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It's an ideological thing. (We just had a conversation about ideology actually, remember?) Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want m
by vrganj 2mo ago
It's an ideological thing. (We just had a conversation about ideology actually, remember?)
Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions.
For the longest time, the only power labor has had to get those things was the power of collective bargaining. No agreement with your workers meant no production happened.
Now, there's finally a chance at salvation. The capitalist Messiah is AGI and it will finally deliver them from those annoying laborers.
This ideological bent is why they're putting everything they have into AI. It's why VCs and their fellow capitalists are going so crazy.
They see it as a way to finally solve the contradictions of their ideology, but in reality it'd only create a new one: If everyone's out of a job, who will buy their products?
- inigyou 2mo agoI wish I was smart enough to credibly promise capitalists they could replace all their workers. It doesn't matter that I can't do it. They'll pay me lots of money if they think I can.
- danqqqq 2mo ago[dead]
- eloisius 2mo agoIf they had AGI, why would they need consumers anymore? Just use your drone army to secure all natural resources and produce whatever you need for yourself. Other humans are just pets.
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo agoAnd this is why we need to escape the permanent underclass.
- vrganj 2mo agoHow about we don't create one instead?
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo agoIt's not a choice we have, unless you want to figure out a global AI ban treaty. AI will make human thought economically useless. In the new economy, the one economically useful thing we will be able to do is legal property ownership.
- vrganj 2mo ago> The one economically useful thing we will be able to do is legal property ownership. This is correct. But we don't need to ban AI to avoid the permanent underclass nightmare. It's time for the means of production to be owned communally. It's either a cybersocialist utopia or a neofeudalist dystopia. Rosa Luxemburg formulated it pretty well more than a hundred years ago: Socialism or Barbarism!.
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo agoWhat kind of political leverage do the useless have? This isn't a realistically sustainable outcome. Today, people have leverage because removing them has real economic consequences. With AI, we need to be on the useful side of the divide to have any leverage. And then we'd better hope AI has respect for property rights.
- jacquesm 2mo agoProperty rights might be the least of your problems.
- EMIRELADERO 2mo agoApathetic mass-murder is unjustifiable, and the ultrarich would need to justify it to their families, who would then need to justify it to other people they know, and so on. And remember that we're talking about the majority of the global population, an event like that couldn't be hand-waved away like one would do for a minority group.
- TheOtherHobbes 2mo agoIf AGI had a drone army, why would it need them? Can't help wondering if they've really thought this through.
- datsci_est_2015 2mo agoI'm reminded of the scene in Independence Day with the people on top of the tower welcoming the alien spaceships. Except instead of celebratory fanatics holding poster boards saying "Welcome", it's all the singularity AI thoughtleaders holding hands in a circle chanting about Roko's basilisk like some new-age spirituality retreat.
- eloisius 2mo agoI have seen that current AI models are capable of doing a sloppy job at many tasks when directed to do so, but I have never seen an example of a machine having its own volition.
- alexashka 2mo ago> why would they need consumers anymore? That was the exact line of thought, coupled with resources are limited (marketed as climate change), that led to the 1 child policy in China and many other decisions that shall not be spoken of.
- thelastgallon 2mo ago> Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions. The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth. (read on HN, not my words)