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Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones do
by TechSquidTV 1y ago
Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. If robots can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the jobs. Specialization is how we got to the future.
So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either.
This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward.
- philjackson 1y ago> This is what government is for They're busy selling watches whilst people can still afford them thanks to having jobs.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoIt's also what organized labor is for. Workers can't wait on government to offer aid without leverage. We would not have weekends off or other protections we now take for granted if we waited on government to govern for us as if it was a caring parent. So that would mean it is in fact the responsibility of the people at robot/AI companies (and across industries). It's not something we can just delegate to role-based authorities to sort out on our behalf.
- dfilppi 1y ago[dead]
- yoyohello13 1y agoI also agree with this, but I think there is a need to slow the replacement, by a bit, to reduce the short term societal harm and allow society to catch up. Robots can’t do the jobs if society collapses due to unrest. Progress is great obviously, but progress as fast as possible with no care about the consequences is more motivated by money, not the common good.
- iwontberude 1y agoWhat you mean you don’t want to take a Great Leap Forward?
- CamperBob2 1y agoA Great Leap Forward is what you get when you give a few fanatical ideologues too much power. I don't see anything in my history book about robots or AI being connected with that. They seem like different topics altogether.
- yoyohello13 1y ago> give a few fanatical ideologues too much power. Uh, have you seen the US lately? I think that ship has sailed.
- CamperBob2 1y agoWell, we're certainly taking a Great Leap, so that part checks out at least.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Loughla 1y agoThe problem is that AI and advanced robotics (and matter synthesis and all that future stuff) must come with a post scarcity mindset. Maybe that mindset needs to happen before. Either way, without that social pattern, I'm afraid all this does is enshrine a type of futuristic serfdom that is completely insurmountable.
- dingnuts 1y ago[dead]
- citizenpaul 1y ago> post scarcity mindset A total shift of human mentality. Humans have shown time and again there is only one way we ever get there. A long winding road paved with bodies.
- Loughla 1y agoThat's valid, but I can still hope for better and dread that result. I genuinely believe we'll see technological world war 3 in my child's lifetime. And I'm not a super supporter of that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Imustaskforhelp 1y agoI searched some day and there is enough food to end world hunger once or (twice I know for a fact once, but I had a reddit article which said twice but I am not pulling that source but you get it) > Less than 5% of the US’ military budget could end world hunger for a year. [1] My friend we live in 1984, when the main character discovers that eurasia and others have enough food / resources to help everybody out but they constantly fight/lessen it just so that people are easy to be manipulated in times of war. I discovered this 5% statistic just right now and its fucking wild. US itself could end world hunger 20 times but it spends it all on military. I don't know if its wrong or not but this is fucking 1984. The big brother has happened. We just don't know it yet because the propaganda works on us as well, people in 1984 didn't know they were living in 1984. And neither do we. Have a nice day :) Sources [1]: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/hunger-global-citizen-festival-advocacy-food/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/hunger-global-citiz...
- pesfandiar 1y agoIt's wrong to assume the owners will share the productivity gains with everyone, especially when reliance on labour will be at its lowest, and the power structure of a data/AI economy is more concentrated than anything we've seen before. IMO, the assumption that some form of basic income or social welfare system will be funded voluntarily is as delusional as thinking communism would work.
- reactordev 1y agoWhat you end up with is a dozen people owning all the wealth and everyone else owning nothing, resulting in the robots not doing anything because no one is buying anything, resulting in a complete collapse of the economic system the world uses to operate. Mass riots, hunger wars, political upheaval, world war 3. Nuke the opposition before they nuke you.
- skybrian 1y agoThat’s one scenario, but there are others. There are lots of open-weight models. Why wouldn’t ownership of AI end up being widely distributed? Mabybe it's more like solar panels than nuclear power plants?
- candiddevmike 1y agoIf we're in fantasy land about AI, why do we keep thinking anyone will actually _own_ AI? Human hubris alone cannot contain a super intelligent AI.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoI sometimes wonder about what our governments would do if one of the businesses in their jurisdictions were to achieve AGI or other such destabilizing technology. If it were truly disruptive, why would these governments respect the ownership of such property and not seize it - toward whatever end authority desires. These businesses have little defense against that and simply trust that government will protect their operations. Their only defense is lobbying.
- NoOn3 1y agoAs we have almost seen, they will do absolutely nothing because they are afraid of losing to competing countries.
