Submitted by jamesj t3_zlcwu3 in singularity
green_meklar t1_j05njvs wrote
>It isn’t AI that is the real problem here, it is capitalism as we currently know it requiring everyone to either work or suffer
That doesn't make any sense. A person living all alone in an otherwise uninhabited universe would be required to either work or suffer. Blaming a natural circumstance like that on capitalism seems like a bizarre mistake. (And not the only thing I've seen arbitrarily blamed on capitalism in recent years; what's up with that?)
>One possible solution would be a steep progressive tax on large companies profiting from AI.
That also doesn't make any sense. What makes profit from AI a reasonable revenue stream to tax? Why would it be important that such a tax be 'progressive' (whatever that means)?
>Funds from the tax would go to funding minimum basic income for anyone earning less than a certain salary threshold.
Why would it specifically go to people earning less than some certain amount? On what principles would that amount be calculated?
I'm a little disappointed that this article is getting upvoted so much when it doesn't appear to reflect even a basic understanding of economics. Indeed that's probably a big reason why we need to develop superhuman AI quickly: Because it will understand economics, and implement fixes for our economic problems that (as demonstrated by the article) human brains don't seem adequate to find.
ghostfuckbuddy t1_j05ooyg wrote
> What makes profit from AI a reasonable revenue stream to tax?
Because unlike other software, modern AI cannot exist without copious amounts of human-generated data, which it currently consumes without acknowledgement or remuneration.
Btw it's a bit ironic that you're criticizing the article for a lack of basic economic understanding when you don't even know what a progressive tax is.
green_meklar t1_j0aa0pj wrote
>Because unlike other software, modern AI cannot exist without copious amounts of human-generated data, which it currently consumes without acknowledgement or remuneration.
...from people who willingly upload it to publicly available online databases, expecting to enjoy some sort of free service in return. I don't see anything wrong with this model that would require the imposition of taxes.
>you're criticizing the article for a lack of basic economic understanding when you don't even know what a progressive tax is.
I know what the term sometimes means, but the article used it very vaguely.
0913856742 t1_j05s72g wrote
> That doesn't make any sense. A person living all alone in an otherwise uninhabited universe would be required to either work or suffer. Blaming a natural circumstance like that on capitalism seems like a bizarre mistake. (And not the only thing I've seen arbitrarily blamed on capitalism in recent years; what's up with that?)
What happens if the type of labour you have to sell does not pay you enough to survive, or does not pay you at all, but is still vitally important, e.g. parenting and most forms of non-profit work?
Or if, because the market does not reward all forms of labour equally, the labour that you are most adapt at / talented at / interested in pursuing, are economically unviable, and so you are forced to follow a spiritually unrewarding path, e.g. forgoing most forms of art and passion work?
Or what happens when technology has advanced to the point where you don't need everyone to work in order to provide the means of survival?
If in my city there simultaneously exist hundreds of vacant properties for lease and who knows how many homeless people who will die this winter due to exposure, don't you feel there is something flawed about this system?
In our current system, you sell your labour to secure the resources you need to survive. If you don't, you are free to starve. It's that simple.
Society is all about improving our collective well-being and taking care of the survival-level stuff so we can focus more and more on things we actually care about. At a certain point, our technology and culture will advance to the point where we should be able to see ourselves as something more than mere economic inputs.
green_meklar t1_j0aajem wrote
>What happens if the type of labour you have to sell does not pay you enough to survive
Then why doesn't it? How did you get into that sort of situation?
>the labour that you are most adapt at / talented at / interested in pursuing, are economically unviable
That would be unfortunate but I don't see how it creates any obligation on the part of anyone else, much less AI companies specifically, to pay taxes just to increase your work options. There's a big missing gap in reasoning there.
>Or what happens when technology has advanced to the point where you don't need everyone to work in order to provide the means of survival?
That depends how we choose to run our economy. Which is my point: The article's suggestions about how the economy works and how we should run it don't seem to be well thought out. Beyond that, if you have a specific line of thought stemming from this, I think you'll have to spell it out explicitly because I can't guess where you're going with this (or if I do, it'll probably be a very uncharitable guess).
>If in my city there simultaneously exist hundreds of vacant properties for lease and who knows how many homeless people who will die this winter due to exposure, don't you feel there is something flawed about this system?
Very much. However, 'our current stupid system' and 'the stupid system suggested by the OP's article' do not constitute an exhaustive list of options.
0913856742 t1_j0afofr wrote
> Then why doesn't it? How did you get into that sort of situation?
Journalism. Teaching. Parenting.
>That would be unfortunate but I don't see how it creates any obligation on the part of anyone else, much less AI companies specifically, to pay taxes just to increase your work options. There's a big missing gap in reasoning there.
