Hacker News Reader

Comment by bigyikes | Hacker News Reader

If an AI was truly capable of replacing engineers en mass, the upside would hugely outweigh the downside.

Engineering muscle will be limited by chips instead of brains. Injecting millions of AI “engineers” into any economy would be a massive boon.

Many of us would be out of work, but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

I think the top engineers will still be able to find a niche regardless - we get paid to solve problems, and there will always be human problems.

View on HN

> Many of us would be out of work, but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

This won't happen. It does NOT trickle down, Mr. Reagan. The past 40+ years, every single graph you pull up shows the widening gulf between the wealthy and the not.

>if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

We can't.

Like, due to lack of political willpower? Or do you see some fundamental limitation of, say, an automation tax?

Arguably we haven't seen redistribution of wealth due to past automation advances, so it seems unreasonable to believe it will happen now. As automation has improved in the last decades especially, wealth has disproportionately moved upwards.

Yes, the complete impotency of anti-trust and big business regulation over the last 50-60 years.

And any political willpower that exists is constantly used for smearing campaigns for either side of the political spectrum (e.g. look at them, they are the bad guys).

Automation tax is also the worst possible outcome, since it both stifles innovation AND doesn't address the redistribution problem.

>if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus, this will still be a net-win for us all.

which historical technological development that hugely improved productivity do you feel has led to an improved universal social safety net / public investment in whatever country you're from?

Correction: we won't.

I'm not saying it's against the laws of physics, just that it's not achievable. If people worked differently, we could allocate resources differently.

> "if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus"

I'm curious to know why you think there is even the slightest chance of this happening.

No. The money-havers will just cut the costs from software developers and our jobs will be gone forever.

> but if we can redistribute the AI-generated surplus

History suggests that we cannot.

This is very much like saying "but if we can redistribute the wealth of all the billionaires". Like, uh huh, but that won't happen because, short of fear of murder, people winning a class war have no incentive to stop.

Millions of people being put out of work might change the political landscape quite a bit. We’re talking about a technological revolution, so I don’t think it’s too crazy to consider an economic or political revolution to go with it.

> Millions of people being put out of work might change the political landscape quite a bit.

No, it won't. Even during the vid, when people couldn't work, the politicians found a way to enrich the wealthy while only doing the bare minimum for those who lost their jobs.

Maaaaaaybe...but...

The (first) French Revolution, the period in history to which all revolution is compared, did not distribute equality to the masses. It distributed The Terror, and then it distributed Emperor Napoleon, and then it distributed the Bourbon monarchy right back into power.

Then the (second) French Revolution changed one king for another.

Then the (third) French Revolution distributed another fucking Emperor Napoleon.

Revolutions aren't as equality-building as people want to believe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com