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
- wizardforhire 1y agoGonna just play a little mad libs here with your argument… Personal belief, but AI coming for your children is not a valid argument against AI. If AI can do a job better and/or faster, they should be the ones doing the parenting. Specialization is how we got to the future. So the problem isn't AI, it's the structure of how we humans rely on parenting for their children. I don't necessarily feel like it's the AI company's problem to fix either. This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward. … You’re right about one thing within reason… this is what a rationale government should be for… if the government was by the people and for the people. Addendum for emphasis: …and if that government followed the very laws it portends to protect and enforce…
- marnett 1y agoThe artist behind replacement.ai chose a very relevant first use case — everyone thinks of AI replacement in terms of labor, but the example in terms of parenting and child rearing, which is arguably the only true reason for humans to exist, is genius. Procreation and progeny is our only true purpose — and one could make the argument AI would make better parents and teachers. Should we all capitulate our sole purpose in the name of efficiency?
- mettamage 1y agoIf it makes our lives better then why not? We use tools all the time.
- harryf 1y agoIt’s worth (re)watching the 1985 movie Brazil in particular the character of Harry Tuttle, hearing engineer https://youtu.be/VRfoIyx8KfU https://youtu.be/VRfoIyx8KfU Neither government or corporations are going to “save us” simply because sheer short termism and incompetence. But the seem incompetence will make the coming dystopia ridiculous
- exe34 1y agoI do wonder if somewhere like China might be better off - they might not have muh freedumb, but their government seems keen to look after the majority and fund things that corporations wouldn't.
- leobg 1y agoIs it just income that’s the issue? I’d rather say it’s purpose. Even more: What will happen to democracy in a world where 100% of the population are 27/7 consumers?
- IHLayman 1y ago“ What will happen to democracy in a world where 100% of the population are 27/7 consumers?” …we’ll add three hours to our day? Bu seriously, I support what you are saying. This is why the entire consumer system needs to change, because in a world with no jobs it is by definition unsustainable.
- ryandrake 1y agoNot if it's ends up a literal utopia where robots do all the work and all humans share equally in the benefits, and get to live their lives with a purpose other than toiling for N hours a week to earn M survival tokens, which is what we have today. Good luck coming up with the political will to actually implement that utopia, though.
- Gepsens 1y agoSmaller cities, human size, humans closer to nature, robots bring stuff from factories by driving. Done
- yoz-y 1y agoSeeing how the humans behave when an extreme minority is able to control the production and the army…
- creer 1y ago> What will happen to democracy in a world where 100% of the population are 27/7 consumers? What does the one have to do with the other? But even then, currently plenty of people find their fun in creating - when it's not their job. And they struggle with finding the time for that. Sometimes the materials and training and machines for that also. Meanwhile a majority of current jobs involve zero personal creativity or making or creating. Driving or staffing a retail outlet or even most cooking jobs can't really be what you are looking for on your argument? Is the road to post-scarcity more likely with or without robots?
- dotancohen 1y ago> This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward. Many will argue that the purpose of government is not to steer or prepare society, but rather to reflect the values of society. Traditionally, the body that has steered (prepared or failed to prepare) society for impending changes was religion.
- nwatson 1y agoEnter the Dominionists, gaining steam now. Not a regime I want to live under. Here's a forty year old article describing the inception of those religious figures close to the current USA administration ... https://banner.org.uk/res/kt1.html https://banner.org.uk/res/kt1.html
- dotancohen 1y agoDominionists? Ready the Defiant.
- overfeed 1y agoWhere would governments find the money to expand safety nets by 2-3 orders of magnitude, while losing most income tax inflows?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- risyachka 1y agoYou need income to: - buy house - get food - buy clothes - medical care - buy nice things if robots are that advanced that can do most of the jobs - the cost of goods will be close to zero. government will product and distribute most of the things above and you mostly won't need any money, but if you want extra to travel etc there will always be a bunch of work to do - and not 8 hours per day
- candiddevmike 1y agoI'm pretty sure if robots are capable of doing most jobs, the only ones left will be related to prostitution or fluid/tissue/organ donation.
- pojzon 1y agoRich ppl doing something to undermine their status as „the better ones”? This is not going to happen. We all know a post-apocalyptic world is what awaits us. More or less Elysium is the future if ppl will still behave the same way they do now. And I doubt ppl will change in a span of 100 years.
- beeflet 1y agoThere are still capital costs in producing the robots and infrastructure. So the costs of goods will be nonzero. >government will product and distribute most of the things above and you mostly won't need any money So basicially what you are saying is that a government monopoly will control everything?
