5 ms·

Atlas Smug | Alex Payne | Jacobin

42 points by AmadKamali 12y ago

3pt14159 12y ago
Imagine it's 1940 or 1950 and someone starts asking "Who is going to own the computers?" The answer is that everyone is going to own different robots. The whole point is that a robot is going to be so much more efficient than a human, that for less than 1/50th the cost of a median house a human could buy a robot that could create enough economic production for his whole life. There will be challenges, since many people live paycheque to paycheque, but ultimately a very simple Basic Income (backed on land taxes, ideally) would catch those that would fall in the cracks. I used to worry about robots a lot more, but I don't really anymore. The rich just want the poor out of the way while they become more rich / powerful. The most effective way of doing that is to just pay the poor people off while they start organizing greater and greater things. The real thing I'm worried about is actually hard AI. I can't predict its motivations. Edit: You guys fundamentally don't get it because you don't understand that I'm arguing about economics. > This isn't a question of who is going to own a dishwashing robot. Its a question of who is going to own the means of production. People are going to, at the very least, own their own means of production. Look at it from an economics standpoint, at the margin, why would I buy a chair rather than get my semi-intelligent android robot to cut down a tree, plank it, and build it. The chair would have to be essentially free. Then who cares who owns the means to production. At the margin I could always revert to having my personal robot build it. Furthermore, I would argue that most of the computers that make most of the value in the world are owned largely by everybody. I have a computer that I use to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on, and it will be the same with robots. People with vision will direct machines of greater sophistication towards and end they desire. Whether you own something or rent it is always going to be a economic decision. I own my Macbook Pro and I installed Ubuntu on it, but even if I was renting it, that doesn't change the fundamental nature of what I'm saying. I used to think that we were marching towards this awful grey future where 99.9% of people were going to be treated like cattle and ultra-corps were going to be running the world with all their machines. Most people talk like this is what's coming, and, barring AI, I no long think this is the case. Edit2: I wrote my first edit when I had negative points, now it seems to have positive points, which is why I opened up the edit with "you guys don't get it".
- ontoillogical 12y ago
  > Who is going to own the computers? Most of the computational power I have access to, I rent from Amazon...
  - vegancap 12y ago
    There are literally hundreds of alternatives sprouting from the ground as raw materials and services become cheaper and cheaper. Amazon certainly hasn't monopolised on the computational power market. Increasingly, much of the computational power is becoming decentralised anyway with the blockchain emerging in new and creative ways
    - ontoillogical 12y ago
      Amazon isn't the only game in town, but I would argue that most computational power, like any means of production, is owned by Capital.
      - vegancap 12y ago
        Yes, it's a paid service, because they used their initiative, knowledge and finance to physically build their data centers. If that's what you are referring to by 'owned by Capital'
        ontoillogical 12y ago
        I think if you put finance at the top of the list, we'd be in agreement.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  >Imagine it's 1940 or 1950 and someone starts asking "Who is going to own the computers?" You can manipulate bits and bytes at home, great, but these robots are industrial producers that make things, are subject to regulations, etc. This isn't a question of who is going to own a dishwashing robot. Its a question of who is going to own the means of production. The funny thing is that your answer is antiquated. What computer do I really own? My android phone that is controlled by google, managed by a telecom carrier, and all of my data at google. Or all the servers I work with that are VM's at some cloud provider? We're not landlords anymore. We're renters.
vegancap 12y ago
The premise of this article is entirely wrong. We haven't had a 'massive deregulation', taxes across the west have rose, as has regulation and centralisation. THAT is why conditions for workers have declined. THAT is why the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  Yeah, there may have been some limited de-regulation here and there, but we are no where near an actual free-market situation. For somebody to come along and decry de-regulation as the problem, in this environment, is absolutely absurd.
  - vegancap 12y ago
    Exactly! I've read a lot of posts recently claiming the 'free-market' is the problem. Well, I can't think of many countries in the world who have a currency not owned by the state, a banking system entirely independent of the state, a country with a real, none-fiat currency, a country with minimum to no forms of tax etc. It just isn't the case, and it's not heading that way by and means either. I'm not sure where people are getting this from
    - bryanlarsen 12y ago
      One can simultaneously have a relatively free market in thumbnails and combs and a relatively closed market in currency and assassinations.
    - mindcrime 12y ago
      Exactly! I've read a lot of posts recently claiming the 'free-market' is the problem. Yeah, it's a symptom of the kind of elitism that modern day "leftish wing" / "liberal" types (as opposed to classical liberals) are infected with, where they believe that if only we'd let them micro-manage every little detail of society, the economy, culture, etc., then we could live in a "perfect" world where everyone is uniformly happ and "none suffer". The thing is, that's never been possible and I don't think it'll ever be possible... and if it were possible, it's not desirable. "Uniformly happy" also means "uniformly sad" and "uniformly oppressed". None for me, thanks.
dang 12y ago
A dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907535.
brucefancher 12y ago
Marxist twaddle.

