The Problem with AI Is the Problem with Capitalism
jacobin.com
jacobin.com
> How about this: once your job is automated, you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next.
It would be interesting if once your job is automated you get e.g. 1/3 or 1/2 of your salary - suddenly probably a lot of people would be actively helping to automate their job - sharing training data, labeling, testing, etc. Then you would move to some other industry and help to automate it as well.
Living on half salary would just be to still motivate people to upskill themselves or don't be completely lazy. For the same reason unemployment benefits or UBI would cover only essential expenses as well.
Otherwise what's the alternative? UBI I see only possible to be implemented post-scarcity globally - I doubt rich countries like USA would be willing to provide UBI for developing countries in current system and those latter are unlikely to be the winner in AI race.
I really don’t know why people are even considering this disaster.
How?
I can understand that the situation where UBI exists may be one where the population loses power, but I fail to see how UBI itself removes the power.
Also as the burden of UBI on the “productive” members of society which at that point might be only the large corporations increases it would inevitably lead to either universal basic services or a two tiered monetary system.
In this hypothetical scenario, mental workers would transition to physical workers.
There will be more construction workers, doctors, plumbers, hairdressers. This means the society will be able to produce and consume more and / or work less. And the society would be less equal.
The drawback for some "white collar" workers would be that it would mean a decrease in wage and status.
The talk about unemployment and a need for UBI is economically illiterate. In fact, I would argue UBI would be less needed in that scenario. Because the point of UBI is really to decrease income inequality - which would be less of a problem than today.
But anyway, "and the society would be less equal" is really unwarranted. That's exactly the article's point. Wealth distribution doesn't need to be related to the labor demand, it is only this way today because of politicy decisions.
Oh sorry, I meant to say that the society would be less inequal and more equal.
This is talking about a very real fear, in the tech world and I think it was a mistake to flag it.
there are plenty of non-flagged articles there.
The answer to that would be not to make such choices. Everyone gets the same amount, whether they're unemployed or a billionaire.
Another form that deserves attention is what has been called libertarian communism, a kind of anarchism. The goal is the same but without authoritarian power hierarchies. Marxist Leninist communism is an enemy to this. You can still have leadership and roles and rules, but done through other cooperative frameworks such as sociocracy (consent based, not consensus based)
> Who decides who gets what and how much?
The collective would own the corporation, not the small cabal of shareholders and the small group of executives are beholden to their whims.
> At least in a capitalist system, the power is supposed to be held by the people who invest their capital
This is a very small portion of the populace. Therefor the people who are allowed to make decisions are those with capital, those who have more capital are allowed to make more decisions.
> A bureaucratic system of allocation doesn’t incentivize efficiency.
Any democratic system of significant size will be inefficient by design, that's a good thing. Different agents in a democratic system have different terminal goals, it takes time to reach consensus.
I leave you with a quote from Karl Marx
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
JK, that was Abraham Lincoln
https://abrahamlincoln.org/features/speeches-writings/abraha...
Who speaks for the collective? If you’ve ever been to church, it’s certainly a collective but certain members have more power to speak than others. It’s the same at protests- having attended them, it’s important not to say anything that could attract the attention of the mob or you may lose more than a few hairs. Collective decision making is a myth that hides the actual source of power vested in specific individuals within that collective.
I agree that to create a communist system, inefficiency is not only an output but also a necessary design feature, since efficiencies tend towards positive feedback loops of technocapital. But, whether that’s “good” depends on believing in some kind of transcendence beyond matter. What’s “good” in a material sense is a process which is able to continue to exist within matter while a “bad” process is one that self destructs. Since communism is inherently less efficient, it must be universal or non communist feedback loops of technocapital will accelerate and devour the sheep.
It's important to clarify that Democratic Socialism doesn't advocate for complete state control or collective ownership of the means of production. It seeks to strike a balance between capitalism and socialism, with a mixed economy that includes both private and public ownership.
> Who speaks for the collective?
Democratic Socialism emphasizes a robust democratic process, so ideally, decision-making power is distributed among the people. While it's true that some individuals may hold more influence than others in any group, this is not unique to Democratic Socialism. The key is to ensure that systems are in place to prevent the undue concentration of power and to promote transparency and accountability.
> Collective decision making is a myth that hides the actual source of power vested in specific individuals within that collective.