- risyachka 1y ago
- beeflet 1y agoFirstly, they are not coming for my job, they're coming for all jobs. Secondly, you assume in the first place that we can somehow build a stable post-scarcity society in which people with no leverage can control the super-intelligent agents with all of the power. The idea that "government will just fix it" is totally ignorant of what the government is or how it emerges. In the long run, you cannot have a ruling class that is removed from the keys to power. Lastly, Who says we should all support this future? What if I disagree with the AI revolution and it's consequences? It is kind of amazing how your path of reasoning is so dangerously misoriented and wrong. This is what happens when people grow up watching star trek, they just assume that once we live in a post scarcity future everything will be perfect, and that this is the natural endpoint for humanity.
- derektank 1y ago>Firstly, they are not coming for my job, they're coming for all jobs. They're not coming for all jobs. There are many jobs that exist today that could be replaced by automation but haven't been because people will pay a premium for it to be done by a human. There are a lot of artisan products out there which are technically inferior to manufactured goods but people still buy them. Separately, there are many jobs which are entirely about physical and social engagement with a flesh and blood human being, sex work being the most obvious, but live performances (how has Broadway survived in an era of mass adoption of film and television), and personal care work like home health aids, nannies, and doulas are all at least partially about providing an emotional connection on top of their actual physical labor. And there's also a question of things that can literally only be done by human beings, because by definition they can only be done by human beings. I imagine in the future, many people will be paid full time to be part of scientific studies that can't easily be done today, such as extended, large cohort diet and exercise studies of people in metabolic chambers.
- beeflet 1y ago>They're not coming for all jobs. So we are all going to just do useless bullcrap like sell artisan clay pots to each other and pimp each other out? Wow, some future! I just don't know how this goofball economy is going to work out when a handful elites/AI overlords control everything you need to eat and survive and everyone else is weaving them artisan wicker baskets and busking (jobs which are totally automated and redundant, have you, but the elites would keep us around for the sentimental value). >I imagine in the future, many people will be paid full time to be part of scientific studies that can't easily be done today, such as extended, large cohort diet and exercise studies of people in metabolic chambers. Yeah this is one plausible future, we could all be lab rats testing the next cancer medicine or donating organs to the elites. I can't imagine the conditions will be very humane, being that the unwashed masses will have basically no leverage to negotiate their pay.
- lwhi 1y agoThe problem is more existential. Why are people even doing the jobs? In a huge number of cases people have jobs that largely amount to nothing other than accumulation of wealth for people higher up. I have a feeling that automation replacement will make this fact all the more apparent. When people realise big truths, revolutions occur.
- exe34 1y ago> This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward. The AI will belong to the parasite class who will capture all the profits - but you can't tax them on this, because they can afford to buy the government. So there isn't really a way to fund food and shelter for the population without taking something from the billionaires. Their plans for the future does not include us [0]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
- 81222222 1y agoOn a few occasions as a teenager, I slipped into an unpleasant khole. The one thing that remained constant every time was that I felt like we were living in the apocalypse. Even though each of these experiences was precipitated by the dose taken, I somehow ended up with a 24 hour news channel on in the background and while I sat there motionless, images of air defense missiles launching on some grainy video from kosovo, I just felt like the world was coming to an end and that all doom was beginning to take place. It's weird because of the k I didn't feel panicky about the doom, like I was super calm and collected about it but nevertheless, it was still an hour or two of impending doom that was very unpleasant. I guess my point is that we need to restrict ketamine use based on income. If someone has enough money, they have far more than enough resources to deal with whatever medical issue justifies their k prescription using a different treatment. Allowing these people to have access to ketamine is the root cause of this problem.
- portaouflop 1y agoSpecialization is for insects. A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
- lukev 1y agoAgreed 100%, except that this is not a new development. This process has been ongoing, with automation has been taking over certain classes of jobs and doing them faster and better since the industrial revolution. And capitalism has flourished during this time. There's no reason to believe even more automation is going to change that, on its own. Sure, Musk and Altman can make noises and talk about the need for UBI "in the future" all they want, but their political actions clearly show which side they're actually on.
- franga2000 1y ago"The government" needs time to fix this and until then, we need to not automate everyone out of a job. If that means we don't "get to the future" until then, fine. "Fault" or not, the AI companies are putting people in danger now and unless we can implement a more proper solution extremely quickly, they just have to put up with being slowed down. But it's not like "the government" (as if there is just one) simply doesn't want to fix things. There are many people who want to fix the way we distribute resources, but there are others who are working to stop them. The various millionaires behind these AI companies are part of the reason why the problem you identified exists in the first place.
- brap 1y agoSo your government should pump the brakes, while other governments rush towards ASI. And you believe this will benefit you, long term? Or do you believe in “global cooperation”?
