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Why should I be amazed at something that promises to destroy my life? I genuinely don't understand why people who have to work for their living are amazed at t
by muldvarp 2mo ago
Why should I be amazed at something that promises to destroy my life?
I genuinely don't understand why people who have to work for their living are amazed at this. It will have a vast negative impact on your life unless you already live off of your wealth.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoEven for people living of wealth, it is not clear what the outcomes are. If renters of your apartments can not afford to rent them, housing crashes because your city was a looser (Detroit style withdrawals). Even for stocks we don't know who the winners are. The market as a whole usually does not respond that well on serious turmoil. So yeah. We are likely seeing some very rough years.
- Slartie 2mo agoYep, most wealth is ultimately dependent on some kind of ability to scrape off tiny bits of practical accomplishments of value achieved by large numbers of people. In some cases, such as your housing example, this is a very direct dependency. In other cases the dependency is indirect and less visible. The smarter ones among the rich have realized this and are open for something like a universal basic income precisely for that reason: to protect their wealth and the position in the food chain this wealth affords them.
- irishcoffee 2mo agoUBI will never happen. I don’t understand why it’s even brought up anymore. Social security isn’t even solvent, health care is a disaster, and people still trumpet UBI like all of the enormous glaring funding holes don’t exist. It’s embarrassing at this point. Give it up.
- dekken_ 2mo agowe just need to break the second law of thermodynamics, no big deal
- arcticfox 2mo agoAnd what's your solution to mass unemployment due to AI? If you play this out, UBI or some near variant is inevitable.
- GPerson 2mo agoWhy are you correct even though the early Marxists (who posited that capitalism would inevitably lead to socialism) were wrong? We have had mass production for a hundred years without any hint of socialism. And I would like you to be right, by the way. But why should I believe you?
- qzw 2mo agoDoesn’t most of the developed world already have various forms of socialism? The U.S. is an outlier here, which is due a number of factors unique to this country.
- GPerson 2mo agoFair, but as an American I’m still interested in this more limited question. Why were the early American Marxists wrong and why are the new Americans saying similar things right this time?
- nuancebydefault 2mo agoThere will be a form of UBI, because of the need for it, eventually. It will probably never be a 'fair' system (there probly will still be 1000xUBI people) but it will be necessary to prevent a lot of problems. Think of it this way. The percentage of the population that will not have enough skills, 'smartness' and or knowledge to serve the community in a profitable way, increases over time. Today the group includes mostly the very young, the elderly (which in a way already have a 'kind of UBI', but not the complete lifespan) and people with a severe illness. Tomorrow new groups of people will be included, like people who stopped going to school at 17,18yo or so, and so on. Suppose society provides those people with only the very minimal money to survive and no entertainment, traveling, proper housing, life choices etc. In that case not only those people, but the society as a whole will suffer because of unrest, riots etc. At a certain point in time, UBI can easily paid for by the wealth that automation will bring. Today probably as well, but the pressure of unevenly spread wealth is still able to keep it from happening, rich people still need enough poor people to work for them directly (house/boat personnel) or indirectly (mine coffee, chocolate, soy, battery minerals, ...)
- ulfw 2mo agoUBI money needs to come from somewhere. Hence it will and can never happen. Fake money helps nobody. There is no difference between getting 0, 1000 or 10000 fake dollars a month if they value of the dollar will go to zero
- UltraSane 2mo agoIt isn't fake it is the wealth created by AI. Think of it like a national dividend.
- irishcoffee 2mo agoThis frustrates me so much. Where is the money coming from? The middle class _is_ the economy, if they all decide to say “fuck it, UBI is enough” or can’t get a job, who the hell is funding UBI? This is an enormous hole in the UBI discussion that’s just completely ignored. Again, we can’t even keep social security solvent, which is basically UBI for old people. It won’t work, the math doesn’t math, and everyone who wants UBI to be a thing just completely ignores this fact. So frustrating.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoYou don't appear to understand what money is. Money is a claim on productivity. In a world where both creation and consumption is by humans, the productivity needs to align with consumption. Arguably, that is a century since that was the case, so we tax extra productive human beings in order to make sure that everybody can consume. This trend need to be accelerated as productivity accelerates. Ubi, negative tax, etc. There are many good ideas on how to fix it. However,if this discussion annoys you, I would strongly recommend you to learn more about the subject as it is indicative that you have some holes in your knowledge.
- irishcoffee 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago
- UltraSane 2mo agoIf AI really generates so much wealth UBI becomes much easier to justify and downright irrational to not implement.
