Technological progress reduces the amount of work required to perform certain tasks. In any just system, this would improve the lives of the general population, either by reducing the amount of work required to make a living, or by increasing the amount and range of products and services.
If technological progress does not do that, and instead makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, the problem isn’t technological progress, but the system in which it is applied.
So what I’m saying is this: AI isn’t the problem. AI replacing employees isn’t the problem. The problem is that with a class divide into investors and workers, the ones profiting the most from technological progress are the investors.
Are you saying societal asymmetry is a social problem, not a technical one?
And this tracks with AI itself too, and the tendency to close source the models.
This, right here, is the actual issue with current AIs. Corporate power over things we increasingly need in our everyday life, censorship rules instated by unelected people up above, ability to shut model down for those who don’t pay, etc.
The technology itself is great! Now make it work in the public interest and don’t even try to say “AI is dangerous, so we would surely take proper care of it by closing it off from everyone and doing our shenanigans”. Nope.
Technological progress shouldn’t reduce the amount of work required to do tasks. It should reduce the amount of people that have to do work they don’t enjoy, or increase the quality of living overall by reducing the cost of certain tasks/items.
For example, it shouldn’t try to make redundant the work of artists that enjoy making art, or hobbyists that enjoy writing code. If there is too much demand for these services, then technology can be used to compensate for the part that these work enjoying people can’t provide, but technology shouldn’t make their work redundant.
It isn’t replacing artists. It’s a tool that makes it easier for everyone.
Meaning the competition increases and prices drop.
Sure AI doesn’t replace artist. But corps replace artists with AI.
I mean, for $20 a month I now am part of the “investor” class. I get to have my little AI minion do work for me, and I totally reap the rewards.
$20/month is a very low barrier to entry into the bourgeoisie, so I’m not too worried about capitalism being incapable of spreading the good around to everybody.
The thing I am worried about is the ultra heavy regulation — the same sort of thing that makes it illegal to make quesadillas on a hot plate and sell them on the sidewalk, which even a homeless person could do if it weren’t illegal.
There is far too much regulation (always in the name of safety of course, of course) restricting people from being entrepreneurs. That regulation forces everyone to have some minimum amount of capital before they can start their own business, and that amount of capital is enormous.
I worry that our market is not free enough to enable everyone to benefit from AI. The ladder of success has had the bottom rungs removed, forcing us to suck of either a government or corporate tit like babies — protected, but powerless, and without dignity.
I think you’ve supped far too much on street quesadilla.
look up
The Big fear that a lot of people have with AI isn’t the technology itself moreseo the fact that its advancements are likely to lead to a even more disproportionate distribution of wealth
Displacing millions of workers
I have seen what AI outputs at an industrial scale, and I invite you to replace me with it while I sit back and laugh.
It’s not about entirely replacing people. It’s about reducing the number of people you hire in a specific role because each of those people can do more using AI. Which would still displace millions of people as companies get rid of the lowest performing of their workers to make their bottom line better.
