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I am struggling with the Silicon Valley's latest business model that seems to be based on stealing all content in order to train AI to replace the very creators

I am struggling with the Silicon Valley's latest business model that seems to be based on stealing all content in order to train AI to replace the very creators who created that content. If we then replace white-collar workers with AI and blue-collar workers with robots... and most of the population are jobless who's going to be able to pay for the content, the services, and the goods produced by AI and robots? Is it why the VC are in favour of universal basic income? But if we all go on UBI then what's the point to selling to us if that money could go to the VCs... but then... what do they do with the money if it ceases to circulate and incentivise people to work and trade?

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> If we then replace white-collar workers with AI and blue-collar workers with robots... ...we would be living in post-scarcity and everything would be free. But that doesn't happen in the absence of AGI, what actually happens is that technology replaces some jobs and then people do the remaining jobs, which are now in higher demand because the things done by technology become cheaper and the money that had gone to pay for labor there now gets spent on something else, increasing demand for the other thing. Technology has been replacing jobs for hundreds of years and we still have low unemployment.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > we still have low unemployment We have more bullshit jobs than ever before in order to maintain that unemployment rate though
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The bullshit jobs are allowed by automation, not required. If you had that many bullshit jobs in the old days, everybody would starve because there wouldn't be enough labor going to producing and distributing food. Many of the bullshit jobs are, in fact, destroying the cost/efficiency benefit of automation by imposing bureaucratic waste on things that would otherwise have become less expensive. If someone is doing a job which is useless, we could just give them a portion of someone else's productive work to do, have them each work less and reduce prices by the same amount and then average purchasing power would be the same but there would be less busy work and more recreation/creativity/entrepreneurship.
    - lotsoweiners 3y ago
      Yeah no one is going to reduce prices so what is your next hot take?
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Big TVs used to be thousands of dollars, now they're $300. People used to pay money for long distance voice calls. 30 years ago 500GB of flash memory would have made you a millionaire, now it's less than $50. Prices come down when there is competition. Bullshit jobs are the inverse of this. Some large organization has insufficient competition so it can waste resources without losing business. The law is excessively complicated so everyone in the jurisdiction has to hire compliance bureaucrats. Government contractors and employees doing unnecessary work want to keep their jobs and legislators don't want to lose their votes/money. Then everybody has to pay higher prices because they don't individually have the choice to avoid it.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> If we then replace white-collar workers with AI and blue-collar workers with robots... ...we would be living in post-scarcity and everything would be free. But that doesn't happen in the absence of AGI, what actually happens is that technology replaces some jobs and then people do the remaining jobs, which are now in higher demand because the things done by technology become cheaper and the money that had gone to pay for labor there now gets spent on something else, increasing demand for the other thing. Technology has been replacing jobs for hundreds of years and we still have low unemployment.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
> we still have low unemployment We have more bullshit jobs than ever before in order to maintain that unemployment rate though
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The bullshit jobs are allowed by automation, not required. If you had that many bullshit jobs in the old days, everybody would starve because there wouldn't be enough labor going to producing and distributing food. Many of the bullshit jobs are, in fact, destroying the cost/efficiency benefit of automation by imposing bureaucratic waste on things that would otherwise have become less expensive. If someone is doing a job which is useless, we could just give them a portion of someone else's productive work to do, have them each work less and reduce prices by the same amount and then average purchasing power would be the same but there would be less busy work and more recreation/creativity/entrepreneurship.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Yeah no one is going to reduce prices so what is your next hot take?
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Big TVs used to be thousands of dollars, now they're $300. People used to pay money for long distance voice calls. 30 years ago 500GB of flash memory would have made you a millionaire, now it's less than $50. Prices come down when there is competition. Bullshit jobs are the inverse of this. Some large organization has insufficient competition so it can waste resources without losing business. The law is excessively complicated so everyone in the jurisdiction has to hire compliance bureaucrats. Government contractors and employees doing unnecessary work want to keep their jobs and legislators don't want to lose their votes/money. Then everybody has to pay higher prices because they don't individually have the choice to avoid it.