- ethbr1 2mo agoAnyone who thinks wealthy people willing part with any amount of wealth en masse hasn't studied history. One of the reason democracy has tended to be a stable form of government is that it naturally finds a balance between the haves and the have nots -- the boundary where the haves are comfortable parting with that much to live in a stable society where they keep the remainder, and the have nots are afforded some amount of social services for their most accute needs. That's all predicated on a "or riots / internal military action" alternative though. We've lived through a pretty stable post-WWII economic bargain period, and historically there's not a ton of certainty that continues through distributive renegotiations, which tend to be bloody.
- UltraSane 2mo agoIf AI makes GDP per hour of labor 2 times higher than that makes it very easy to provide UBI.
- ethbr1 2mo agoUBI is an allocation question, not a total question. If GDP 2x's and labor becomes less scarce (and therefore less powerful), it's as possible that all those gains go to capital as anything else.
- UltraSane 2mo agoIt is both, because people fight over allocation a LOT less if there is more to go around.
- ethbr1 2mo agoAnd yet current state ~5-13% of Americans are food insecure, despite GDP being large enough to support sufficient food for all. In aggregate, capital is not particularly humane, left to its own devices.
- sam345 2mo agoLoser. Loose means opposite of tight.
- ben_w 2mo agoEven as a native English speaker, this is one of my more common mistakes, along with weather/whether[/wether]. How did we end up with the word with the long-o having one o, and the word with the short-o having two?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago> How did we end up with the word with the long-o having one o, and the word with the short-o having two? Neither is pronounced with a long "O" sound or a short "O" sound, and they both have the same vowel sound. (A long "O" would be the vowel sound in "lone", for example. Short "O" is like "log".) The difference is that you use your vocal chords to pronounce the "S" in "lose", making it an English "Z" sound.
- bananaflag 2mo agoI pronounce lose and loose exactly the same, and have no problem differentiating them in writing.
- tonic_note 2mo agoI think English might be second only to Chinese in terms of how phonetically opaque it is. Unlike say Korean, where if you can speak it you can spell it and vice-versa, English is requires you to just know. English is kinda neat in that it's a fusion of all the different lingua franca's of the time throughout history.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoguaranteed: My comments are not written by an LLM ;)
- bbor 2mo agoSadly, we have gone above and beyond the level of innovation where stock market disruption is a primary concern. Luckily, we're all in this together. As long as enough people realize the weight of what's happening soon enough, I'm confident the indominable human spirit and the relative momentum of post-enlightenment social & institutional progress will carry us the rest of the way on a wave of clearly-justified solidarity. To think otherwise --to truly face the spectre before us without hope-- is pathology, I think. Not necessarily incorrect of course, but definitely an unhealthy source of cognitive distress.
- idiotsecant 2mo agoWhen the very first prokaryotic life forms saw the very first cells with mitochondria were they cognitively distressed? We face a similar phase change. In our lifetimes, probably.
- ulfw 2mo agoIt's even the 'smaller' stuff that will be horrible. Even if you're lucky to be wealthy you'd be living in a city with fewer restaurants, bakeries, shops, anything. Because once a lot of people don't have income they won't be able to go out and buy things and shops will go out of business. It will also lead to a lot lot LOT LOT LOT more crime. I don't see the semi-wealthy to have an enjoyable life.
- vitalyan8184 2mo ago[flagged]
- muldvarp 2mo agoI don't consider myself as part of a "laptop class", I don't live in the US and I'm anti-immigration.
- Certhas 2mo agoAs far as I am aware this is a racist/xenophobic narrative with little to no evidence. Automatisation is responsible for job losses, not immigration. If you have studies/evidence saying otherwise please share. I agree that too many people have shrugged at the human impact of "innovation" destroying communities as long as it didn't impact them. I believe the immigration/foreigners narrative is the successful attempt by capital owners who benefit from the real root causes.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoIt is neither racist of xenophobic, and you using that as a argument is an extreme strawman. There is certainly a class that has been disrupted over the last 20-30 years to the point where their lives gone worse. It would likely have been protected with trade barriers and immigration barriers. Om the other hand, I don't believe protectionism has ever been the solution. Why should the domestic labor be protected over international labour? Increasing inequality is, however, one of the greatest threats so society.
- Certhas 2mo agoTrade barriers are a different thing than immigration though. I believe there is much more evidence that trade displaced traditional jobs than that immigration led to an oversupply of labour.