- franga2000 1y agoThis is exactly why I put "the government" in quotes. The parent post was saying "the government" should just fix the underlying problem instead of showing AI progress. This has the same problem - no government can do that alone. So it's either "we all science ourselves out of a job and die from uncontrolled capitalism" or "we try to do something about the uncontrolled capitalism and in the meantime, everyone else keeps sciencing everyone out of a job". The result is the same, but some of us at least tried to do something about it.
- malloryerik 1y agoMight want to read some Karl Polanyi.
- everforward 1y ago> This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward. This requires faith that the government will actually step in to do something, which many people lack (at least in the US, can't speak for globally). That's the sticking point for many of the people I've talked to about it. Some are diametrically opposed to AI, but most think there's a realistic chance AI takes jobs away and an unrealistic chance the government opposes the whims of capital causing people displaced from their jobs to dip into poverty. I can't say I have a good counter-argument either. At least in the US, the government has largely sided with capital for my entire life. I wouldn't take a bet that government does the kind of wealth redistribution required if AI really takes off, and I would eat my hat if it happens in a timely manner that doesn't require an absolute crisis of ruined lives before something happens. See the accumulation of wealth at the top income brackets while the middle and lower classes get left behind. TLDR this is more of a crisis of faith in the government than opposition to AI taking over crap jobs that people don't want anyways.
- ivape 1y agoit's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income 1. We don’t need everyone in society to be involved in trade. 2. We made it so that if you do not take part in trade (trade labor for income), you cannot live. 3. Thus, people will fear losing their ability to trade in society. The question is, when did we make this shift? It used to just be slavery, and you would be able to survive so long as you slaved. The fear is coming from something odd, the reality that you won’t have to trade anymore to live. Our society has convinced us you won’t have any value otherwise.
- brap 1y ago>We made it so that if you do not take part in trade (trade labor for income), you cannot live. We did not make it so, this has been the natural state for as long as humans have existed, and in fact, it’s been this way for every other life form on Earth. Maybe with post-scarcity (if it ever happens) there could be other ways of living. We can dream. But let’s not pretend that “life requires effort” is some sort of temporary unnatural abomination made by capitalists. It’s really just a fact.
- ivape 1y agoYou think every other life form on earth survives due to trading with each other? Most of human history has been some contingent contract between owner and labor, where most humans lived under some form of servitude or just pure slavery. Paradigm shift means, “I can live without being involved in a financial contract with another entity”. This is the milestone before us.
- brap 1y agoIt certainly survives by working, one way or another. My point is that until now, we have never been able to find a functioning system that frees us from work (trade is just one type of work, so is hunting for survival, or photosynthesis), and until something changes dramatically (like a machine that caters to our every need), I find it hard to believe this can change.
- jaccola 1y agoThe way I think about this is either the job is done in the most efficient way possible or I am asking everyone else to pay more for that product/service (sometimes a worse product/service) just so I can have a job. E.g. if I was a truck driver and autonomous trucks came along that were 2/3rds the price and reduced truck related deaths by 99% obviously I couldn't, in good faith, argue that the rest of the population should pay more and have higher risk of death even to save my job and thousands of others. Though somehow this is a serious argument in many quarters (and accounts for lots of government spending).
- gnarlouse 1y agoRespectfully, that’s not a very functional belief. It’s sort of the equivalent to saying “communism is how mankind should operate”, while completely ignoring why communism doesn’t work: greedy, self-preserving genetic human instincts. The workforce gives regular folks at least some marginal stake in civilization. Governments aren’t effective engines against AI. We failed to elect Andrew Yang in 2020–who was literally running on a platform of setting up a UBI tax on AI. Congress is completely corrupt and ineffectual. Trump gutting the government. You may be right about ai taking jobs eventually if that’s what you’re saying, but you come off pretty coldly if you’re implying it’s what “should” happen because it’s Darwinian and inevitable, and just sorta “well fuck poor people.”
- NoOn3 1y agoNot only Communism doesn't work, Capitalism doesn't work without crises and wars too. :)
- 81222222 1y agoCommunism was never realized and what didn't work was the transitions stage between free market capitalism and communism, state capitalism. In literally every instance of communism not working, it was state capitalism that didn't work because the people who benefited from state capitalism worked to keep it in place as communism would have ended their greedy consolidation of power. This is not a flaw in communism, this is a flaw in capitalism: the inevitable hoarding of capital.
- romellem 1y ago“Guns don’t kill people, etc…”
- lwhi 1y agoGovernment no longer has the power or authority to constrain private enterprise; especially in highly technical sectors.
- xpe 1y agoOf course government has the authority to represent the people; if not it, then who or what does?
- lwhi 1y agoI didn't say government doesn't have the power to represent the people, now did I?
- xpe 1y agoYou wrote: > Government no longer has the power or authority to constrain private enterprise; especially in highly technical sectors. Perhaps you meant only this: "Government no longer has the power ..."? It is clear government still has the authority based on the will of the people.
- lwhi 1y agoConceptually, yes. But I'd argue the legal framework necessary to carry this out doesn't exist. The strength of private lobbists, keeps power in the hands of private enterprise.
- xpe 1y agoOk, to synthesize: there is a difference between the legislative branch having some authority (e.g. granted by the Constitution) versus the administrative branch having some legal authority (e.g. based on legislation).
- lwhi 1y agoI'm in the UK, but do you feel either is likely to exercise authority to constrain private enterprise for the good of the people underthe current US administration?
- gtsop 1y ago> So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. It's called capitalism
- strogonoff 1y ago“Robots coming for your jobs” is a valid argument against robots even if they can do those jobs better and faster, under two assumptions: 1) humans benefit from having jobs and 2) human benefit is the end goal. Both are fairly uncontroversial: many humans not only benefit from jobs but in fact often depend on jobs for their livelihoods, and (2) should be self-evident. This can change if the socioeconomic system is quickly enough and quite substantially restructured to make humans not depend on being compensated for work that is now being done by robots (not only financially but also psychologically—feeling fulfilled—socially, etc.), but I don’t see that happening.
- jhbadger 1y agoThis is valid only so far as "human benefit" is localized to the human doing the job. I'm a cancer researcher. Obviously. my job is of value to me because it pays my bills (and yes, I do get satisfaction from it in other ways). But if an AI can do cancer research better than me, then the human benefit (to every human except perhaps me) favors the AI over me. But a lot of jobs aren't like that. I doubt many people who work in, say, public relations, really think their job has value other than paying their bills. They can't take solace in the fact that the AI can write press releases deflecting the blame for the massive oil spill that their former employer caused.
- strogonoff 1y ago> I'm a cancer researcher. Obviously. my job is of value to me because it pays my bills (and yes, I do get satisfaction from it in other ways). But if an AI can do cancer research better than me, then the human benefit (to every human except perhaps me) favors the AI over me. I’ll note that I didn’t mention “AI”, I was addressing robots vs. jobs, but sure. Let me straw man myself and say up front that it would be simplistic to say that if something hurts one person today then it is bad, even if it benefits a million tomorrow. However, does that mean if death of N people can cause N+1 people to be saved at some indefinite point in the future, we should jump on the opportunity? Utilitarian math is not the answer. We don’t have to go far for examples of tragic loss of life and atrocities that were caused by people following utilitarian objectives, so I am much more wary of this logic than its inverse. We probably should neither let everybody starve while we are fighting cancer nor stop studying cancer, even if we could feed millions of people in dire need with that money. With that in mind: feeling fulfilled and needed is important, being able to pay bills is important, etc., no matter who you are. It is probably unacceptable to reduce human life to “be the most efficient cog in the system or GTFO”. > I doubt many people who work in, say, public relations, really think their job has value other than paying their bills. Does your cancer research institution have no public relations department? Should there be no public relations departments in any of them? Would it help cancer research? -- Tangentially, the Wikipedia article on inflammation makes two claims: 1) inflammation can be caused by stress—I imagine via lack of sleep, bad habits, eating disorders, etc.—and 2) cancer is one of the non-immune diseases with causal origins in inflammatory processes. Now, there’s many things that could cause a person to stress, but I imagine losing your job and struggling to make ends meet, with a promise that it helps humanity at some point, is definitely high up there (especially if you have a family). I jest, but only in part.
- KoolKat23 1y agoAnd if we know we can't fix it fast enough, is a delay acceptable?
- sharts 1y agoReplace robots with immigrants and it’s the same fear mongering as usual.
- xpe 1y agoThere is much more to concerns about AI than fear mongering. Reasonable people can disagree on predictions about probabilities of future events, but they should not discount reasonable arguments.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 1dom 1y ago> This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation by banning AI but by preparing society to move forward. What if the issue isn't government failing to prepare society to move forward, but instead, AI businesses moving us in a direction that more and more people don't consider to be forward?
- vlovich123 1y agoMy reading of history is that human society is able to adjust to small changes like this over long periods of time as young people choose alternate paths looking at what changes are likely on the horizon. Rapid changes frequently lead to destabilization of adults who are unwilling or unable to retrain which then also screws up their next generation who start off on an economic back foot and a worldview of despair and decrepitude. Not the AI company’s fault per se, but generally the US government does a very poor job of creating a safety net either intentionally, ineptitude or indifference. By the way, attacks were also leveled against Chinese and Japanese California workers who were viewed as stealing the jobs of other “Americans”. So this viewpoint and tradition of behavior and capitalism is very long in US history.
