5 ms·

> We assert that artificial intelligence is a natural evolution of human tools developed throughout history to facilitate the creation, organization, and dissem

by woolion 6mo ago

> We assert that artificial intelligence is a natural evolution of human tools developed throughout history to facilitate the creation, organization, and dissemination of ideas, and argue that it is paramount that the development and application of AI remain fundamentally human-centered. While this is a noble goal, it seems obvious that this isn't how it usually goes. For instance, "free market" is often used as a dogma against companies that are actively harmful to society, as "globalization" might be. An unstoppable force, so any form of opposition is "luddite behavior". Another one is easier transport and remote communication, that generally broke down the social fabric. Or social media wreaking havoc among teen's minds. From there, it's easy to see why the technological system might be seen as an inherent evil. In 1872's Erewhon, Butler already described the technological system as a force that human society could contain as soon as it tolerated it. There are already many companies persecuting their employees for not using AI enough, even when the employee's response is that the quality of its output is not good enough for the work at hand, rather than any ideological reason. I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the changes that AI might bring, but hoping it to become "human-centered" seems almost as optimistic as hoping for "humane wars".

cowpig 6mo ago
> "free market" is often used as a dogma against companies that are actively harmful to society This is a predominantly America-specific piece of propaganda, and it's pretty recent. Adam Smith's ideas are primarily arguments against mercantilism (e.g. things like using tariffs to wield self-interested state power), something he showed to be against the common good. The "invisible hand" concept is used to show how self-interested action can, under conditions of *competitive markets*, lead to unintentional alignment with the common good. Obviously that's a significant departure from the way it's commonly used today, where Thiel's book has influenced so many entrepreneurs into believing Monopolies are Good. But the history of this is very Cold War-influenced, where "free markets" were politically positioned as alternatives to the USSR's "planned economy", and slowly pushed to depart further and further from Adam Smith's original argument about moral philosophy.
- abdullahkhalids 6mo ago
  Economic behavior is inherently game theoretic - agents take various actions and get some positive/negative reward as a result. Whether an agent's reward is positive or negative and of what magnitude, depends on the strategies employed by all agents. If some agents adopt new strategies, the reward calculus for everyone involved can completely change [1]. Over the past few centuries, countless new economic structures and strategies have been discovered and practiced. The rewards for the same action today and in the past can be completely different due to this. So to me, if someone claimed more than a few decades ago that certain economic strategies and structures are good or bad, its simply not worth listening to them, unless someone reconfirms that the old finding still holds with the latest range of strategies. In that case, the credit and citation goes to that new someone, not the ghosts of the past. [1] A good interactive demo https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/
  - Nevermark 6mo ago
    > if someone claimed more than a few decades ago that certain economic strategies and structures are good or bad As you point out, it is all game theory. But things that arrange for the game to be more beneficial to everyone, that align our interests more, deserve to be called "good", regardless of their inability to universally do so. The latter would be an impossible bar for anything. Where I find things frustrating, is when someone thinks because something is "good", it somehow becomes "enough". (Think, capitalized versions of different economic schools of thought.)
  - runarberg 6mo ago
    > Economic behavior is inherently game theoretic. Game theory is just math. As with any math, the calculations can all work out, but that says nothing of how it reflects nature. All you can say is that if the axioms are all true, then this is the necessary outcome. Look for string theory as a cautionary tale here. Game theory assumes rational systems. But we have over 6 decades of behavior science which contradicts that fundamental assumption. Economic behavior is not necessarily rational, and subsequently it is not inherently game theoretic. You will find plenty of dogmatic, idealistic, superstitious, counter productive, etc. behaviors in an economy. You need psychology, and not just math, to describe the economics which happens in the real world.
Izikiel43 6mo ago
Globalization was great for poor countries, not so much developed economies.
- js8 6mo ago
  No it wasn't. Look at Joseph Stiglitz (Globalization and Its Discontents) and Ha-Joon Chang (Bad Samaritans, Kicking Away the Ladder) for counter-examples.
- nutjob2 6mo ago
  This isn't correct. The deal is that the poor countries get development and increased employment, and the rich countries get lower prices. Generally speaking both types of countries get richer. That some workers lost their jobs is a symptom of any change. I don't know why people always get upset people losing their jobs. It's like death, if no one died relatively few people would be born. If you resist job losses you reduce overall employment and economic development.
  - chromacity 6mo ago
    Are you serious? People get upset about losing jobs because they need jobs to pay their bills. Further, we often build our life identities around work; if you're a good car mechanic or a successful restaurant owner, you're proud of that. It's a part of you. Having to repeatedly restart your career is risky, painful, and demoralizing. I have no problem seeing why people don't like that and why it can lead to populist backlash or even violent revolutions (as it did in the past). By the way, to address your closing comment: people don't like dying either and tend to get upset when others die?
    - km3r 6mo ago
      Society is better if we sacrifice one horse and buggy driver job for two engineering jobs. The drivers suffer from that, but the net win for society is so plainly obvious that it's a better investment to retrain the driver or just pay the off rather than support a job that dying anyways.
zitterbewegung 6mo ago
Not even sure if AI was ever "human-centered" . DARPA funded a large amount of AI reseearch from even the 1960s. The DART tool used in the Gulf War made back all of their previous investments. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replanning_Tool#:~:text=DART%20achieved%20logistical%20solutions%20that,the%20previous%2030%20years%20combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replannin...
- hammock 6mo ago
  I mean were computers themselves ever human-centered? What’s the difference between AI and a computer?
  - zitterbewegung 6mo ago
    AI are algorithms generally and a computer is something executing a program .
    - hammock 6mo ago
      Let me be more nuanced. What’s the difference between AI and a computer program? In the context above
      - zitterbewegung 6mo ago
        Alright AI above was more like DARPA funded research programs that resulted in algorithms that allowed for the logistics program to be implemented where the department of war (aka Department of Defense at the time) to have the first gulf war be more efficient to the point that they did more than break even on the grants they gave out.
woolion 6mo ago
I just re-read my comment (too late for edits) and there are a number of typos (including missing "not") that significantly degraded the syntax, but the point kind of came across anyway.