- hahajk 2mo agoA quick search for "labor supply" turned up this microeconomics lesson: https://youtu.be/002_HEC2l-4?is=Tu6dZfNOyK7DFpWB https://youtu.be/002_HEC2l-4?is=Tu6dZfNOyK7DFpWB Wages, like all prices, are determined by supply and demand.
- Certhas 2mo agoI can be amazed and terrified at the same time.
- lucas_the_human 2mo agoThis is just so negative. How will it destroy your life? There are so many great and useful things it can and will do to improve humanity.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoIt will only do so if the benefits of the technology is made available to all and we will see alternatives to make an income. Based on the past 40 years track record it seems unlikely that we will see any form of redistribution before it is existential. That is definitely grounds for being pessimistic.
- flossly 2mo agoIt's the economic model we live under, not technology by itself, that's the problem IMHO. Every tech gets exploited to make some richer folks more rich. Nothing new. Since the rich-ladder *is* the power-ladder under cap'ism. In the west "we" forgot how unions and strong labor parties gave us weekends, sick leave, holidays, etc. Now we pay the price.
- tossandthrow 2mo agoWe are likely seeing the end of labor as a power class. I think of it in roughly 3 eras: pre industrialization, individual labor contribution had quite a lot of power. Industrialization, labor sees commoditization and unions make sure that power is kept across individual workers. Post industrialization (ground zero was like GFC, being accelerated by AI). We need to figure out new structures than labor to distribute resources and power - and that is going to hurt.
- rjp0008 2mo agoGFC? I'd say the dot com bust. It was the first time markets rewarded pushing buttons at that scale.
- 2mo ago
- voidmain 2mo agoI already live off my wealth, and I expect AI development to destroy my life. Once humans can be robustly replaced by machines, the military-industrial "meta build" will be a state with no humans, no cities, and 100% of all production dedicated to war. Whichever states descend to this new equilibrium fastest will crush the others and then fight over the corpse of the world forever. (Unless, of course, something like the Yudkowsky scenario happens along the way, which is totally possible) I can't understand why anyone expects things like civil rights, property, the rule of law, nuclear deterrence, democracy, etc to survive when human beings no longer need each other. Why do investors in AI companies expect a payoff once they are no longer needed? Why (and, more importantly, how) does anyone expect a UBI from a government to which they are nothing but a drain on resources and which is in existential competition with other governments with exponentially growing robot armies? Either the world will come to its senses and shut it all down, or there will be no winners at all.
- ecto 2mo agoSo sad. You're viewing humanity, and reality itself, through a very objective lens. There is magic in every day: have some fun! Otherwise, quit complaining.
- ashtonshears 2mo ago‘Dont think, play pretend and be jolly’
- arthurofbabylon 2mo ago[dead]
- noslenwerdna 2mo agoAutomation is only good if you're putting blue collar people out of work! White-collar is out of bounds! People should do the work where they add unique value
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- bcrosby95 2mo agoYes, white collar people are not allowed to express concerns about losing their career. I'm sure no blue collar person ever did.
- noslenwerdna 2mo agoThe difference is that white collar as a class gleefully aided outsourcing/automating blue collar jobs with the exact same economic argument
- speleding 2mo agoThere is no need to be so fatalistic. Sure, AI will upset the apple cart, especially in our little corner, but the economy is built on pricing scarce resources and even if many things become abundant, most other things will remain scarce. There are only so many Manhattan penthouses or Rembrandts (dixit the Economist), so things of value remain, and it will be quite some time before a humanoid can fix the plumbing, so valuable labour will remain as well. I, for one, am excited to see what the future holds. (side note: I live in a European country with a strong social safety net, I imagine that helps being unafraid)
- nvitas 2mo agoit got here by training on everything we wrote down thus far. if we now start giving it all the doomsday scenarios on how it will ruin us, won't it start training on that and create said doomsday outcomes? what if instead we, collectively as a humanity, just wrote about all the positive things we could do with it and skew it in a direction that benefits the more positive side of that equation?...possible?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago> Why should I be amazed at something that promises to destroy my life? Because it could motivate you to work with others to stop your livelihood from being ruined, especially watching in real time as the evidence they present for their promise becomes ever more promising. Amazement is not exclusive with concern. (Actually, my first though was of a kaiju movie-style tsunami blocking out the sun as it looms over a city. Indeed, I would likely be both amazed and concerned.)
- lozzo 2mo agoSame feeling entirely.