- jayd16 1y agoIf wealth inequality was greatly reduced, we wouldn't have to worry about a lot of these topics, nearly as much.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xpe 1y ago> This is what government is for, and not to stifle innovation We should compare how anti-government politicians talk versus how trained, educated neoclassical economists talk. The latter readily recognize that a valid function of government is to steer, shape, and yes, regulate markets to some degree. This is why we don’t have (for example) legal, open markets for murder. Markets do not define human values; they are a coordination mechanism given a diverse set of values.
- thayne 1y agoI have very little faith in the government to fix that problem. And even if the government did institute something like universal basic income, if all jobs were replaced, that would almost certainly mean a lower standard of living for the middle class, and even less socioeconomic mobility than there is now.
- JimDabell 1y ago> robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. Taking work away from people is practically the definition of technology. We invent things to reduce the effort needed to do things. Eliminating work is a good thing, that’s why inventing things is so popular! What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant, meaning we get more done for the same amount of effort performed by the same amount of people doing the same amount of jobs. That’s why standards of living have been rising for the past few millennia instead of everybody being out of work. We took work away from humans with technology, we then used that effort saved to get more done.
- lamename 1y agoI agree with most everything you said. The problem has always been the short-term job loss, particularly today where society as a whole has resources for safety nets, but hasnt implemented them. Anger at companies who hold power in multiple places to prevent and worsen this situation for people is valid anger.
- nativeit 1y agoThere's another problem with who gets to capture all of the resulting wealth from the higher tech-assisted productivity.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago> The problem has always been the short-term job loss Does anyone have any idea of the new jobs that will be created to replace the ones that are being lost? If it's not possible to at least foresee it, then it's not likely to happen. In which case the job loss will be long-term not short-term.
- erichocean 1y ago[flagged]
- YZF 1y agoWe've replaced human jobs in the past not just made them more efficient. Horses (and all the jobs to do with them) were completely displaced by cars. Those jobs aren't more efficient, they're gone. Similar with many other jobs during the industrial revolution. This is not a zero sum game. For an economy to exist we need consumers. For consumers to exist we need people to have jobs and be paid. So the equilibrium is that there will be some new jobs somewhere, not done by robots, that will pay people enough to consume the (better and cheaper) goods made by those robots. Or we'll just have a lot of leisure time and get paid by the government. Or (like some other discussion thread) we'll all be wiped out or slaves in the salt mines if the elites can just sustain/improve without us and are able to enforce it. Either way, it's not the scenario where we're out of jobs sitting at home.
- zer00eyz 1y ago> Personal belief, but robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots. Replace the word robot with "automation" or "industrialization" and you have the last 200 years of human history covered. The Ludites could have won and we would all have 1500$ shirts. Do you know any lamp lighters? How about a town crier? We could still all be farming. Where are all the switch board operators? Where are all the draftsmen? How many people had programing jobs in 1900? 1950? We have an amazing ability to "make work for ourselves", and history indicates that we're going to keep doing that regardless of how automated we make society. We also keep traditional "arts" alive... Recording didnt replace live performances, TV/Film didnt replace Broadway... Photography didnt replace painting...
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- rafaelmn 1y agoThe government and all social structures developed because your labour has value and division of labour/specialisation is so effective that it outperforms the alternatives. Cooperation beats violence, iterated prisoners dilemma, etc. None of this holds if you don't have anything of value to offer and automation is concentrating power and value, AI is the extreme end of this - at some point the charade of democracy becomes too annoying to the ones at the top, and you get there faster by trying to reign them in.
- sythnet 1y agoI agree with you
- 6r17 1y agoThe problem is that we do not share the same values at all and I do not envision this truly benefiting people neither making it something I envy or feel OK with. You can make the best fakes and make your best to remove activity from people - but ultimately this is going to lead to a deteriorated society, increased mental health issues, plenty of sad stories just so few people can be happy about it. Ngl, if someone nuked all USA's servers and wipes out the all these bullshit i'm not convinced the world would be in a worst state right now. Let AI be used by scientific research, development, helping people out. But if it's just to sit your smelly ideas down, you may even be right, but ultimately the form, intentions and result matter more than recklessly endangering everybody. TBH I feel like the AI discourse around human replacement smell like hard-core psychopathic behavior - or the one of a drunken dude who's driving a car just happy. You have 0 data concerning the result it would do on society - and I definitely prefer to live in a less technological world than a world that is full of people with psychosis. So until we find how we can solve this bottleneck I have 0 sympathy for this kind of discourse.
