It's wild how much weight "they're destroying jobs" has.
I dare say that car manufacturers are aware of their impact on the horse and buggy industry. Calculator manufacturers wrecked the livelihood of mathematicians and accountants.
Technology is in the business of putting people out of work, by inventing better ways of doing things. Or rather, any time you invent a better way of doing things, that's fundamentally going to disrupt all the businesses built around older technologies.
The issue is the breadth of scale. At the time of the industrial revolution those who we would consider knowledge workers were a much smaller percentage of the population. Today, they are a significant part of the workforce, and it is them who are being displaced first, and in increasing numbers.
The second issue is one of migration between skill sets. By the numbers, today is likely harder as non Ai-affected skilled professions take longer to train into in a general sense.
The third is the synthesis of AI and robotics. Humanoid help is good. As the Venn diagram overlap of capabilities between humans and humanoid robots increases, many professions defined by complex vision and environmental manipulation that are currently safe will not be.
There are, of course, upsides. But the world is right to wonder what the future looks like, and where people fit within that future in terms of earning an income if whatever path they choose seems to be able to be replaced by a machine within their lifetime. How do they achieve personal stability and safety if, even when thinking about their multitude of career options, the machines are so good that they can do almost anything.
So, how will you ensure that you have some influence over the world or power, if all human labour ends?
That scenario is precarious. Dangerous as fuck. I have a short story, basically a horror Isekai, portal goes straight into a place like Sarek or similar pretty northern fell landscape, only full of bears and savages. I think my protagonists are safer in that, than the average human in your scenario.
Wish granted! You no longer have any influence or power! Zaibatsu Heavy Industries has now built a gigafactory that's taking over half of your backyard, is piping their fumes directly into your house. Your mayor's office is not responding to your calls, and their private security forces are preventing you from even going outside because it is now a high risk area.
FALGSC doesn't happen without a fight for power. FALGSC as presented in Star Trek or literally any fiction _still_ has power struggles and people getting fucked. The only way you enforce a lack of influence and power is with a higher force ensuring you do, which is then the sole holder of influence and power.
Also, you're describing a fantasy. Something that isn't happening in your lifetime. Maybe now would be time to wake up before Zaibatsu builds a gigafactory in your backyard.
I don’t assume a fight for power to be necessary, at least one on a level that would stall or end human progress. And you’re the one applying a fictional world’s history to ours, I’m merely using it as a cultural metaphor (substituting Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism for Star Trek was supposed to show I was using it as a reference point, not a template to follow). And I never said in my lifetime?
Also, I dropped the “gay” to be inclusive, and not just to heteros, bi, ace, pan, or hell, people who just don’t identify as anything.
Once the rich no longer need the serfs, they won’t suddenly decide to let you have things. They know they are superior to you, both genetically and socially because they inherited wealth and you didn’t. Their trust fund paid for private schools and you don’t even have a trust fund. They’re just better. It’s an objective fact. The world specifically chose to make them better than you, because it’s true.
The only fair system is for them to have an army of robots and then quietly clean up the population, so that you aren’t a risk to them. It’s just science.
When you’re dealing with people who think like this, who will soon have an army of terminators, what hope do we have?
I continue to be shocked at how people outright disregard these kinds of possibilities as pure science fiction. This is literally the objective of the ultrawealthy, it is the natural extrapolation of the early events of the industrial revolution projected onto a near-future world, and given current trends, the only hope of it not happening is that people everywhere realize what is happening and use our remaining capacity to steal power back. Feudalism is the natural state of mankind, and has been for thousands of years.
I am very hopeful that such scenarios would not come to pass, but dismissing them outright puts us on the path toward them.
Care to enlighten us on what is a good model of the world? Because an "elite vs. masses framework" of human civilization was what won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics.
I think you'll find if you actually read the Nobel award, it's about institutions and prosperity. "Elite vs. masses" is one component of some of the models, not a complete theory of civilization.
Forget reading the award, read the book. Yes, it is about institutions and prosperity. I'm not sure how this negates what I said? The lynchpin of their arguments is their construction of "inclusive vs. extractive institutions". We are talking about an extractive institution here. By design, the scenario described above points away from all of the drivers of democracy they propose. That's all you have to do to piece together that scenario as feasible within their model of civilization.
Not really. All that happened is that security got unbundled from the Landlord to the State in exchange for some protections against the (notorious) caprice and malice of some Landlords.
