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That value is only great if it's shared equitably with the rest of the planet. If it's owned by a few, as it is right now, it's an existential threat to the li

That value is only great if it's shared equitably with the rest of the planet. If it's owned by a few, as it is right now, it's an existential threat to the life, liberty, and pursuit of a happiness of everyone else on the planet. We should be seriously considering what we're going to do in response to that threat if something doesn't change soon.

UncleMeat 2y ago
Yep. The "wouldn't it be great if we had robots do all the labor you are currently doing" argument only works if there is some plan to make sure that my rent gets paid other than me performing labor.
- Spivak 2y ago
  It depends if you're the only one out of a job. If it really is everyone then the answer will likely be some variant of metaphorically or literally killing your landlord in favor of a different resource allocation scheme. I put these kinds of things in a "in that world I would have bigger problems" bucket.
- ricudis 2y ago
  And that's the ultimate fail of capitalist ethics - the notion that we must all work just so we can survive. Look at how many shitty and utterly useless jobs exist just so people can be employed on them to survive. This has to change somehow. "Machines will do everything and we'll just reap the profits" is a vision that techno-millenialists are repeating since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, but we haven't seen that happening anywhere. For some strange reason, technological progress seem to be always accompanied with an increase on human labor. We're already past the 8-hours 5-days norm and things are only getting worse.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > And that's the ultimate fail of capitalist ethics - the notion that we must all work just so we can survive. Look at how many shitty and utterly useless jobs exist just so people can be employed on them to survive. This isn't a consequence of capitalism. The notion of having to work to survive - assuming you aren't a fan of slavery - is baked into things at a much more fundamental level. And lots of people don't work, and are paid by a welfare state funded by capitalism-generated taxes. > "Machines will do everything and we'll just reap the profits" is a vision that techno-millenialists are repeating since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, but we haven't seen that happening anywhere. They were wrong, but the work is still there to do. You haven't come up with the utopian plan you're comparing this to. > For some strange reason, technological progress seem to be always accompanied with an increase on human labor. No it doesn't. What happens is not enough people are needed to do a job any more, so they go find another job. No one's opening barista-staffed coffee shops on every corner in the time when 30% of the world was doing agricultural labour.
    - consteval 2y ago
      > This isn't a consequence of capitalism. Yes, it is. The fact we have welfare isn't a refutation of that, it's proof. The welfare is a bandaid over the fundamental flaws of capitalism. A purely capitalist system is so evil, it is unthinkable. Those people currently on welfare should, in a free labor market, die and rot in the street. We, collectively, decided that's not a good idea and went against that. That's why the labor market, and truly all our markets, are not free. Free markets suck major ass. We all know it. Six year olds have no business being in coal mines, no matter how much the invisible hand demands it.
      - wdkrnls 2y ago
        You have a very different definition of free than I do. Free to me means that people enter into agreements voluntarily. It's hard to claim a market is free when it's participants have no other choice...
integralof6y 2y ago
> That value is only great if it's shared equitably with the rest of the planet. I think this should be an axiom which should be respected by any copyright rule.
- joquarky 2y ago
  You are correct, but the real problem is that copyright needs complete reform. Let's not forget the basis: > [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Is our current implementation of copyright promoting the progress of science and useful arts? Or will science and the useful arts be accelerated by culling back the current cruft of copyright laws? For example, imagine if copyright were non-transferable and did not permit exclusive licensing agreements.
  - salawat 2y ago
    The "publisher bootstrap kit + revenue sharing agreement" would become ubiquitous overnight. Copyright isn't the problem. Over-financialization is the problem.
tadfisher 2y ago
AI is going to implode within 2 years. Once it starts ingesting its own output as training data it is going to be at best capped at its current capability and at worst even more hallucinatory and worthless.
- mafuy 2y ago
  Nonsense. Some of the current best AI models were specifically trained on AI output.
- bigfudge 2y ago
  The mistake you make here is to forget that the training data of the original models was also _full_ or errors and biases — and yet they still produced coherent and useful output. LLM training seems to be incredibly resilient to noise in the training set.
- joquarky 2y ago
  Forget what it eats to continue improving. Realize what it already has. A foundational language model with no additional training is already quite powerful. And that genie isn't going back into the bottle.

