James Gleick
Once again Ted Chiang has it exactly right. The immediate danger from #AI is not that it will become sentient and do whatever it wants. The danger is that it will do what it’s being designed to do: help rich corporations destroy the working class in pursuit of ever-greater profits and thus concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/will-ai-become-the-new-mckinsey
Brent, in a jar
@DeanBaker13
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the quick reply!
I'm with you on it being pie in the sky at this point. I'd expect fusion power to be commercially viable before we have true AI (which will happen just before Teslas are truly self driving :P )
@JamesGleick
DeanBaker13
@BrentInMasto @JamesGleick sure, capitalists ALWAYS want to pay their workers as little as possible. That is a given. The question is whether AI is some huge qualitative breakthrough, which will hugely increase productivity growth. I have been hearing this claim literally for decades, and we have not seen it yet. Maybe the techno-optimists will be right this time, but they have a hell of a track record of being wrong.
Brent, in a jar
@DeanBaker13
But isn't the whole goal of this hypothetical surge in productivity that the owners will no longer have to pay any workers?
@JamesGleick
DeanBaker13
@JamesGleick Sorry, Ted Chiang has it completely wrong. It would be wonderful if AI led to a huge surge in productivity -- we need not worry about inflation for many decades -- but little reason to believe that will be the case. But,l this is the sort of stuff that excites New Yorker readers even if it has no basis in reality.
DeanBaker13
@BrentInMasto @JamesGleick I'll also add that our period of most rapid productivity growth was 1947-73, which was a period of rapid real wage growth and declining inequality.
clacke
@Threearrows78 @JamesGleick It is not a person. Treating the current machine as a person will be the same mistake or a bigger mistake than treating the corporation as a person.
The problem with both is liability. Put more liability and actual consequences on a natural person behind the legal person and you'll see interesting shifts in behavior.
Threearrows78
@JamesGleick I hope politicians are going to consider some serious legislation on AI. For safety it should be subject to same laws as humans.
Kent Brewster
@JamesGleick “Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off, and the most successful weapon in its arsenal has been its campaign to prevent us from considering any alternatives.” In just a little while this definition will also be true for AI.
clacke
@kentbrew @JamesGleick The corporation is the original AI, executing on brains, memoranda and spreadsheets.
Now with ever-increasing automation moving decisions from brains to silicon, corporations can execute millions of times faster, with thousands of times higher complexity and a fraction of the human controls and oversight. That's the regulatory challenge and it's already here since decades back, regardless if one labels it "AI" or not.
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