But the fundamental economic arrangement largely remains intact. The landed class extracts infinity wealth from production upon "their" land in perpetuity by virtue of a piece of paper that says they can physical force upon anyone who dares to be productive on it without paying the required tribute.
Alright, maybe I shouldn't have used the term "feudalism", although this is one that most people understand. The correct term is an "extractive institution".
> This is literally the objective of the ultrawealthy
Assertion without proof; seems extremely likely to be baseless stereotyping since you insist this applies to the entire category rather than some specific named individual;
> it is the natural extrapolation of the early events of the industrial revolution projected onto a near-future world
Ford explicitly built his cars cheap so that the average person can afford them, and you're using this as evidence of supervillain-tier "wipe out humanity"?
> Feudalism is the natural state of mankind, and has been for thousands of years.
Feudalism, notably arising in the 5th century, has not even existed for thousands of years. Feudalism also notably did not involve the complete extermination of the peasant class. And of course, one could go so far as to notice that feudalism has largely been replaced by other systems of governance...
Obviously I cannot claim that every ultrawealthy individual wants to eradicate the working class (some certainly do though, by their own admission). Instead, all ultrawealthy individuals do want to accumulate more resources (this is essentially by definition). In the event that productivity does increase without human labor, there is absolutely no incentive for democratization; indeed, that would be counterproductive. The ultrawealthy, as a collective, in seeking limitless personal gain, must proceed toward this objective.
Ford built his cars after the Gilded Age, and after the government imposed a stunning set of policies that began a steady reduction in wealth inequality. Ford was a player in a market where the goals were set in a way that promoted inclusive institutions and democratization.
I was referring to the early events of the industrial revolution in Europe (predominantly England), over 200 years prior. Living standards for the majority of the labor class fell dramatically, because labor itself became less valuable. The scenario above is the extrapolation of this, and therefore much worse.
The technical term for feudalism refers to the system of government in the medieval period. I was referring to that term in an informal sense, since I am sure many know what I mean by that. As I answered to another user, I should have used the phrase "extractive institution" instead, as that is the correct term. "Serfdom" would also have been better.
But it's important to understand why that system of government was replaced. Over the last several hundred years, the majority of humans slowly clawed back power from the elites over a series of economic downturns involving war, revolutions, and then an unstable relationship with the labor class. As labor became valuable again, power shifted back to the people. Reversing that direction would undo all of that hard work. So far, that is what technology has brought.
There's still a huge gap between "some people want to accumulate power" and "wiping out most of humanity". The former I accept, it's the latter I'm comfortable dismissing.
Especially when you insist that since someone has collected wealth, they must QED want limitless gain, and "must" proceed towards that objective, without any reference to other values or principles.
I'm sure you've earned a dollar or two in your life, so I suppose the simple question is: do you desire the eradication of humanity? If you somehow inherited Elon Musk's wealth tomorrow, would that make you comfortable eradicating the rest of us?
I don't think most of them would even view it as "wiping out most of humanity". Like much of the past, it is simply a complete ignorance of the circumstances of the lower classes. They have everything, and they assume that everyone else that is worthy has what they need too, just like they do. They are oblivious to the suffering that their selfishness has wrought. They might even believe that it is an inevitable tragedy. So don't get me wrong, I don't believe these ultrawealthy are necessarily "eradicate humanity" evil. It is just that their desired world will come at the cost of everyone else.
As for what I would do if I inherited Elon Musk's wealth tomorrow: I would do exactly what any ultrawealthy person would do, and use the interest to live and accumulate more interest. I would very much like to engage in philanthropy and speak my views to those who would listen (but having money does not make me a better communicator). I could donate to political parties I align with. But I do not have the same drive for accumulating more assets (indeed, I would actively avoid this), so I would become progressively less wealthy than my ultrawealthy "peers" until I am only wealthy and not ultrawealthy. I would still live extremely comfortably until I die. But unless I can convince the rest of the public to fight back against those few that probably do wish to eradicate/control much of humanity through technology and asset accumulation, nothing will change.
Henry Ford was also a notorious nazi sympathizer, maybe you can take those kind of statements with a grain of salt.
Serfdom was abolished in the russian empire in 1861, so feudalism is a still relatively recent phenomenon in human history; and giving more recent examples slavery was abolished in Mauritania only recently.
I read it more as a sarcastic reflection on the state of the world by the author rather than that the author believes what he write himself or agrees with it. It is a debating technique to push a contrary argument to the extreme to see where the balance lies.
