Comment by jackcosgrove | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jackcosgrove | Hacker News Reader

I am sympathetic for those who are already working and may be left stranded by advances in AI. But I am skeptical of economic incentives which may lead to the birth of too many people in an attempt to preserve the status quo. So assume for now that AI will indeed lead to a decrease in the demand for human labor. Eventually that decrease will lead to a decrease in the human population.

Right now the explosion of the human population, which will peak sometime in this century or the next before declining, is destroying earth's natural habitats. I see the decrease in demand for human labor as a good thing in the long run, although there are lots of unfortunate short-term effects which hopefully we can mitigate.

The decrease in global human population is already being test-run in a few countries, and the effects are mild so far: very low unemployment rates, stable or declining property prices. One worry is paygo pension systems, but that is a small price to pay for what we have to do in the end. I simply do not understand the fear of a falling demand for labor and a falling population.

"... although there are lots of unfortunate short-term effects which hopefully we can mitigate."

You paper over a world of demons and degradation with such neutral words. People want to live. People want to have children, see them grow, see them thrive, and have children of their own.

Your neutrality only makes sense if the rewards of a new age were more equally spread out. But both of the social, and hedonic, treadmills drive human valuation insane if an elite is constantly pumping a vision and an aspiration that is mocking when compared with ground level humanity.

What you are really saying is "I hope there is a massive war so excess human capital stock is cleared and the relative valuation of each human is raised for a generation or two."

What else is there for superfluous human capital to do but to shred itself apart when even entry into the games of social mobility seem closed off?

To hammer the point, humans can be literally "richer" but much more miserable than in a society where everyday cognition is less stressed by the need to push forward in a rat race.

I found your comment here lucid and insightful. Do you blog anywhere?

> What you are really saying is "I hope there is a massive war so excess human capital stock is cleared and the relative valuation of each human is raised for a generation or two."

Your biases are showing or you're being hyperbolic to an unreasonable degree. The person you're referencing simply says they believe there could be a future where the world needs less Human labor and they hope we can mitigate the problems that would come with shifting from a labor based economy to whatever comes next. To assume they meant massive war instead of something like Universal Basic Income is silly, they suggested no such thing.

> What you are really saying is "I hope there is a massive war so excess human capital stock is cleared and the relative valuation of each human is raised for a generation or two."

They referenced Japan in their post (which has a fairly steady but slowly declining population due to slowing birth rates) so to insinuate they were hoping for war to decrease the population is way off the mark.

Although I agree that the human population will decline in the next two centuries at some point (mainly due to wars and even mandatory birth control policies), don't think for a second that the current over population is because of human labor demand. I would attribute that to people loving having sex, better access to medicine and not enough education about the consequences off not using a form of birth control.

I think you are more likely to see much more policies directed to encourage having children than "mandatory birth control". While only a few countries remain with a very high reproduction ratio, and it drops down wast with economic development. You can see some lectures by Hans Rosling on the topic. If anything underpopulation will be way more pressing issue than overpopulation.

> So assume for now that AI will indeed lead to a decrease in the demand for human labor. Eventually that decrease will lead to a decrease in the human population.

I am not sure why human labor is related to human population. Suppose automation replaces ALL necessary human labor, does that mean human population should go to 0? Human labor doesn't exist to justify humanity, it is there only to provide for some necessities and for self-actualization. If the necessities are provided by automation, then more power to humans.

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