42 points by AmadKamali 12y ago

Imagine it's 1940 or 1950 and someone starts asking "Who is going to own the computers?" The answer is that everyone is going to own different robots. The whole point is that a robot is going to be so much more efficient than a human, that for less than 1/50th the cost of a median house a human could buy a robot that could create enough economic production for his whole life. There will be challenges, since many people live paycheque to paycheque, but ultimately a very simple Basic Income (backed on land taxes, ideally) would catch those that would fall in the cracks. I used to worry about robots a lot more, but I don't really anymore. The rich just want the poor out of the way while they become more rich / powerful. The most effective way of doing that is to just pay the poor people off while they start organizing greater and greater things. The real thing I'm worried about is actually hard AI. I can't predict its motivations. Edit: You guys fundamentally don't get it because you don't understand that I'm arguing about economics. > This isn't a question of who is going to own a dishwashing robot. Its a question of who is going to own the means of production. People are going to, at the very least, own their own means of production. Look at it from an economics standpoint, at the margin, why would I buy a chair rather than get my semi-intelligent android robot to cut down a tree, plank it, and build it. The chair would have to be essentially free. Then who cares who owns the means to production. At the margin I could always revert to having my personal robot build it. Furthermore, I would argue that most of the computers that make most of the value in the world are owned largely by everybody. I have a computer that I use to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on, and it will be the same with robots. People with vision will direct machines of greater sophistication towards and end they desire. Whether you own something or rent it is always going to be a economic decision. I own my Macbook Pro and I installed Ubuntu on it, but even if I was renting it, that doesn't change the fundamental nature of what I'm saying. I used to think that we were marching towards this awful grey future where 99.9% of people were going to be treated like cattle and ultra-corps were going to be running the world with all their machines. Most people talk like this is what's coming, and, barring AI, I no long think this is the case. Edit2: I wrote my first edit when I had negative points, now it seems to have positive points, which is why I opened up the edit with "you guys don't get it".

ontoillogical 12y ago
> Who is going to own the computers? Most of the computational power I have access to, I rent from Amazon...
- vegancap 12y ago
  There are literally hundreds of alternatives sprouting from the ground as raw materials and services become cheaper and cheaper. Amazon certainly hasn't monopolised on the computational power market. Increasingly, much of the computational power is becoming decentralised anyway with the blockchain emerging in new and creative ways
  - ontoillogical 12y ago
    Amazon isn't the only game in town, but I would argue that most computational power, like any means of production, is owned by Capital.
    - vegancap 12y ago
      Yes, it's a paid service, because they used their initiative, knowledge and finance to physically build their data centers. If that's what you are referring to by 'owned by Capital'
      - ontoillogical 12y ago
        I think if you put finance at the top of the list, we'd be in agreement.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>Imagine it's 1940 or 1950 and someone starts asking "Who is going to own the computers?" You can manipulate bits and bytes at home, great, but these robots are industrial producers that make things, are subject to regulations, etc. This isn't a question of who is going to own a dishwashing robot. Its a question of who is going to own the means of production. The funny thing is that your answer is antiquated. What computer do I really own? My android phone that is controlled by google, managed by a telecom carrier, and all of my data at google. Or all the servers I work with that are VM's at some cloud provider? We're not landlords anymore. We're renters.

vegancap 12y ago

The premise of this article is entirely wrong. We haven't had a 'massive deregulation', taxes across the west have rose, as has regulation and centralisation. THAT is why conditions for workers have declined. THAT is why the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.

mindcrime 12y ago
Yeah, there may have been some limited de-regulation here and there, but we are no where near an actual free-market situation. For somebody to come along and decry de-regulation as the problem, in this environment, is absolutely absurd.
- vegancap 12y ago
  Exactly! I've read a lot of posts recently claiming the 'free-market' is the problem. Well, I can't think of many countries in the world who have a currency not owned by the state, a banking system entirely independent of the state, a country with a real, none-fiat currency, a country with minimum to no forms of tax etc. It just isn't the case, and it's not heading that way by and means either. I'm not sure where people are getting this from
  - bryanlarsen 12y ago
    One can simultaneously have a relatively free market in thumbnails and combs and a relatively closed market in currency and assassinations.
  - mindcrime 12y ago
    Exactly! I've read a lot of posts recently claiming the 'free-market' is the problem. Yeah, it's a symptom of the kind of elitism that modern day "leftish wing" / "liberal" types (as opposed to classical liberals) are infected with, where they believe that if only we'd let them micro-manage every little detail of society, the economy, culture, etc., then we could live in a "perfect" world where everyone is uniformly happ and "none suffer". The thing is, that's never been possible and I don't think it'll ever be possible... and if it were possible, it's not desirable. "Uniformly happy" also means "uniformly sad" and "uniformly oppressed". None for me, thanks.

dang 12y ago

A dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907535.

brucefancher 12y ago

Marxist twaddle.