- didibus 1y ago> Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them. -- Frank Herbert, Dune The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others. Those who will own machines that can match humans will have unprecedented power over others. In effect they'll grow more and more to be the government. Even now, companies hold more and more of the power over others and are more part of the government than ever before. So it confuses me when you say it's what the government is for? Who would that be? If we pretend it would still be a democracy then I guess you're saying it's everyone's problem? So here we are, let's discuss the solution and vote for it?
- bittercynic 1y ago>The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others. Often, yes, but in a more functional society it would be the mechanism we collectively use to prevent a few people from amassing excessive wealth and power.
- 010101010101 1y agoThose two things don’t sound mutually exclusive to me.
- serial_dev 1y agoWhere did this ever work out? It’s extremely common that policies are universally hated by the people, yet the people in power do it anyway.
- pydry 1y agoSwitzerland. America isnt really a democracy it's a plutocracy.
- Ray20 1y agoJust for example. When the elite drives all their opponents into poverty and sends them to rot in prison for the slightest outcry, that's anything but democracy. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/swiss-lgbtq-groups-praise-jail-sentence-commentator-called-journalist-rcna118715 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/swiss-lgbtq-groups-...
- jwilber 1y agoAh yes, our government where career politicians from both sides have bent the rules to create 9-10 figure fortunes.
- luxuryballs 1y ago“This is what government is for” was the most terrifying thing I’ve read all month. The only thing more starkly dystopian than relying on robots and AI for survival would be adding “the government” to the list. The government should keep its charge as the protector and upholder of justice, I don’t want it to be those things and then also become a fiat source for economic survival, that’s a terribly destructive combination because the government doesn’t care for competition or viability, and survival is the last place you want to have all your eggs in one basket, especially when the eggs are guaranteed by force of law and the basket becomes a magnet for corruption.
- grafmax 1y agoProblem is billionaires have co-opted our government. Their interest is in channeling money from the working class into their hands through rentier capitalism. That is contrary to widely structuring income. Rent extraction hurts them in the long run. Because working class income gets absorbed by various forms of rent, they are more expensive to employ. Thus we fail to compete with, say, China, which socializes many costs and invests in productive industry. We are left with a top heavy society that as we can see is already starting to crumble.
- arrosenberg 1y agoKind of hard for the government to “prepare society to move forward” when the AI companies and their financiers lobby for conditions that worsen the ability of society to do so.
- notthemessiah 1y agoThe problem is that the AI companies are most interested in displacing the existing labor force more so than they are interested in developing new uses of AI in areas that humans are inherently bad at. They are more interested in replacing good jobs with AI rather than bad jobs. It's not that machines are doing jobs better, they are just doing them for cheaper and by cutting more corners. Best summarized in this comic: https://x.com/9mmballpoint/status/1658163045502267428 https://x.com/9mmballpoint/status/1658163045502267428
- jvanderbot 1y agoIt's one thing to be fired and completely replaced by a robot, never to work again. It's another to have your industry change and embrace automation, but to remain in with higher productivity and a new role. You might not initially like the new industry or role, but .... That's noble. The first is dystopian
- kif 1y agoIn my opinion there is a problem when said robot relies on piracy to learn how to do stuff. If you are going to use my work without permission to build such a robot, then said robot shouldn’t exist. On the other hand a jack of all trades robot is very different from all the advancements we have had so far. If the robot can do anything, in the best case scenario we have billions of people with lots of free time. And that doesn’t seem like a great thing to me. Doubt that’s ever gonna happen, but still.
- EasyMark 1y agoBut the only government that could "fairly" operate such a government would be a rational AI with a limited set of rules meant to maximize human wellness. Humans will always fail at such a government as we have seen in the past. Greed always overwhelms good intentions in the long run
- birktj 1y agoI strongly disagree and I am having trouble understanding what kind of world you envision, what will it look like? The problem as I see it is not robots coming for my job and taking away my ability to earn a salary. That can be solved by societal structures like you are saying, even though I am somewhat pessimistic of our ability to do so in our current political climate. The problem I see is robots coming for my mind and taking away any stakes and my ability to do anything that matters. If the robot is an expert in all fields why would you bother to learn anything? The fact that it takes time and energy to learn new skills and knowledge is what makes the world interesting. And this is exactly what happened before when machines took over a lot of human labour, luckily there were still plenty of things they couldn't do and thus ways to keep the world interesting. But if the machines start to think for us, what then is left for us to do?
