All we hear, even from thousands of the technology’s own developers, is how horrible AI will be for humanity. Everyone from philosophers and ethicists, to artists, to tech leaders, to economists, to captains of industry like Jamie Dimon or Bill Gates all admitting/predicting that it will replace humans across many if not most industries eventually, putting the majority of people out of work and income. This is usually said matter-of-factly, without a hint of irony as to the fact that humans don’t want this to happen, and how disastrous it would be economically and societally, and without any follow-up on how humans would survive without income and vocation. The biggest question is left unanswered, the elephant in the room ignored. So my question is, if the overwhelming majority of humanity stands to suffer incomprehensible harm from AI, a technology none of us wanted, asked for, or needed, why haven’t we done anything to stop it? Even if a handful of companies and tech billionaires stand to gain from it, if 99.9% of humanity stands to suffer, how could we let such a thing happen and why isn’t there a global revolution to stop it?
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The people in charge of stopping it will benefit from the process.
Because AI is very useful and good.
It’s not bad because it’s useless. It’s bad because it’s so useful that we can not… not use it
If we know that oil and gas will cause climate change that could kill the entire human species, why aren’t we stopping it?
Very similar answer.
many industries benefit from oil and gas.
many people like the convenience and lifestyle that oil and gas allow
countries feel that if they banned or limited oil and gas in their own country, it would only allow other countries to get an advantage over them.
Now replace ‘oil and gas’ with ‘AI’.
The typewriter will cost the jobs of so many scribes and quill makers, it must be stopped
Technological advance destroys some jobs and creates others
Corporate greed always wins. Everyone else loses.
Automation has always been the goal, people feared cars would make the horse obsolete. That came and went and is now a standard of living. Humans adapt. As labor and production become automated people will have opportunities to explore more creative pursuits.
Universal healthcare not attached to employment status and universal basic income would help keep unemployed from poverty.
AI will be a massive paradigm shift away from capitalist norms. When we get to the point that AI is effective enough to replace the human labour force en masse, it doesn’t just mean we lose jobs. It means productivity will skyrocket to the point of overwhelming abundance through exponential growth in productivity. That sort of society could reasonably sustain everyone through universal basic income/universal basic compute which could be used for personal AI systems to provide users with any knowledge or physical goods we might need.
It will be a shift away from humans needing to commit 70% of their time to contribute productivity to keep society’s gears turning and can focus entirely on their own personal pursuits. Some may choose to live in meaningless hedonism, others might spend their days philosophising on the meaning of life, others might travel, some might spend their time building families and can dedicate more time passing on shared values to their children. We should view the advent of AI as liberating. It’s simply a knee-jerk reaction to cling to our chains out of a fear of change.
There are plenty of things that can go wrong with AI, but a massive productivity spike and evolution of the workforce is not one of them. Once the means of production change, our societal structure as it relates to those means will also change and evolve
the people that can stop it are the ones pushing and benefiting from it
Because have you seen the funny memes you can make? /s
When mobile phones added cameras it destroyed the disposable camera market costing countless jobs…. We did nothing about it.
When getting music, movies and games went digital it decimated the physical media market closing countless retail outlets also losing countless jobs…. We did nothing about it.
Self serve check outs, automated ordering machines, factory robots….. We never stop progress just to save jobs.
Look up the luddites and you’ll see why no one bothers to try to hold back progress for the sake of jobs.
Because people don’t feel any sense of urgency in stopping it, perhaps because they think it won’t happen, be as bad, or affect them.
How do you know that 99.9% of humanity will suffer? What if AI makes everything really easy and everyone benefits?
The big issue is, you don’t want somebody else to develop it, while you don’t have it.
What if every adult no longer needed to work. Instead, they got an allowance of 30-50k a year. Why would that be so bad. If someone wanted to try and work, or find a job in the limited market, they could. If you were building a society from scratch, would it require everyone to toil on jobs?
it’s mainly #1 tho
We’ve always been a bunch of self destructive idiots. Yet, somehow, it always turns out fine for the survivors.
Because it will make and save money for the rich.
You can’t stop technological progress, ludite movements have never worked.
because it’s easy money for the billionaires.
It’s already too late.
It’s not being stopped because however bad AI will be for society, those with the resources to implement it will profit handsomely.
I’d like to see AI do any part of a production job
There is no “We” when you talk about AI. The people saying this shit and celebrating it and building it are the ones in charge! We aren’t doing it. And we would have to overthrow our current government to stop this shit.
When robot automation replaced thousands and thousands of human factory workers in the automotive industry, did we stop that? Or did we shrug and say “oh well, that’s just the times.”
Because it’s not. It will replace jobs, but it’s no different than the assembly line, or the printing press.
I think it helps to look at things on a micro and macro level. On a micro level, many companies and people benefit significantly from AI. Personally, AI helps organize my thoughts and helps fill in gaps when brainstorming ideas.
When you look at that on a macro level, that results in needing less people to do jobs. It will be a long time before these jobs are eliminated, but it can very easily reduce teams by 10% which on a micro level is only a small impact but when scaled to the macro level of a country that can result is significant issues.
Humans are bad at evaluating scale of things and seeing on small things results in big changes.
Billionaires control AI.
I can’t touch a billionaire, ever.
Because it makes the line go up 📈
We shouldn’t stop it. With all the extra money companies will be saving by not having so many employees, we can tax them more to fund universal basic income for the people who lost jobs.
There will be new struggles, of course. Teaching people how to live fulfilling lives without being employed by these companies.
Also requires companies to be held accountable by the government so we can make this work and prevent run away wealth hoarding.
The last part is why this is going to cause more suffering than it should.
Change is inevitable. Also why is AI bad? People said cameras capture people souls. Or that factories would get rid of farming. Ai is a tool not a person . People will use AI just like we use a notepad to write.
it already is. thousands of jobs being replaced by chat bots.
the issue isn’t ai, that is just natural advancement.
the issue is what do we do with so many people that cant find jobs? it’s supply and demand issue.
AI will replace many jobs, lots of people will be displaced, and why that’s a tragedy in its own right, the bigger issue is the market global collapse that comes with it.
people will stop buying things because they have no money, companies lay people off to adjust to this, now more people stop buying things, then more people lose their jobs. this spreads into second and third markets, like companies that produce things for companies that produce thing for companies that produce things. Entire global supply chains will seize up, billions will starve. The stock market will crash, those billionaires will lose most of their wealth in this as well as everyone else.
Im not sure if this will be stopped before too much damage is done. it will be interesting to see.