How do we protect people’s livelihoods without engraining regulatory capture? Interested in HN’s thoughts.
<s> It won’t matter in a few years when AGI kills us all. </s>
What, if, for example, we’ll have a mass information system that would start pushing something that is very beneficial for special interest communities (say community is furries and this increases their dating pool), but tends to result in higher level of depression and suicide in teenagers. And then we also find that overall the system reduces mortality, by providing high quality medical advice.
Surely shutting down the system would not be a good idea. And requiring private enterprise to change their messaging infringes on free speech. But at least requiring to properly disclose biases is likely a good idea.
If you mean it in a sense of "what about all the lost jobs?", then we should start seriously talking about UBI, and how to fund it by taxing automation.
Right now, AI-induced unemployment just isn’t a problem.
So it’s extremely likely the advocates for regulation are AI corporations, rather than reams of unemployed workers.
It makes sense to say new buildings have to meet fire safety regulations that are based on learnings from past fires. AI is too new; everyone is either guessing or lobbying for personal benefit.
We should be vigilant, but I don’t for a second believe the “any regulation is better than nothing” rhetoric from those who stand to gain.
It's not. All the learnings we've had from ML (the mistakes, the failures etc.) are just as applicable to AI.
I'm not sure how you'd test this hypothesis, but it certainly looks like a tonne of the ongoing FAANG layoffs are based on assumptions about a decreased need for low-mid level programmers.
I therefore think it's a good idea to have a plan for AI induced unemployment before people take to the streets because they have no job, no hope of a job, and no money left to pay the bills.
I have no idea how far away economic mass unemployment is, and I'm not convinced the current indicators in specific fields (much as it affects those fields) is "it", but I have seen a lot of news stories about governments getting surprised by things everyone was warning them about and they ignored.