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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

I can't imagine the amount of corporate brainwashing needed to get to this level of thinking. Are you really saying that people cannot have any identity in life, any dreams, hobbies or pursuits if they can't sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week fixing Jira tickets?

Just because a car can go 100mph doesn't mean long distance running doesn't need to exist. Just because a novel you write isn't the best in the world doesn't mean the hobby is pointless. Go buy a farm and grow your own food. Keep some pets. Build cool software just because you can. Hang out with your friends. Play with your kids. Do literally anything you want. Not having to be a wage slave to survive is a good thing for humanity.

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> Not having to be a wage slave to survive is a good thing for humanity.

I mean, sure, that's one of the two paths discussed in "Manna" by Marshall Brain. Within the book it's called "The Australia Project"; a kind of utopia.

Myself and the OP are more worried about the other path: a dystopia in which the majority of people are forced into something much worse than wage slavery by those in control of the thinking machines. A dystopia not unlike the one that led to the "Great Revolt" in the Dune series.

> Myself and the OP are more worried about the other path: a dystopia in which the majority of people are forced into something much worse than wage slavery by those in control of the thinking machines.

My fear is that nobody will remain in control of the thinking machines. Imagine an AI agent for hire which maintains its own cryptocurrency accounts and pays its own cloud hosting bills. That's the future I'm worried about.

> A dystopia not unlike the one that led to the "Great Revolt" in the Dune series.

I'm glad you brought this up; I've found the term 'Butlerian Jihad' coming increasingly to mind when I read AI threads on HN. It's interesting to think about a future where we potentially put prohibitions on the use of AI for moral reasons.

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad

Just go one step ahead, and realize, that perhaps the most fictitious side of that book is that AI actually lost due to basically magical powers.

> the majority of people are forced into something much worse than wage slavery by those in control of the thinking machines.

This is why it is important that we ensure everyone has collective control of the means of production (through voluntary means - a federation of collectives that agree to trade with one another as much as possible).

> This is why it is important that we ensure everyone has collective control of the means of production

Why would the owners of the thinking machines allow this to happen?

Thank you for the ad hominem attack. It's always a pleasure to discuss things with people who like to jump to conclusions and assume things about people they don't know anything about.

Personally I prefer not to pass judgement on a person based on the very little knowledge that can be gleamed from a post like this. But maybe, just maybe if you actually read what I have written (in other comments as well) things might clear up for you.

Not an ad hominem and you haven't refuted him at all. That you perceived what he said as a personal attack speaks more to how you truly perceive your own values than to anything else.

They questioned your character cause of your flawed arguments, not your arguments cause of your flawed character. So it's not ad hominem.

> I can't imagine the amount of corporate brainwashing needed to get to this level of thinking.... Not having to be a wage slave to survive is a good thing for humanity.

Corporate brainwashing, why? That is just realistic. I mean we know earlier people with much harder lifes actually had more free leisure time.. and even Ford imagined with all the automation we may be able to work much less and have better lifes.. still here we are: A few people making tons of money, some soing very good to okayish, but the vast majority doing 2-3 low paying crap jobs to survive.. and we all even workong more than decades ago. How?

Working as a necessity to provide for oneself and family is a key component of good mental health. It's wired into us. We are still the hunter-gatherers we were 10,000 years ago. Excessive idleness always ends badly.

What do you define as working? The nobility had good ways of spending their time, they were at the top of social pyramid. They would not say they had a job, they only had to care about their inheritance.

Mental health is more related to belonging and sense of community. Currently, not having a job is a source of guilt and shame. That has not always been the case. Nurses and educators find their reward mostly in being able to help others.

> Working as a necessity to provide for oneself and family is a key component of good mental health

Based on what science? Grinding at an office 9-5, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year over meaningless pursuits is in fact what is causing mental health problems in the world today. Give people a social safety net, more time to pursue their hobbies, spend time with their families, connect with their communities, and I can assure you we will all be better off.

You don't need a job to avoid being idle.

Most people do.

People have bills to pay, or will AI do that too?

profits (benefits of overall automation) will be reaped by capitalists (employers, capital owners), not the general public.

plus, before we automate anything civilian, we will have to automate everything military, cause they get the first dabs at any emerging tech.

more likely we will see global war between stealthy autonomous robots much earlier, before we automate much on the civilian side

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