Comment by Moshe_Silnorin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Moshe_Silnorin | Hacker News Reader

What people are worried about is artificial systems that are of higher capability than all or the vast majority of humans. If the principal agent problem is solved by those that create them and they can be cheaply reproduced, then the value of human wages goes below subsistence. This likely isn't a big problem as economic growth rates would be so unimaginably high in this scenario (with doubling times on the order of months) that even significantly less wealth distribution than what occurs today could easily cover a basic income. This is why I'm not nearly as worried about technological unemployment. And as most people have at least some capital, even without redistribution many people would be fine.

If we can't solve the principle agent problem, we will have introduced self-replicating entities with much higher intelligence into our environment. As most possible utility functions require resources to pursue, we will be competing for resources with more intelligent entities. A competition we will lose.

So solving the principal agent problem is a big issue. Comparing human-level AI to markets is like Megafauna saying "We've been competing with other mammals for millions of years, man is only a difference in degree rather than kind. We'll be fine."

>And as most people have at least some capital

What? Most people in most Western countries are net-debtors. They literally own negative capital.

What specific statistic are you basing that on?

Even in the US where unsecured personal debt is practically a badge of honor, more than 50% of households still have a net worth.

From a number of years ago: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/07/21/poll-70-pe...

Right, and the fuller explanation is one click away:

http://www.aarp.org/money/credit-loans-debt/info-07-2009/bul...

Seventy percent of respondents report having some form of debt or loan obligation

Having a balance on your credit card or having a mortgage is very different than being a net debtor.

For your first scenario economic growth must be fueled by a proportional growth in energy consumption.

Fossil and Nuclear fuels exist in finite quantities, and the rate of sunlight that hits earth is more or less constant.

Most people would still starve as fields would be repurposed to produce fuel.

Maybe it would only last a few years. But once we can convert capital directly into labour in a manner that scales, we will get insane amounts of economic growth.

Indeed, but it remains to be seen if such growth would benefit the idling meat bags left unemployed.

I understand what you're saying but I think it's bad to use the term 'economic' growth. There would be potential productivity growth but not necessarily economic growth, since the economy is a human endeavour. AIs don't need money and won't contribute to money, and the machines would only be 'allowed' to produce what the customers would be able to buy (so essentially the current economy), unless they would produce lots of extra stuff just for the hell of it.

To have all that growth I think you'd need to decouple the machines from the economy but then distributing natural resources would be a problem, and then you come back to central planning and that's a whole other can of worms.

Not necessarily. Or rather, the growth of wealth could double every few months.

And this wealth effect could be due to massive reductions in labor costs by employing AI, leading to increases in standard of living as the price of good plummets.

I haven't looked at charts for the economy as a whole, but I bet certain kinds of technology provide nonlinear benefits for linear growth in energy consumption. Think about one computer replacing a roomful of workers doing hand calculations. (We don't moan about losing those jobs, by the way.) Yes, the computer was the results of decades of progress and investment, but looking at the marginal energy consumption of the finished good compared with that of a roomful of humans, there is no comparison.

Also, as long as we're talking sci-fi, why stop at harvesting energy from the earth. Until we capture 100% of the energy emanating from the sun, we have a long way to go as a race as far as energy consumption limitations.

The general price of goods plummeting would be seen by most modern economists as something of a disaster -- so occupied are they with engineering inflation. I don't think any mainstream economists have models or theories of economic development or social organization that would take us to a Kardashev level 2 civilization.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com