green bits of paper became involved (and of course that was going to happen). That's not the bit Sam Altman wants to talk about. "Silicon Valley philosophy" like this is usually only remarkable in how profoundly shallow and self-serving it is.

anon-sre-srm 3y ago

Go apply to McDonald's now then because I don't believe anyone sane would work a shit job they didn't have to simply for a trinket.