In any democratic system, there will always be challenges to achieving true collective decision-making. However, the goal of Democratic Socialism is to maximize the involvement of ordinary people in the political and economic decision-making process, making it more inclusive and equitable.
> Since communism is inherently less efficient, it must be universal or non communist feedback loops of technocapital will accelerate and devour the sheep.
As I mentioned earlier, Democratic Socialism is not communism; it is a mixed economy that seeks to harness the best aspects of capitalism and socialism. It does not require a complete rejection of capitalism or the pursuit of a purely communist system. Democratic Socialism focuses on reducing income inequality, providing essential social services, and protecting workers' rights while maintaining a market-based economy.
Regarding the concern about efficiency, it's important to recognize that efficiency is not the only measure of a successful system. Democratic Socialism aims to create a more equitable society, and sometimes that means sacrificing a degree of efficiency in the pursuit of greater equality and social justice. It's about striking a balance between efficiency and the well-being of all members of society.
> What’s “good” in a material sense is a process which is able to continue to exist within matter while a “bad” process is one that self destructs.
While it's important to consider the material aspects of an economic system, it's also crucial to factor in the well-being of the people within that system. Democratic Socialism aims to create a society where resources and opportunities are more fairly distributed, and where everyone has a chance to thrive. This might involve some trade-offs in terms of pure material efficiency, but the ultimate goal is to build a more just and humane society.
In summary, Democratic Socialism is not communism, and it does not advocate for the complete control of the means of production by laborers. Instead, it seeks a balanced approach that combines the best aspects of mArket and planned economies to create a more equitable, democratic, and inclusive society.
If I were to accept the transcendent, I would probably pick Islam since it’s more beautiful.
For example, access to quality healthcare, education, housing, and a living wage are tangible components of well-being that can be improved within an economic system. Democratic Socialism seeks to provide a social safety net and equal opportunities for all, which can lead to improved well-being in measurable ways.
It's important to recognize that we don't need to rely on transcendent beliefs to understand or address well-being. We can study and observe the real-world effects of different policies and systems on people's lives, and make informed decisions based on the evidence.
As for your preference for Islam, it's worth noting that many belief systems, including Islam, share core values like compassion, justice, and the importance of helping others. These values can inform our approach to economics and social policy, without requiring us to subscribe to any specific religious or transcendent belief system.
In the end, the goal of Democratic Socialism is to create a more equitable and just society, which includes addressing tangible aspects of well-being for all people. While some aspects of well-being may be more subjective, there are many material factors that we can and should address to improve the lives of everyone in our society.
Ok, you get brided by your salary to do it and if you behave like a good communist, you might even get a payrise.
Strange how we have communist structures at the core of our liberal, capitalist west.
Edit: it is ironic that a dictatorship is an efficient way ahead if the dictator happens to have the interests of everyone at heart. Company structures, as they generally are in the west, are designed to be focussed on achieving certain goals efficiently, a democratic system won't be as efficient. You could also look at how armies are structured - there tends to be no democratic structures within armies.
After capitalists invest in "winners" and extract even more capital for themselves, they always use that power to force everyone else to subsidize their bets on "losers". They threaten "systemic failure" and "contagion" if public funds aren't used to bail out their losses. They win when they win, and they win when they lose.
And then, decades later, after they've socialized their losses and made us pay for their bad and lazy decisions, we discover that even their winners were losers.
Their winners didn't make us healthy, or intelligent, or moral. Their winners didn't house us or feed us or make us safe and secure.
We accepted outrageous inequality, we impoverished the public sector, became wage slaves for them, and all we got in return was clicks, and ads, and grift, and memes, and anxiety, and depression, and hate, and conflict and war.
Capitalism and Communism are types of ownership of the means of production, while market economies vs. planned/bureaucratic economies are ways of distributing or allocating produce.
Capitalism is ownership of the means of production and its produce by individuals who are not those who exert labour to produce, while Communism (in its myriad of varieties) can be summarised as ownership of the means of production and its produce by those who exert their labour. One can have extremely bureaucratic regimes in a capitalist economic system (for instance, the highly bureaucratic health insurance system in the USA as compared to how straightforward non-capitalist universal healthcare systems are). On the other side, one can have an essentially communist ownership structure operating in a market economy (e.g. worker-owned cooperatives competing with each other in a free market).
That's not to say that Capitalism doesn't very often go hand-in-hand with market economies, but it is a mistake to attribute the merit of the free market as an efficient allocator of resources to Capitalism itself, in a "merit by association". Furthermore, while a (perfect) free market may be provably the most efficient way of distributing resources, the efficiency of a market has no value as of itself; it depends on what resources are being exchanged in the market and to what extent the interests of the market participants are compatible with each other (a human being with a limited lifespan and need for survival does not make the same kind of decisions as a potentially immortal institution).
Communism must utilize some sort of bureaucratic system as otherwise technocapital feedback loops will re-emerge. So there has to be a human control system in place to monitor and squash these sprouts of cancerous growth.
A worker owned cooperative would not be a communist system, since the means of production are held by a private collective and not by the public society. It’s no different than a private family owning capital, albeit less incestuous.
Not for the entire economy. If you allow local decisions for investment, you are basically restoring capitalism. Economy-wide communism requires bureaucratic central planning.
(But well, the absurdly automated production we are moving into breaks capitalism too. We can't keep either.)
Somehow it evokes a dichotomy between "communism and capitalism", despite having essentially no definition for either of these things.
So let's give it a shot. Roughly speaking, Communism is where no one is allowed to have private property, and Capitalism is where all property is privately held.
This is a nice definition because it defines a whole family of government structures, partially ordered by what a person is allowed to own, and it also demonstrates that the top and bottom elements of this order are both terrible, and therefore serve as perfect strawmen for people advocating moving "up or down" the order. Owning other people, or private armies, is not in the best interest of society. On the other hand, not having a mechanism by which you express preferences is a disaster of efficiency. Likewised not having any personal incentive to work prevents people from exchanging labor in ways that benefit each party, and is also obviously not in the best interest of society.
No one worth listening to disagrees with any of this, but they always imagine their opponent to be advocating for the top or bottom element. "Capitalism vs Communism".
Pick a set of things you think people should be able to own, and how the government should go about allocating the rest, and then do yourself an intellectual favor, and never use the words Capitalism or Communism again, except in explaining the problem with the dichotomy.
Government is a much more subtle problem than that, and you're not participating in that subtlety in good faith when you use argue against the strawmen.
> you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next on the list to go.
I'm sorry... This sounds awful. Relaxing is good in moderation. Work is good for the human soul though.
If I didn't need to work to live decently, I'd likely still work, but differently. Maybe part-time at a bakery? I'd focus on other topics, probably some longer-term research subjects.
It's also true that it's very easy to go down the "lazy" path, and probably much less enriching.
Would you stop working for other people if you didn't have to?
I really like coding my own personal projects. Many times I do it precisely to find flow and relax.
Same with designing parts to 3D print, or printing them afterwards.
Solving real world problems that I care about can be extremely rewarding and often quite relaxing.
I actually think most of the stress from work comes from the fact that you either perform or you might not have enough for food and shelter, for yourself and your family.
Take that away and failure becomes nothing more than an opportunity to learn. I find that very relaxing.
Under a socialist society, there is less incentives to drive everything so hard because people can relax a little. Yes, people will be free to choose and push things further, but not so desperate for doing so.
The drive to hard and spooky "AGIs" would probably slow down too, right now it's happening at such break next pace because of economic incentives are so strong for doing so.
I was freaking out quite a bit about the future, until someone on here mentioned socialism a few days ago, and I chilled out because ultimately, I think that's where we'll end up, at least some form of it, and it actually made me feel better.
I've lived in countries which people would consider "socialist", and it was awesome, so I'm not worried about it.
Also don't forget that societies have existed with many "happy citizens" not doing really much of anything, Rome, and many indigenous cultures, yes they had to do some work for food, but mostly had a pretty good carefree lives without "jobs".
Work _creates_ meaning. It doesn’t have to and you’re free to not find satisfaction in your work, but you get to choose. There is no creature that lives without work. Why should any of us be otherwise?
My post probably isn’t going to convince you but read some Marcus Aurelius or another stoic and maybe they will.
Yet another bank crisis. Yet another war. And people still living in poverty. Hm.
For me, you can give it to the birds or rather to the AIs. I'll take the beach any day.