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It’s an economic fallacy that a group of people would get “locked out” of the economy. If you and I are able to work, but can’t get jobs because robots do all

It’s an economic fallacy that a group of people would get “locked out” of the economy. If you and I are able to work, but can’t get jobs because robots do all the jobs, then we’re not just going to sit on our hands and starve. You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. But that’s not how things will turn out. The reason we have an economy and money and trade is that we need to incentivize people to produce all the stuff that people consume, and manage those finite resources constrained by people’s finite time. But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. If there’s no limit on production, and no need for human labor, then we don’t need to incentivize people to work, or try to bound the amount people consume by the value of what they’ve produced.

ares623 4mo ago
Or, what the billionaires are actually thinking, remove entire swathes of the population from the equation. Now the reasonable ones might think "hey, even if that sounds 'rational', isn't that very risky? What happens if the machines don't actually cut it? Then we'd be stuck with not enough people to support our lavish lifestyles? And we can't exactly spin up millions of people in an instant, so where does that leave us?" Well, they wouldn't be billionaires if they were reasonable so here we are. As the saying goes: "It takes a village to raise a billionaire"
- shimman 4mo ago
  You should check out "Four Futures" by Peter Frase. This would be the "extermination" future and like you I think it's the most likely one without extreme counteraction.
xyzzy123 4mo ago
> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. Unless one of us happens to be a food producer we will both starve. We need our trade graph to be connected to resources we need. Production also tends to need exclusive access to resources (land, materials, etc) and you will be competing with machines for access to those. > The reason we have an economy and money and trade is that we need to incentivize people to produce all the stuff that people consume, and manage those finite resources constrained by people’s finite time. But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. Who owns the robots though (plus scarce exclusionary inputs), and how are you connected to the part of the trade graph that produces abundance? > If there’s no limit on production, and no need for human labor, then we don’t need to incentivize people to work, or try to bound the amount people consume by the value of what they’ve produced. This is very much a question about who controls the means of production.
- qsera 4mo ago
  >Unless one of us happens to be a food producer we will both starve. We need our trade graph to be connected to resources we need.. How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? >Who owns the robots though.. I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less.
  - ares623 4mo ago
    > How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free? > I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less. Taxes from what?
    - casey2 4mo ago
      For all the other economic activities that robots don't run? 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked. All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it. As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why LLMs will fail to replace human thought.
      - fakedang 4mo ago
        > 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked. X for doubt. When automation entered agriculture, we started producing way more for way less. Agriculture stopped becoming a significant part for most developed economies in terms of both GDP contribution and employment. > All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it. X. The people who lose jobs rarely find something anew - they'll simply become part of an expanding labour pool, further depressing wages. All while some numpty politician would be telling them they need to stop farming and start learning how to code (never mind there's absolutely no point in doing that either). > As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why LLMs will fail to replace human thought. A cursory browse through an X or reddit thread would show you otherwise. LLMs already replace human thought.
adrianN 4mo ago
Figuring out what to produce and how to allocate resources are algorithmically hard problems, even if you know people’s valuation functions. Without some kind of market mechanism to partially reveal valuations it is very difficult indeed. AI is not magic pixie dust you can just sprinkle on your problems to make them go away.
jameslk 4mo ago
> But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. In other words, a planned economy
bellowsgulch 4mo ago
Always impressive how smoothly complex constraints vanish in these models.
NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago
>AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. AI could also be able to figure out how much to produce and how to limit waste in a way that leaves you to starve. And there won't be anything you can do about it. And this solution would, it turns out, suit the people who still have influence in how the system works just fine. >ou and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. But that’s not how things will turn out. But what would you even trade? Do you have anything that a starving unemployed man who bargain for? And does he have anything you want?
- tsunamifury 4mo ago
  It’s amazing seeing so many people reconstruct socialism and technocratic communism of the 60s from base principles and completely be ignorant of everything we learned about it.
starbugs 4mo ago
> But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. Might want to think that through again. I recommend this SG Atlantis episode: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Poisoning_the_Well https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Poisoning_the_Well
numpad0 4mo ago
> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. And that's communist. I don't understand why nobody seem to see the irony or the miscategorization. This isn't to be critical of this comment, but my righteousness obsessed mind says that people pushing for the dual-layer system where few controls classical economy without humans and rest using their own systems needs to be relabeled from capitalist to proto-Soviet style totalitarian anarcho-Communist.
chadgpt3 4mo ago
You need land to do anything, even just to exist.