UncleMeat 2y ago

Yep. The "wouldn't it be great if we had robots do all the labor you are currently doing" argument only works if there is some plan to make sure that my rent gets paid other than me performing labor.

Spivak 2y ago
It depends if you're the only one out of a job. If it really is everyone then the answer will likely be some variant of metaphorically or literally killing your landlord in favor of a different resource allocation scheme. I put these kinds of things in a "in that world I would have bigger problems" bucket.
ricudis 2y ago
And that's the ultimate fail of capitalist ethics - the notion that we must all work just so we can survive. Look at how many shitty and utterly useless jobs exist just so people can be employed on them to survive. This has to change somehow. "Machines will do everything and we'll just reap the profits" is a vision that techno-millenialists are repeating since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, but we haven't seen that happening anywhere. For some strange reason, technological progress seem to be always accompanied with an increase on human labor. We're already past the 8-hours 5-days norm and things are only getting worse.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > And that's the ultimate fail of capitalist ethics - the notion that we must all work just so we can survive. Look at how many shitty and utterly useless jobs exist just so people can be employed on them to survive. This isn't a consequence of capitalism. The notion of having to work to survive - assuming you aren't a fan of slavery - is baked into things at a much more fundamental level. And lots of people don't work, and are paid by a welfare state funded by capitalism-generated taxes. > "Machines will do everything and we'll just reap the profits" is a vision that techno-millenialists are repeating since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, but we haven't seen that happening anywhere. They were wrong, but the work is still there to do. You haven't come up with the utopian plan you're comparing this to. > For some strange reason, technological progress seem to be always accompanied with an increase on human labor. No it doesn't. What happens is not enough people are needed to do a job any more, so they go find another job. No one's opening barista-staffed coffee shops on every corner in the time when 30% of the world was doing agricultural labour.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > This isn't a consequence of capitalism. Yes, it is. The fact we have welfare isn't a refutation of that, it's proof. The welfare is a bandaid over the fundamental flaws of capitalism. A purely capitalist system is so evil, it is unthinkable. Those people currently on welfare should, in a free labor market, die and rot in the street. We, collectively, decided that's not a good idea and went against that. That's why the labor market, and truly all our markets, are not free. Free markets suck major ass. We all know it. Six year olds have no business being in coal mines, no matter how much the invisible hand demands it.
    - wdkrnls 2y ago
      You have a very different definition of free than I do. Free to me means that people enter into agreements voluntarily. It's hard to claim a market is free when it's participants have no other choice...

integralof6y 2y ago

> That value is only great if it's shared equitably with the rest of the planet. I think this should be an axiom which should be respected by any copyright rule.

joquarky 2y ago
You are correct, but the real problem is that copyright needs complete reform. Let's not forget the basis: > [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Is our current implementation of copyright promoting the progress of science and useful arts? Or will science and the useful arts be accelerated by culling back the current cruft of copyright laws? For example, imagine if copyright were non-transferable and did not permit exclusive licensing agreements.
- salawat 2y ago
  The "publisher bootstrap kit + revenue sharing agreement" would become ubiquitous overnight. Copyright isn't the problem. Over-financialization is the problem.

tadfisher 2y ago

AI is going to implode within 2 years. Once it starts ingesting its own output as training data it is going to be at best capped at its current capability and at worst even more hallucinatory and worthless.

mafuy 2y ago
Nonsense. Some of the current best AI models were specifically trained on AI output.
bigfudge 2y ago
The mistake you make here is to forget that the training data of the original models was also _full_ or errors and biases — and yet they still produced coherent and useful output. LLM training seems to be incredibly resilient to noise in the training set.
joquarky 2y ago
Forget what it eats to continue improving. Realize what it already has. A foundational language model with no additional training is already quite powerful. And that genie isn't going back into the bottle.