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Comment by togelius | Hacker News Reader

I would say that progress on general AI can solve a lot of the problems we are facing. To take an obvious and down-to-earth example, let's say we "solve" logistics in the sense that we can transport things wherever we want, timely and cheaply. That would help us with a lot of the problems we are facing, such as hunger. And for solving logistics we essentially need the same skills we need as for solving game-playing.

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Yeah, this is a bit like saying we don't need to go to Mars because we should solve poverty first. Solving the problems of going to Mars will solve a lot of other problems and create a lot of industries along the way.

Solving AI will solve a lot of other problems and create a lot of industries along the way.

A great deal of poverty is a mismatch between bodies and skills needed in the workforce. We haven't needed ditch diggers since some son of a gun invented the backhoe. Stay in school kids. Stay in school.

Poverty is a fun issue because (typically) solving poverty has resulted in greater population and thus trends towards poverty.

Less true in modern nations, but its still generally true.

I recall Bill Gates saying his foundation did a study that found that given a certain level of resource security, most families stop reproducing after 2 offspring. The study population was in sub-Saharan Africa.

Neat and quite good to know.

This is the broken window fallacy. The idea that creating jobs in and of themselves is a good thing. Going to mars creates jobs, so it must be good. Not considering the opportunity cost of all the other ways those resources could be spent.

You use the example of ditch diggers, but that's actually quite a famous example to demonstrate this point. Milton Friedman was in another country where they were having workers dig with shovels. He asked why they didn't use machinery, and he said it was to create jobs. He replied that if they wanted create even more jobs, they should make them dig with spoons.

AI won't even create jobs. If anything it will take more of them and increase poverty. The benefit of AI is that it can create more wealth than it takes away. AI would be incredibly useful, and so many things could be automated or improved. If the AI is much smarter than us, it could even advance science and engineer things we couldn't dream of.

> This is the broken window fallacy. The idea that creating jobs in and of themselves is a good thing.

Well, insofar as human happiness is somewhat intermingled with a sense of purpose in life, yes, jobs are a good thing. But that doesn't mean society owes everyone a job. That would actually remove the happiness utility of the function.

> Going to mars creates jobs, so it must be good. Not considering the opportunity cost of all the other ways those resources could be spent.

Um, the investment in Mars to date is substantially less than the investment in poverty. If you consider the military as a jobs program, or public infrastructure construction as a jobs program, then we spend a ton of money on poverty.

> You use the example of ditch diggers ... spoons.

Are you countering my example by extending it?

> AI won't even create jobs. If anything it will take more of them and increase poverty.

Sure it will, but they'll require more education, hence my recommendation: stay in school.

> The benefit of AI is that it can create more wealth than it takes away. AI would be incredibly useful, and so many things could be automated or improved. If the AI is much smarter than us, it could even advance science and engineer things we couldn't dream of.

I think a lot of people probably agree with you, but I wouldn't get too excited quite yet.

>insofar as human happiness is somewhat intermingled with a sense of purpose in life, yes, jobs are a good thing.

Well there might be some truth to that, but the main reason people work is to get money. Its entirely possible we could support poor people without creating meaningless jobs. Typically that actually costs more than just distributing the money directly.

>Um, the investment in Mars to date is substantially less than the investment in poverty. If you consider the military as a jobs program, or public infrastructure construction as a jobs program, then we spend a ton of money on poverty.

I don't know what your point is. No I don't consider those jobs programs, and even if they were what does it matter? And no we haven't spent that much money on going to mars yet.

>Are you countering my example by extending it?

Yes, to show the absurdity of it. Obviously a bunch of people digging with spoons is ridiculous.

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