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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

Let’s take AGI to its inevitable raw conclusion. Not by the definition (ab)used by clueless VCs screaming about abundance, but by what is already happening using the worst case:

The abundance of mass layoffs and job displacement due to funding and building of AI systems is the true definition of AGI.

We might as well get there faster instead of delaying it. You have already seen Oracle and Block attributing their layoffs to AI so it is happening right now.

So why delay any further and just get it over with.

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Get where faster? Get what over with?

Aren’t you talking about destroying livelihoods? Pushing people into poverty and/or homelessness? What is the benefit exactly?

I guess the argument would go that a new economic model will be required at that stage.

There isn't much point in having people do jobs they don't like which are trivial to automate just for money, but at the point where there isn't enough economically useful things for everyone to do, the current system falls down.

> What is the benefit exactly?

Well one benefit would be international competitiveness. The country that does it slowest will be the country doing more work for less output.

> but at the point where there isn't enough economically useful things for everyone to do

This assumes that for example a person who has been an artist for 20 years, can easily enough switch professions to a machinist, and the only reason for them not to do it is because the economy has no need for another machinist. An insane way to think. This is not how humans work.

Let me see any HN dweller go from their cushy home office to butchering animals for meat on 12-hour shifts for example... Oh and btw, no safety net to give you food, housing and healthcare while you learn the new craft!

> Let me see any HN dweller go from their cushy home office to butchering animals for meat on 12-hour shifts for example

I think that's the reality of lots of people when they face any redundancy situation - People take up jobs that they wouldn't traditionally want to do in order to survive or look after their family. I don't necessarily see why people on HN would be different.

> I guess the argument would go that a new economic model will be required at that stage.

> ...but at the point where there isn't enough economically useful things for everyone to do, the current system falls down.

Not necessarily. To quote the Bobs from Office Space: "He won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it will just work itself out naturally." No need to change, just let the plebs die out.

The paper is suggesting such a new economic model. Do you have a another proposal?

Well, the paper suggests taxing businesses who automate which is more like trying to continue the current economic model by reducing the use of AI.

I suspect if the 'AI-Maximalists' are true, it will need to be a more fundamental rewrite (e.g. UBI, Socialism etc)

Exactly!

As of now, there is no benefit to regular working people. Perhaps in the future, great abundance will occur, but as of now, there will only be job loss, fear, neo-luddism, and blame.

Believe me when I say that I know people, some close to me, that are experiencing fear due to automated systems being installed and tested where they work. They are essentially witnessing start of their automated replacement robot workforce.

Whatever is planned in terms of AI being used to help people needs to happen, sooner rather than later, because all I am seeing is chaos in the horizon.

(⧘⟃⨅⟄⧘)≋≋≋⦻

I am thoughoughly unconvinced that the “AI-based layoffs” are actually caused by AI displacing workers and aren’t just regular layoffs caused by other factors with a smokescreen of “Actually we’re laying people off because we’re doing really well, please don’t dump your stock”.

The article is saying that the solution here isn’t to just throw up our hands and commit suicide as a nation, it’s to simply tax the AI, punishing the negative externality.

Seems like the obvious answer to the prisoner’s dilemma problem where everyone wants to lay off their workforce, but expects that they’ll be the only ones to get this bright idea.

What’s a bit hard for me to rationalize here is why are market shifts considered a negative externality here? We didn’t tax moulding machines because they reduced the demand for sculptors.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the end goal of “Tax those who can pay for it to build a social safety net” is reasonable, I just don’t buy the “negative externalities” argument.

Well because if you don't do something then everyone loses their jobs, and then there's no more consumers, and then the economy implodes, and then everyone dies, including the people utilitizing AI.

It's kind of similar to how nobles fucked themselves in the middle ages. One would think having a lot of serfs is good, but no actually. Having a functioning economy would be better, and in the long run feudal economies stagnated.

And that's why I, today, am effectively much more rich than a feudal lord.

> We didn’t tax moulding machines because they reduced the demand for sculptors.

AI isn't promising to be one machine, it's promising to be a general intelligence that could potentially send unemployment over 50%. We're talking about every truck driver, every warehouse worker, basically everyone who sits in front of a screen for a living being unemployed. This really changes things from 'social safety net' to 'prevent civil unrest that threatens continuity of government.'

> it’s to simply tax the AI, punishing the negative externality.

That "simply" is working overtime here.

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