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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I found it very interesting that Altman et al were worried that AI will become supremely intelligent and China will make a supervirus or some AI drones or whatnot, but not a single person was worried about destroying all jobs because we wouldn't need humans any more.

Or maybe they were not so much "worried" but "hopeful" that they'd amass literally all the wealth in the world.

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I think fundamentally, the concern is misplaced. The fact you need to work for wealth is a convention of our constraints. The change in constraints would lead to other means of distribution. It's easy to see if someone who believes more productivity is good would not see making jobs obsolete a real problem. Thew would see us adapting to the new conditions in a relatively short while.

Those who are concerned is implying that any new distribution mechanism is not going to favour them.

And under the capitalist system, if nothing changes, the "new" distribution system is indeed not going to favour them - at best there would be some sort of UBI, and at worst you would be left to starve in the streets.

However, i cannot see how one can transition to a new system, and yet have the existing powers in the current system agree and not be disadvantaged.

The new conditions almost surely being like the old conditions: slavery, sexual exploitation, etc.

> The fact you need to work for wealth is a convention of our constraints

The current constraint is "you need to produce to have things".

If one company's AI takes all the jobs, and thus does all the producing-to-have-things, the constraint transforms into "you need that company's permission to have things".

Hence the top-level question.

>Thew would see us adapting to the new conditions in a relatively short while.

Say ~5 million jobs in the next 10 years are automated away, which industries do those people move to?

With college being exorbitantly expensive, that locks out many people from re-skilling in other fields.

As people race to other industries, that forces down wages because now there is a larger pool to select from.

How do we ensure people are taken care of when UBI is all but fiscally impossible in the US?

If you are speaking about the world, hundreds of millions in the next 5 years is probably closer to reality in my opinion. And from your question I think that you already know the answer.

Yes, this poses political problems and it will have to be hashed out politically. Again, the problems with these are political not necessarily technological. And they are also tractable. There are many many possible ways this can play out and we should be careful which we choose. I just don't think the conclusion is foregone. There have been people's jobs displaced in the past. And things settled eventually. I won't argue they settled for "better" because many people are unhappy about many things, but I will say... the world is amazing.

At the risk of sounding like a longtermist, I think that when all is done, the result will be a net positive one, but it WILL cause strife for many people - probably me included. But I refuse to keep my childern's future hostage because I might have to reskill.

I also find that interesting.

And not intending to defend the motives of anyone involved, but I'm hoping we can not worry about literally all jobs being destroyed, and AI companies amassing all the wealth in the world.

Don't we need at least some humans working and earning to buy these AI services? Am I not being imaginative enough? Is it possible for the whole economy to consist just of AI selling services to each other?

I realise that even if AI destroys most jobs, or even just a lot of jobs, and amasses most wealth, or a lot of wealth, it would still be a terrible thing for humans. The word "all" could have just been hyperbole, and it is still a valid point. I just want to know people's thoughts on whether entire replacement is possible.

Do you need ants buying services from humans for the world economy to function?

If AI will indeed become superintelligent, we won't matter.

It's a huge if and honestly I don't believe in it.

Actually, if it ends up like described, it really doesn't matter whether I believe in it. Either it happens and we all die, or it doesn't happen. Pascal's Wager I suppose.

Why keep human consumers to buy your services when you could just amass all the wealth you desire, and have autonomous systems that can ensure your unassailable physical security? You would sit atop the most stratified dominance hierarchy ever achieved, and it would reduce other humans to mere pets or breeding stock. I don’t think normal humans would desire that kind of power, and I don’t believe LLMs will take us there, but I wouldn’t put it past the perverted billionaire maniac.

Surely a Big Sur compound stocked with iodine and gold, protected by security goons fitted with exploding collars, is someone’s definition of paradise.

They could always visit lawnmower at the Lanai compound if they got bored of Big Sur.

Altman is an advocate of Universal Basic Income, as far as I'm aware. That doesn't sound like he's not worried about massive job losses.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sam-altman-universal-basic-inco...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sam-altman-wants-universal-ex...

> Altman is an advocate of Universal Basic Income

So he says. And the way he proposed reaching that was with a scam cryptocurrency under his control which has rightfully been banned in several countries.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-...

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi...

If there's one thing that's clear from the article, it's that he's a proponent of anything that will benefit him, even multiple conflicting things at the same time.

It would be absolutely astounding to read TFA and then continue to take this weasel and his word at face value.

It's easy to advocate for something when you know it's essentially impossible to implement.

Meaningfully?

Is there an advocacy arm of OpenAI pushing for legislation for UBI? Or is this like Musk's supposed support for UBI while also insisting that welfare payments to the poor are a bad thing?

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