Gallup has shown over the past two decades that about two thirds of people either felt not engaged or were actively disengaged (i.e. hating) their job. How much stress, mental illness, and wasted human potential is that?
>(or if I do, it'll probably be a very uncharitable guess).
>...
>Very much. However, 'our current stupid system' and 'the stupid system suggested by the OP's article' do not constitute an exhaustive list of options.
Instead of being snide, why don't you just say what you think?
You seem to be very eager to blame the individual instead of examining the problems inherent in our current economic system.
green_meklar t1_j0ra3fu wrote
>Journalism. Teaching. Parenting.
That doesn't really answer the question.
>How much stress, mental illness, and wasted human potential is that?
You're not addressing my point. You don't have to like stress, mentall illness or wasted potential, I don't like it either, but I don't see how that would automatically create obligations on the part of anyone else. (Besides your parents insofar as they created you and consigned you to some sort of existence in the world.)
>Instead of being snide, why don't you just say what you think?
I did say what I think. The article presented some reasoning that didn't make sense to me and I pointed out why it didn't make sense.
>You seem to be very eager to blame the individual instead of examining the problems inherent in our current economic system.
I'm quite interested in examining the problems, I've examined the problems plenty, however it turns out that the principles and solutions are counterintuitive and the vast majority of people would prefer to perpetuate bad (but intuitive and cathartic) ideological nonsense instead. That's why it's important for people to work through the problems themselves and understand what's going on, rather than just listening to more propositions thrown around out of context.
I don't really see how I was 'blaming the individual', other than blaming the article writer for posting bad ideas about economics, of course.
jamesj OP t1_j05sfzk wrote
A progressive tax is a very specific thing.
green_meklar t1_j0aar5i wrote
That doesn't clarify what it applies to in this context, though. What is the unit across which you're measuring income? Is it on a per-company basis? What stops the companies from just reorganizing into smaller units in order to lower their taxes? Are you measuring just the profit from AI, or all their income? And what's the justification for doing it any of those ways, specifically?
rixtil41 t1_j05re5g wrote
Because where the work comes from is assuming to always have to come from a human. When in reality that does not have to be the case. Work is work regardless of the sorce. The work coming from humans in order for society to function is not impossible.
green_meklar t1_j0aa2bj wrote
That doesn't seem to address any of my points...?
ShowerGrapes t1_j06k8fr wrote
>A person living all alone in an otherwise uninhabited universe would be required to either work or suffer.
we need to define what "work" is in this context. and what it isn't. we shuoldn't define it as just doing things, like hunting, or picking mushrooms or even growing your own garden. because people out of work still do things like that. they travel distances and wait in lines, they fix their flat tires and make dinner. they put together furniture and help their friends move. all of this would be considered "work" in your definition here.
the trouble is the word work has many meanings. for it to be work in this context, in what we're talking about here, you have to have an employer. your work will most likely make your employer more money than you personally make from your job. or it's work that your employer does not want to do or can't do well, so he pays you to do it.
can you spot the difference between that type of work and work where you have no employer?
green_meklar t1_j0ab8l9 wrote
>we shuoldn't define it as just doing things, like hunting, or picking mushrooms or even growing your own garden.
Those sure sound like work to me. Why would you define 'work' so narrowly as to exclude those things? What's the criterion for excluding specifically those things?
>because people out of work still do things like that.
In that sense, everyone was 'out of work' for their entire lives up until, what, a few thousand years ago?
That seems like a bizarre notion of 'work'. It strikes me as doing prehistoric hunter/gatherers a disservice to dismiss their livelihoods as 'not real work', considering how difficult and precarious their lives were.
>for it to be work in this context, in what we're talking about here, you have to have an employer.
So then in what sense does capitalism require everyone to do that?
>can you spot the difference between that type of work and work where you have no employer?
Yes, but I think it's a strange notion of what the word 'work' means and I'm also not sure what the connection with capitalism is supposed to be.
ShowerGrapes t1_j0abspg wrote
do ants work? do beavers? what about birds? there has to be some baseline where we can talk about work as being separate from other activities. if you define mice as having a job the whole discussion becomes ludicrous. perhaps that is the point of people making these silly arguments.
green_meklar t1_j0r80kj wrote
>do ants work? do beavers? what about birds?
Colloquially speaking they do. Economically speaking they don't because they aren't economic agents.
ranchero_salvaje t1_j09rijm wrote
>I'm a little disappointed that this article is getting upvoted so much when it doesn't appear to reflect even a basic understanding of economics.
That's reddit in a nutshell. They'll upvote the most random or dumb liberal ideas who have been proved many times to not work.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments