Ted Chiang: Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey? | Hacker News Reader

Ted Chiang: Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?

newyorker.com

93 pointsmitchbob13 comments

This is a decent exploration of the third-worst possible outcome of AI, but it's a bizarre dismissal of the second-worst, even though he explains the mechanism himself:

> The doomsday scenario is not a manufacturing A.I. transforming the entire planet into paper clips, as one famous thought experiment has imagined. It’s A.I.-supercharged corporations destroying the environment and the working class in their pursuit of shareholder value.

Well, yes. If the AI is better than human it will be put in charge of corporations, and will be given the goal of maximizing shareholder value. Since those shareholders can be corporations, there's no reason why this has to involve human preference at any point. As a single-minded optimizer indifferent to humans, it would need to be successfully restrained in order to be merely oppressive - by default, it's a Paperclipper.

These articles tend to write "the doomsday scenario is not X, it's Y", without any supporting reasoning why it's not X.

What they really mean is "Y is a possible bad outcome", but it wouldn't sound impactful to say that.

It’s because we can’t envision anything other than capitalism… any of us.

Capitalist realism is a big deal. In retrospect the old world order will seem crazy but while it is here, now, seeing on the other side seems insane.

The AI has been running in our heads since Adam Smith. Capitalism is the “evil AI paper clip maximizer” - it exists only to find supply and demand equilibrium, nothing more.

We ignore that at our own peril.

My thought is, capitalism may be an AI, but it's not too capable on the whole. Even though it screws up a lot, there's room under capitalism for people to sometimes do stuff that isn't all about profit. And of course, sometimes profit and human value are aligned -- that's what capitalism is intended to do, even if the alignment isn't even close to perfect.

My worry is that with AI, things will move so fast, they will be so smart, and will end up being used so widely, that there will be no room left for anything else we value. People and organizations that turn more power over to the machines will run rings around the ones that are more cautious. The end is AI everywhere, used for everything, and humans disempowered (or gone).

Quick everybody, we have to flood the Internet with text about how it's stupid to lay off engineers, and you have to pay them tons of money. Gotta control the training distribution. Get to it!

and let's not forget the mc-kinsey prediction (in a study commissioned by at&t) of 900k subscribers for cellular handsets by 2000 ! this then lead at&t to acquire some cellular company for around usd-13-billion or thereabouts.

This article is great at clearly and succinctly explaining a lot of trends I see on Twitter in particular, but the solutions are lacking.

Also:

> whenever I criticize capitalism, I’m not criticizing the idea of selling things; I’m criticizing the idea that people who have lots of money get to wield power over people who actually work

> If you try to criticize capitalism, you are accused of opposing both technology and progress

Isn’t this a kind of motte and bailey argument? Attack capitalism, but later clarify you just mean the worst aspects of it?

Archived: https://archive.ph/gnKpK

Unlikely. AI will in fact continue to be sold by McKinsey to hopeful executives who like the whispers of sweet business nothings, this further enriching McKinsey.

Well put. Regrettably, McKinsey will continue to McKinsey.

While I agree with your sentiment, I think we might start to see McKinsey go on a Blackwater > Xe > Academi > Constellis type journey to leave their reputation behind

Wow…I have some reading to do to cover the blackwater>>>constellis thing. That escaped me.

Long on rambling anticapitalist sentiment, short on suggested alternatives that don't involve aiming guns at peoples' heads. I feel exploited. I want my 10 minutes back.

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