ares623 4mo ago

Or, what the billionaires are actually thinking, remove entire swathes of the population from the equation. Now the reasonable ones might think "hey, even if that sounds 'rational', isn't that very risky? What happens if the machines don't actually cut it? Then we'd be stuck with not enough people to support our lavish lifestyles? And we can't exactly spin up millions of people in an instant, so where does that leave us?" Well, they wouldn't be billionaires if they were reasonable so here we are. As the saying goes: "It takes a village to raise a billionaire"

shimman 4mo ago
You should check out "Four Futures" by Peter Frase. This would be the "extermination" future and like you I think it's the most likely one without extreme counteraction.

xyzzy123 4mo ago

> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. Unless one of us happens to be a food producer we will both starve. We need our trade graph to be connected to resources we need. Production also tends to need exclusive access to resources (land, materials, etc) and you will be competing with machines for access to those. > The reason we have an economy and money and trade is that we need to incentivize people to produce all the stuff that people consume, and manage those finite resources constrained by people’s finite time. But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. Who owns the robots though (plus scarce exclusionary inputs), and how are you connected to the part of the trade graph that produces abundance? > If there’s no limit on production, and no need for human labor, then we don’t need to incentivize people to work, or try to bound the amount people consume by the value of what they’ve produced. This is very much a question about who controls the means of production.

qsera 4mo ago
>Unless one of us happens to be a food producer we will both starve. We need our trade graph to be connected to resources we need.. How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? >Who owns the robots though.. I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less.
- ares623 4mo ago
  > How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free? > I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less. Taxes from what?
  - casey2 4mo ago
    For all the other economic activities that robots don't run? 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked. All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it. As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why LLMs will fail to replace human thought.
    - fakedang 4mo ago
      > 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked. X for doubt. When automation entered agriculture, we started producing way more for way less. Agriculture stopped becoming a significant part for most developed economies in terms of both GDP contribution and employment. > All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it. X. The people who lose jobs rarely find something anew - they'll simply become part of an expanding labour pool, further depressing wages. All while some numpty politician would be telling them they need to stop farming and start learning how to code (never mind there's absolutely no point in doing that either). > As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why LLMs will fail to replace human thought. A cursory browse through an X or reddit thread would show you otherwise. LLMs already replace human thought.

adrianN 4mo ago

Figuring out what to produce and how to allocate resources are algorithmically hard problems, even if you know people’s valuation functions. Without some kind of market mechanism to partially reveal valuations it is very difficult indeed. AI is not magic pixie dust you can just sprinkle on your problems to make them go away.

jameslk 4mo ago

bellowsgulch 4mo ago

Always impressive how smoothly complex constraints vanish in these models.

NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo ago

>AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. AI could also be able to figure out how much to produce and how to limit waste in a way that leaves you to starve. And there won't be anything you can do about it. And this solution would, it turns out, suit the people who still have influence in how the system works just fine. >ou and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. But that’s not how things will turn out. But what would you even trade? Do you have anything that a starving unemployed man who bargain for? And does he have anything you want?

tsunamifury 4mo ago
It’s amazing seeing so many people reconstruct socialism and technocratic communism of the 60s from base principles and completely be ignorant of everything we learned about it.

starbugs 4mo ago

> But you can do away with all that messiness of all that exchange and just have AI micromanage the economy. AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. Might want to think that through again. I recommend this SG Atlantis episode: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Poisoning_the_Well https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Poisoning_the_Well

numpad0 4mo ago

> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. And that's communist. I don't understand why nobody seem to see the irony or the miscategorization. This isn't to be critical of this comment, but my righteousness obsessed mind says that people pushing for the dual-layer system where few controls classical economy without humans and rest using their own systems needs to be relabeled from capitalist to proto-Soviet style totalitarian anarcho-Communist.

chadgpt3 4mo ago

You need land to do anything, even just to exist.