No, it's the only logical conclusion when the only thing you do is "end human labor" without going through the necessary steps of "dismantle capitalism", "guillotine every billionaire", "rework every method of redistribution we have", "completely rethink our methods of how power is distributed" and "provide meaningful occupations to every person on the planet".
Human labor disappears tomorrow, Peter Thiel's first dream is to see if you can still be useful when made into a paste.
Have you listened to how people like Altman and Thiel talk? They do not seem to care about regular people except as objects to be subjugated. This kind of talk is also how we get a president that claims repeatedly to want an end to war and then starts one. When people tell you who they are and what they’re about, listen.
Plato made a similar claim in The Republic. 2400 years later, and we still don't have a technocracy in the Western hemisphere where engineers lead countries. Either engineers are systematically oppressed, or there are just other qualities that make a leader than being good at complex problem solving.
This could go the star trek or dystopian route, and which way depends on who controls the models.
There is going to be a very shitty in between time where we still need blue collar, but no white collar labor. The amount of conflicts out of that will be insane. And who controls the news?
We will never end in the star trek branch until energy and resources in general are abundantly cheap and uncontested. Even in Star Trek, the canon is still that next to whole modern part of society, even on earth, there still exists classes. It’s just that the TV series depict the upper class: everyone working for the federation and star fleet.
I’m pretty sure they are using Star Trek as “generic human spacefaring utopian future”. As i said above, you could insert “luxury gay space communism” in there and still have the same meaning.
And if I labeled it “luxury gay space communism” instead? Or Star Trek? I’d note in the latter, it sure seemed like a large portion of media was holonovels, and, as far as I can recall, the vast majority of the time they are shown to be programmed by lay people using voice prompts. And why the non-stop doom? I just assume/hope for the happy (or hell, I’ll settle for bittersweet) ending, not much I can do as a single person to bend history to my whims anyway. Maybe Trump nukes Taiwan, maybe aliens abduct all of our bears, maybe a gamma ray burst fries us all, but so far the human race seems to be on a continued upward trajectory, why worry too much about every imaginable dystopia?
You argue that it's better to be optimistic as you're a single person without power whatsoever, but your simplistic optimism is even worse. You're opinion is not new: Sartre would say you utilize your proposed insignificance to escape from the anxiety of freedom and responsability.
I dream of the end of paid or forced human labor. People should do whatever they want. I bet no one wants to commute to the crowded office for another teams call.
Indeed. People can paint, write, have hobbies, or whatever else for fun, but why be forced to for any reason? Or expect that there should always be a market for your work, under pain of law?
The value of human labor is what gives ordinary people power. This also applies to unions and countries, which derive their power from the people they represent.
Once sufficiently smart AI and autonomous weapons systems take that power away, we become little more than pets, living at the whim of those who control the AIs. Which could be a small elite of humans, or the AI itself.
Are you claiming people have not been able to campaign for political positions and vote for their candidates for decades? Because those are democratic elections.
The biggest key imo is captured media (and more recently, social media), which has indeed been happening for decades. This leads to uninformed voters and manufactured arguments, groupthink, and tribal narrowmindedness, allowing the two parties of capital interests to remain dominant. Voters cave too easily to the "lesser of two evils" thinking, hence the race to the bottom where only capital interests win. The primary process is a complete joke where the dominant parties have full control over it and blatantly manipulate it (or skip it entirely like we saw recently), and running under a third party is suicide.
However, don't be fooled into thinking we just need >2 viable parties, as the same fundamental problems can easily scale if the other sources of corruption (media) remain. We see this in the UK etc.
Election fraud itself is probably not a very big factor in most cases.
>Voters cave too easily to the "lesser of two evils" thinking
This is just a mathematical fact of first past the post elections.
I also don’t buy the captured media claim. Broadband cellular internet has allowed everyone instant access to basically all available information. If people choose to consume nonsense, that is an inherent problem with the people. Good information is literally a click away,
Yes, and while I do believe foreign and domestic bad actors are ever present online, a whole lot of misinformation is enabled by people who blindly accept anything posted on the internet as fact (my mother has ranted to me about a distant relation who continually posts the most outlandish things on Facebook; personally I don’t use any of Meta’s social networks to avoid that sort of thing, and, bar Marketplace, the last time I looked at Facebook proper was to do a data export during COVID lol). Though don’t get me wrong, social media companies have done terrible things, but supposedly “open” platforms have also tended towards misinformation and extremism (yes that one, and that one too, and the many others like it, none are blameless).