- jmpeax 1y ago> If the robot is an expert in all fields why would you bother to learn anything? Robots have been better at chess than humans for a quarter of a century. Yet, chess is still a delightful intellectual and social persuit.
- techblueberry 1y agoWe just keep moving forward, no one responsible, no one accountable, victims of our own progress.
- pharos92 1y agoYou wont have that opinion when its your job, life and freedom.
- popalchemist 1y agoTechnology should make our lives better. Whether it's social media, AI, or nuclear power, if we introduce technology that even with its incredible benefits ends up causing harm or making life worse for many people (as all of the above have in various ways), we should reconsider. This should be self-evident. That doesn't mean we get rid of the technology, but we refine. Chernobyl didn't mean the world got rid of nuclear power. It meant we became more responsible with it. Anyway there is a name for your kind of take. It is anti-humanist.
- frogperson 1y agoRobots might be the future, but humans are more important and should be peioritized first. lets make sure the humans needs are met, and then you can play with your robot toys, ok?
- zzgo 1y ago> This is what government is for In my home country, the people building the robots and job destroying AI have captured all three branches of government, and have been saying for over 40 years that they'd like to shrink government down to a size that they could drown it in a bathtub. The government can't be relied upon to do more than move its military into our cities to violently stifle dissent.
- xivzgrev 1y agoIt's not so black and white - it depends on the scale We as a society get to decide what is done in our society. If robots replace a few jobs but make goods cheaper for everyone that's a net positive for society. If robots replace EVERYONE's job, where everyone has no income anymore that's clearly a huge negative for society and it should be prevented.
- completelylegit 1y ago“Hey Association of Retarded Citizens, robots can do it better so just stay home I guess.”
- insane_dreamer 1y ago> So the problem isn't robots, it's the structure of how we humans rely on jobs for income. Humans have depended on their own labor for income since we stopped being hunters and gatherers or living in small tribes. So it's not just a matter of "the gov will find a way", but it's basically destroying the way humanity as a whole has operated for the past 5000 years. So yes, it's a huge problem. Everything done under the banner of "innovation" isn't necessarily a good thing. Slavery was pretty "innovative" as well, for those who were the slave owners.
- ssss11 1y agoBut we all know what will happen, it’s the human condition of greed. The wealthy will control everything, governments will be no help, and all the newly unemployed will be in dire situations. So while you’ve identified the real problem we need to identify a realistic solution.
- subjectivationx 1y agoThis is not a personal belief this is a regurgitation of the most standard neoliberal orthodoxy.
- account42 1y agoThe problem with that is that having all the robots also makes it easy to control the government.
- happytoexplain 1y ago"Arguing against robots" is an oversimplification. They're arguing against misery and harm, and against the unprepared nature of our government and businesses to account for the impact of large jumps in automation, which, of course, also means arguing against robots. The distinction is pointless. And yes actually, it is in fact the responsibility of everybody to decline to inflict misery, whether a law has been made to control your behavior yet or not. It would be dishonest to imply there is a binary where your business can't ever use any automation based on this principle. The over-application of objective phrases like "valid" vs "invalid" when talking about non-formal arguments is a sickness a lot of technical people tend to share. In this case, it's dismissive of harm to humans, which is the worst thing you can be dismissive about. "Please don't make me and my family miserable" is not an "invalid argument" - that's inhuman. That person isn't arguing their thesis. "The problem". Another common oversimplifying phrase used by us thinkers, who believe there is "the answer", as if either of those two things exist as physical objects. "The problem" is that humans are harmed. Everything else just exists within that problem domain, not as "part of the problem" or "not part of the problem". But most importantly: Yes, you're absolutely correct (and I hate to use this word, but I'm angry): Obviously the ideal state is that robots do all the work we don't want to do and we do whatever we want and our society is structured in a way to support that. You've omitted the part where that level of social support is very hard to make physically feasible, very hard to convince people of depending on their politics, and, most importantly: It's usually only enough to spare people from death and homelessness, not from misery and unrest. Of course it would be ridiculous to outright ban for-profit use of automation, but even more ridiculous to write a bill that enforces it, e.g. by banning any form of regulation. Short and medium term, automating technologies are good for the profit of businesses and bad for the affected humans. Long term, automating technologies are good for everybody, but only if society actually organizes that transition in a way that doesn't make those affected miserable/angry. It isn't, and I don't think it's pessimistic to say that it probably won't. I'd love to live in Star Trek! We don't. We won't for hundreds of years if ever. Technology isn't the limiting factor, the immutable nature of human society and resources are the limiting factors. Nothing else is interesting to even talk about until we clear the bar of simply giving a shit about what actually, in concrete reality, happens to our countrymen.