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Are Americans really so scared of Marx to admit that AI fundamentally proves his point? Dario here says "yeah likely the economic system won't work anymore" bu

Are Americans really so scared of Marx to admit that AI fundamentally proves his point? Dario here says "yeah likely the economic system won't work anymore" but he doesn't dare say what comes next: It's obvious some kind of socialist system is inevitable, at least for basic goods and housing. How can you deny that to a person in a post-AGI world where almost no one can produce economic value that beats the ever cheaper AI?

gyre007 2y ago
If, and it is an IF, this does turn out the way he is imagining, the transitional period to the AI from the economic PoV will be disastrous for people. That's the scariest part I think.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Absolutely it will. And it will be a pure plain dystopia, as clear as in the times of Dickens or Dostoyevsky. We need to start being honest. We live in Dickensian times.
  - rnd0 2y ago
    They could be worse! In fact, they will be.
  - zombiwoof 2y ago
    definately a bunch of Dicks in these times.
xpe 2y ago
This is far from obvious. First, technically speaking, one could have democratic-capitalistic systems with high degrees of redistribution (such as UBI) that don’t fit the pattern of classic socialism. Second, have you read Superintelligence or similar writing? I view it as essential reading before making a claim that some particular AI-related economic future is obvious. There is considerable nuance.
- kranke155 2y ago
  No I haven’t read superintelligence, I’m just going off Dario’s “the economic system won’t hold” and “we have no idea how things could change…” We have some ideas. But he won’t talk about them because he’ll be accused of being a communist, I think.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Universal UBI is effectively socialism to me. I didn’t say anything would fit “classic socialism” (try and have that argument with socialists) just that the endgame of powerful AI / AGI seems obvious.
tim333 2y ago
I don't think Marx wrote much about AI and what he did write about didn't lead to much happiness when people tried to implement it. You can see that computers doing the work will lead to a different society without bringing Marx into it.
- kranke155 2y ago
  One of the Marx's points, afaik, is that industrial and post industrial capitalism is always aiming to reduce the cost of labor through technology. Communism would occur when such a diminutive amount of people could produce most of value that communism was the only solution (the actual mechanism is more complicated, I think, but I think the simplification is helpful). Sound familiar?
  - tim333 2y ago
    A bit although I'm not sure it pans out that way in practice. When tech allows humans to produce enough to eat with 1% of the population rather than 70% the others the figure they need cars/SUVs which didn't exist before and now manufacturing is mostly outsourced people become social media consultants that didn't exist before and so on. Marx always lent towards let's divide people into two groups called workers and exploiters the group 1 can overthrow/kill 2 and install some ghastly dictatorship, which seems an iffy way to go to me.
    - kranke155 2y ago
      Marx mostly didn't do that afaik. His followers did. But he didn't write about a dictatorship of the proletariat being violent, or killing lots of people. Here's a good text I read recently about Marx vs the world's perception of him. https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/02/why-marx-relevant-ever-age-automation https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/02/why-marx-rel...

gyre007 2y ago

If, and it is an IF, this does turn out the way he is imagining, the transitional period to the AI from the economic PoV will be disastrous for people. That's the scariest part I think.

kranke155 2y ago
Absolutely it will. And it will be a pure plain dystopia, as clear as in the times of Dickens or Dostoyevsky. We need to start being honest. We live in Dickensian times.
- rnd0 2y ago
  They could be worse! In fact, they will be.
- zombiwoof 2y ago
  definately a bunch of Dicks in these times.

xpe 2y ago

This is far from obvious. First, technically speaking, one could have democratic-capitalistic systems with high degrees of redistribution (such as UBI) that don’t fit the pattern of classic socialism. Second, have you read Superintelligence or similar writing? I view it as essential reading before making a claim that some particular AI-related economic future is obvious. There is considerable nuance.

kranke155 2y ago
No I haven’t read superintelligence, I’m just going off Dario’s “the economic system won’t hold” and “we have no idea how things could change…” We have some ideas. But he won’t talk about them because he’ll be accused of being a communist, I think.
kranke155 2y ago
Universal UBI is effectively socialism to me. I didn’t say anything would fit “classic socialism” (try and have that argument with socialists) just that the endgame of powerful AI / AGI seems obvious.

tim333 2y ago

I don't think Marx wrote much about AI and what he did write about didn't lead to much happiness when people tried to implement it. You can see that computers doing the work will lead to a different society without bringing Marx into it.

kranke155 2y ago
One of the Marx's points, afaik, is that industrial and post industrial capitalism is always aiming to reduce the cost of labor through technology. Communism would occur when such a diminutive amount of people could produce most of value that communism was the only solution (the actual mechanism is more complicated, I think, but I think the simplification is helpful). Sound familiar?
- tim333 2y ago
  A bit although I'm not sure it pans out that way in practice. When tech allows humans to produce enough to eat with 1% of the population rather than 70% the others the figure they need cars/SUVs which didn't exist before and now manufacturing is mostly outsourced people become social media consultants that didn't exist before and so on. Marx always lent towards let's divide people into two groups called workers and exploiters the group 1 can overthrow/kill 2 and install some ghastly dictatorship, which seems an iffy way to go to me.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Marx mostly didn't do that afaik. His followers did. But he didn't write about a dictatorship of the proletariat being violent, or killing lots of people. Here's a good text I read recently about Marx vs the world's perception of him. https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/02/why-marx-relevant-ever-age-automation https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/02/why-marx-rel...