by woolion 6mo ago

cowpig 6mo ago

> "free market" is often used as a dogma against companies that are actively harmful to society This is a predominantly America-specific piece of propaganda, and it's pretty recent. Adam Smith's ideas are primarily arguments against mercantilism (e.g. things like using tariffs to wield self-interested state power), something he showed to be against the common good. The "invisible hand" concept is used to show how self-interested action can, under conditions of *competitive markets*, lead to unintentional alignment with the common good. Obviously that's a significant departure from the way it's commonly used today, where Thiel's book has influenced so many entrepreneurs into believing Monopolies are Good. But the history of this is very Cold War-influenced, where "free markets" were politically positioned as alternatives to the USSR's "planned economy", and slowly pushed to depart further and further from Adam Smith's original argument about moral philosophy.

abdullahkhalids 6mo ago
Economic behavior is inherently game theoretic - agents take various actions and get some positive/negative reward as a result. Whether an agent's reward is positive or negative and of what magnitude, depends on the strategies employed by all agents. If some agents adopt new strategies, the reward calculus for everyone involved can completely change [1]. Over the past few centuries, countless new economic structures and strategies have been discovered and practiced. The rewards for the same action today and in the past can be completely different due to this. So to me, if someone claimed more than a few decades ago that certain economic strategies and structures are good or bad, its simply not worth listening to them, unless someone reconfirms that the old finding still holds with the latest range of strategies. In that case, the credit and citation goes to that new someone, not the ghosts of the past. [1] A good interactive demo https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/
- Nevermark 6mo ago
  > if someone claimed more than a few decades ago that certain economic strategies and structures are good or bad As you point out, it is all game theory. But things that arrange for the game to be more beneficial to everyone, that align our interests more, deserve to be called "good", regardless of their inability to universally do so. The latter would be an impossible bar for anything. Where I find things frustrating, is when someone thinks because something is "good", it somehow becomes "enough". (Think, capitalized versions of different economic schools of thought.)
- runarberg 6mo ago
  > Economic behavior is inherently game theoretic. Game theory is just math. As with any math, the calculations can all work out, but that says nothing of how it reflects nature. All you can say is that if the axioms are all true, then this is the necessary outcome. Look for string theory as a cautionary tale here. Game theory assumes rational systems. But we have over 6 decades of behavior science which contradicts that fundamental assumption. Economic behavior is not necessarily rational, and subsequently it is not inherently game theoretic. You will find plenty of dogmatic, idealistic, superstitious, counter productive, etc. behaviors in an economy. You need psychology, and not just math, to describe the economics which happens in the real world.

Izikiel43 6mo ago

Globalization was great for poor countries, not so much developed economies.

js8 6mo ago
No it wasn't. Look at Joseph Stiglitz (Globalization and Its Discontents) and Ha-Joon Chang (Bad Samaritans, Kicking Away the Ladder) for counter-examples.
nutjob2 6mo ago
This isn't correct. The deal is that the poor countries get development and increased employment, and the rich countries get lower prices. Generally speaking both types of countries get richer. That some workers lost their jobs is a symptom of any change. I don't know why people always get upset people losing their jobs. It's like death, if no one died relatively few people would be born. If you resist job losses you reduce overall employment and economic development.
- chromacity 6mo ago
  Are you serious? People get upset about losing jobs because they need jobs to pay their bills. Further, we often build our life identities around work; if you're a good car mechanic or a successful restaurant owner, you're proud of that. It's a part of you. Having to repeatedly restart your career is risky, painful, and demoralizing. I have no problem seeing why people don't like that and why it can lead to populist backlash or even violent revolutions (as it did in the past). By the way, to address your closing comment: people don't like dying either and tend to get upset when others die?
  - km3r 6mo ago
    Society is better if we sacrifice one horse and buggy driver job for two engineering jobs. The drivers suffer from that, but the net win for society is so plainly obvious that it's a better investment to retrain the driver or just pay the off rather than support a job that dying anyways.

zitterbewegung 6mo ago

Not even sure if AI was ever "human-centered" . DARPA funded a large amount of AI reseearch from even the 1960s. The DART tool used in the Gulf War made back all of their previous investments. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replanning_Tool#:~:text=DART%20achieved%20logistical%20solutions%20that,the%20previous%2030%20years%20combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replannin...

hammock 6mo ago
I mean were computers themselves ever human-centered? What’s the difference between AI and a computer?
- zitterbewegung 6mo ago
  AI are algorithms generally and a computer is something executing a program .
  - hammock 6mo ago
    Let me be more nuanced. What’s the difference between AI and a computer program? In the context above
    - zitterbewegung 6mo ago
      Alright AI above was more like DARPA funded research programs that resulted in algorithms that allowed for the logistics program to be implemented where the department of war (aka Department of Defense at the time) to have the first gulf war be more efficient to the point that they did more than break even on the grants they gave out.

woolion 6mo ago

I just re-read my comment (too late for edits) and there are a number of typos (including missing "not") that significantly degraded the syntax, but the point kind of came across anyway.