- mlcrypto 2mo ago"I genuinely don't understand why people who have to work for their living are amazed at this." Also said after seeing the printing press, automobile, calculator, etc for the first time
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- zarzavat 2mo agoIt's true, even if you lose your job as a programmer you can still get a job as a barista.
- rootlocus 2mo agoExcept where will be the programmers paying for overpriced coffee?
- ulfw 2mo agoSilly thought. No one has money for overpriced coffee if well paid jobs are gone
- tarpitt 2mo agoCan't wait for the barista and wicker basket based economy. Although personally I just make coffee at home, so I have no need for a barista with a PhD in neurosurgery to make it for me. Plus it just takes too much time to go to starbucks, especially with all the starbucks job applications I will need to fill out if I want a chance of getting a job.
- muldvarp 2mo agoThe printing press, automobile and calculator didn't threaten the employability of a large part of the population, so no, that sentence was probably not uttered by anyone at that time. The problem with AI isn't that it's threating software development. It's that it's _also_ threating pretty much any other job that I could reasonably be retrained for. Also, I'm pretty conflicted about the overall impact of automobiles.
- 2mo ago
- slibhb 2mo agoIf my earning ability is harmed by AI, so be it. There's more to life than how much I earn, and opposing the spread of technology to maximize my earnings is bad.
- ulfw 2mo agoSo you rather be poor and talk to ChatGPT than rich and live a normal life?
- scotty79 2mo agoWould you rather be poor in XXI century or rich in XIII? Are you rich in "normal" life? Hint: If you sell the time of your life for money you are not rich.
- tarpitt 2mo agoIf your earning ability is eliminated due to AI and you can't survive off of welfare or savings there will not be much more to your life other than starving to death.
- lbrito 2mo agoWelfare? There won't be welfare. Remeber that ubi was a bait and switch. The tech bro oligarchy already pivoted away from it.
- 2mo ago
- peder 2mo agoWhy does it “promise” to destroy your life. Thats absurd hyperbole.
- lbrito 2mo agoI don't understand these comments. Are we living in the same reality? Do you not get the same interviews from the new oligarchy promising the end of white collar jobs?
- rightbyte 2mo agoThe lack of class consiousness and understanding of power structures is beyond silly nowadays. Had this colleague argue "there has to be ABI how else are we going to get money". Like ... no thoughts about not needing the middle class would change power dynamics of voters versus the new prospect elite.
- UltraSane 2mo agoHow will it destroy your life?
- pinkyboy 2mo agoEven if you live off of your wealth - what happens when customers of those wealth-generating businesses don't have jobs?
- lbrito 2mo ago>people who have to work for their living are amazed The answer us right there. Most people who work for a living aren't amazed, or not just amazed. Most normal people are afraid, angry, sad etc.
- fny 2mo agoYou can be stupefied and also pessimistic. More practically, society should be reimagined around AI. You're comment presumes an outcome that will be politically determined: you can still fight for the world you want.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- chaostheory 2mo agoGoing on a slight tangent, given how bifurcated the economy is - we are only a couple of meals away from a Butlerian Jihad. It’s hard to see this in our bubble if you don’t actively try to break out of it once in a while.
- bdelmas 2mo agoIts not fair to say this when we have been chanting how "software is eating the world", or how much we love to "disrupt markets", that we won’t create mass unemployments with our technologies but that "people will transition elsewhere like we always saw", etc etc.. It’s our turn to have our jobs disrupted and now we are surprised? Come on. We don’t have to like but we are the last people who should be surprised. It’s our turn to transition and be prompt writers and do product I guess. Until this is disrupted again in a few years. Hard truth but true nonetheless. How come we should have it both ways? We removed certain jobs, it’s our turn to have many types of jobs disrupted and have to transition.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 2mo ago> I genuinely don't understand why people who have to work for their living are amazed at this. It's tricky. On the one hand, it will - in the near future - indeed screw us all pretty badly unless we completely redefine our economies to no longer conflate person's worth with ability to earn money. On the other hand, LLMs are useful to lesser or greater degree to approximately everyone, in almost everything they do, work or personal, right now. It's harder to be pessimistic about the very thing that gives you new superpowers every week, directly applicable to whatever your individual needs are, and is available to ~everyone for between free and (for typical westerners) peanuts.
- dang 2mo agoCould you please stop posting in the flamewar style and/or taking HN threads on generic-indignant tangents? Your account has been doing it repeatedly, and we're trying for something different here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49045107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49045107.