The power of a government depends on the country's economic and military strength. Currently that strength depends on having a population that's sufficiently large and skilled. If individuals become powerless, their governments power will wane as well. The power from AI will likely be more concentrated, either in a few super powers, or outside the control of governments. And the government of those super powers will likely care even less about their people.
handoflixue · · focus · HN ↗
I dare say that car manufacturers are aware of their impact on the horse and buggy industry. Calculator manufacturers wrecked the livelihood of mathematicians and accountants.
Technology is in the business of putting people out of work, by inventing better ways of doing things. Or rather, any time you invent a better way of doing things, that's fundamentally going to disrupt all the businesses built around older technologies.
anakaine · · focus · HN ↗
The second issue is one of migration between skill sets. By the numbers, today is likely harder as non Ai-affected skilled professions take longer to train into in a general sense.
The third is the synthesis of AI and robotics. Humanoid help is good. As the Venn diagram overlap of capabilities between humans and humanoid robots increases, many professions defined by complex vision and environmental manipulation that are currently safe will not be.
There are, of course, upsides. But the world is right to wonder what the future looks like, and where people fit within that future in terms of earning an income if whatever path they choose seems to be able to be replaced by a machine within their lifetime. How do they achieve personal stability and safety if, even when thinking about their multitude of career options, the machines are so good that they can do almost anything.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
pluc · · focus · HN ↗
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exe34 · · focus · HN ↗
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impossiblefork · · focus · HN ↗
That scenario is precarious. Dangerous as fuck. I have a short story, basically a horror Isekai, portal goes straight into a place like Sarek or similar pretty northern fell landscape, only full of bears and savages. I think my protagonists are safer in that, than the average human in your scenario.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
I don't want influence or power. Don't know what your short story has to do with anything, frankly a bizarre comparison to make.
impossiblefork · · focus · HN ↗
well_ackshually · · focus · HN ↗
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
well_ackshually · · focus · HN ↗
Also, you're describing a fantasy. Something that isn't happening in your lifetime. Maybe now would be time to wake up before Zaibatsu builds a gigafactory in your backyard.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
Also, I dropped the “gay” to be inclusive, and not just to heteros, bi, ace, pan, or hell, people who just don’t identify as anything.
maomao5 · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
MisterMunchkin · · focus · HN ↗
Once the rich no longer need the serfs, they won’t suddenly decide to let you have things. They know they are superior to you, both genetically and socially because they inherited wealth and you didn’t. Their trust fund paid for private schools and you don’t even have a trust fund. They’re just better. It’s an objective fact. The world specifically chose to make them better than you, because it’s true.
The only fair system is for them to have an army of robots and then quietly clean up the population, so that you aren’t a risk to them. It’s just science.
When you’re dealing with people who think like this, who will soon have an army of terminators, what hope do we have?
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
I am very hopeful that such scenarios would not come to pass, but dismissing them outright puts us on the path toward them.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
estearum · · focus · HN ↗
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exe34 · · focus · HN ↗
hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
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plastic-enjoyer · · focus · HN ↗
No, it's not. What we call feudalism arose after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
estearum · · focus · HN ↗
But the fundamental economic arrangement largely remains intact. The landed class extracts infinity wealth from production upon "their" land in perpetuity by virtue of a piece of paper that says they can physical force upon anyone who dares to be productive on it without paying the required tribute.
hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
handoflixue · · focus · HN ↗
Assertion without proof; seems extremely likely to be baseless stereotyping since you insist this applies to the entire category rather than some specific named individual;
> it is the natural extrapolation of the early events of the industrial revolution projected onto a near-future world
Ford explicitly built his cars cheap so that the average person can afford them, and you're using this as evidence of supervillain-tier "wipe out humanity"?
> Feudalism is the natural state of mankind, and has been for thousands of years.
Feudalism, notably arising in the 5th century, has not even existed for thousands of years. Feudalism also notably did not involve the complete extermination of the peasant class. And of course, one could go so far as to notice that feudalism has largely been replaced by other systems of governance...
hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
Ford built his cars after the Gilded Age, and after the government imposed a stunning set of policies that began a steady reduction in wealth inequality. Ford was a player in a market where the goals were set in a way that promoted inclusive institutions and democratization.
I was referring to the early events of the industrial revolution in Europe (predominantly England), over 200 years prior. Living standards for the majority of the labor class fell dramatically, because labor itself became less valuable. The scenario above is the extrapolation of this, and therefore much worse.
The technical term for feudalism refers to the system of government in the medieval period. I was referring to that term in an informal sense, since I am sure many know what I mean by that. As I answered to another user, I should have used the phrase "extractive institution" instead, as that is the correct term. "Serfdom" would also have been better.
But it's important to understand why that system of government was replaced. Over the last several hundred years, the majority of humans slowly clawed back power from the elites over a series of economic downturns involving war, revolutions, and then an unstable relationship with the labor class. As labor became valuable again, power shifted back to the people. Reversing that direction would undo all of that hard work. So far, that is what technology has brought.
handoflixue · · focus · HN ↗
Especially when you insist that since someone has collected wealth, they must QED want limitless gain, and "must" proceed towards that objective, without any reference to other values or principles.
I'm sure you've earned a dollar or two in your life, so I suppose the simple question is: do you desire the eradication of humanity? If you somehow inherited Elon Musk's wealth tomorrow, would that make you comfortable eradicating the rest of us?
hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
As for what I would do if I inherited Elon Musk's wealth tomorrow: I would do exactly what any ultrawealthy person would do, and use the interest to live and accumulate more interest. I would very much like to engage in philanthropy and speak my views to those who would listen (but having money does not make me a better communicator). I could donate to political parties I align with. But I do not have the same drive for accumulating more assets (indeed, I would actively avoid this), so I would become progressively less wealthy than my ultrawealthy "peers" until I am only wealthy and not ultrawealthy. I would still live extremely comfortably until I die. But unless I can convince the rest of the public to fight back against those few that probably do wish to eradicate/control much of humanity through technology and asset accumulation, nothing will change.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
bdauvergne · · focus · HN ↗
Serfdom was abolished in the russian empire in 1861, so feudalism is a still relatively recent phenomenon in human history; and giving more recent examples slavery was abolished in Mauritania only recently.
spockz · · focus · HN ↗
robotpepi · · focus · HN ↗
freecodeio · · focus · HN ↗
well_ackshually · · focus · HN ↗
Human labor disappears tomorrow, Peter Thiel's first dream is to see if you can still be useful when made into a paste.
throwaway173738 · · focus · HN ↗
nunez · · focus · HN ↗
MrGilbert · · focus · HN ↗
I'm amazed by the ignorance some people carry around.
plastic-enjoyer · · focus · HN ↗
folkrav · · focus · HN ↗
plastic-enjoyer · · focus · HN ↗
skeptic_ai · · focus · HN ↗
But now that they actually still need us, they can’t even provide healthcare.
mzhaase · · focus · HN ↗
There is going to be a very shitty in between time where we still need blue collar, but no white collar labor. The amount of conflicts out of that will be insane. And who controls the news?
spockz · · focus · HN ↗
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
sunaurus · · focus · HN ↗
Or if it's even possible to control the models.
MrGilbert · · focus · HN ↗
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ponector · · focus · HN ↗
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CodesInChaos · · focus · HN ↗
Once sufficiently smart AI and autonomous weapons systems take that power away, we become little more than pets, living at the whim of those who control the AIs. Which could be a small elite of humans, or the AI itself.
spongebobstoes · · focus · HN ↗
swed420 · · focus · HN ↗
Only when they aren't totally co-opted by capital interests and everything they own, including media/social media.
We haven't had democratic elections for decades. Just illusion of choice in a race to the bottom.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
lotsofpulp · · focus · HN ↗
swed420 · · focus · HN ↗
The biggest key imo is captured media (and more recently, social media), which has indeed been happening for decades. This leads to uninformed voters and manufactured arguments, groupthink, and tribal narrowmindedness, allowing the two parties of capital interests to remain dominant. Voters cave too easily to the "lesser of two evils" thinking, hence the race to the bottom where only capital interests win. The primary process is a complete joke where the dominant parties have full control over it and blatantly manipulate it (or skip it entirely like we saw recently), and running under a third party is suicide.
However, don't be fooled into thinking we just need >2 viable parties, as the same fundamental problems can easily scale if the other sources of corruption (media) remain. We see this in the UK etc.
Election fraud itself is probably not a very big factor in most cases.
lotsofpulp · · focus · HN ↗
This is just a mathematical fact of first past the post elections.
I also don’t buy the captured media claim. Broadband cellular internet has allowed everyone instant access to basically all available information. If people choose to consume nonsense, that is an inherent problem with the people. Good information is literally a click away,
swed420 · · focus · HN ↗
No it isn't.
ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
CodesInChaos · · focus · HN ↗