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Comment by solenoid0937 | Hacker News Reader

> UBI isn't coming

I would tell them this is the problem to fix. Taking your anger out on AI is the most shortsighted thing. When faced with a powerful new capability, disavowing the capability instead of enabling society to leverage it is absurd.

AI is fundamentally the automation of labor, and we can all see the incredible fruits we all reap from similar past leaps in capability.

Structure your society for a post-labor world. Don't halt the progress that has dramatically improved the human condition. To do so is a disservice to the species and all future humans - concretely, your own loved ones and especially your children.

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> Don't halt the progress that has dramatically improved the human condition.

You clearly accept this as Progress, but isn't the core debate here that it doesn't improve life for humans?

You can't say a technology isn't improving life for humans, what, just 4 years into the introduction of the technology? That is not even the blink of an eye.

Does literally no one look at things from a historical perspective? The history of automation is right there on the Internet, for you to peruse at will.

What makes you so confident that it is improving life for humans? Are you seeing any specific signs yet?

If we only waited 4 years for any given technology to improve the human condition before abandoning it, we'd be in the Stone Age.

Theoretically, if a technology came along that destroyed the human condition in a four year time frame, your "let's wait longer than four years and see" philosophy would kill us all.

Okay, but you have no basis to assume a technology that automates labor will do that given your priors (previous technologies that have automated general labor en masse). In other words, the FUD is not based in anything, whereas the optimism most certainly is.

I'm not trying to argue whether AI is good or bad. I'm only pointing out the flaw in your philosophy.

Like, there will one day be a technology invented that could indeed wipe us all out in 5 years. On a long enough timeline, it's a certainty that someone will come up with such a thing. And when it comes, there will be people such as yourself saying "no technology has ever wiped us out before, therefore this one won't either". And then it will wipe us out, and there will be no one left to say "well I guess this time was the exception".

No, you don't seem to be reading my words because you have a preconceived notion of what I'm saying.

I'm not saying all technology is good. I never said that.

I'm saying automating labor is good. All of my arguments have been specifically scoped to the automation of labor.

I didn't say you said all technology was good. I'm addressing the part of your argument where you point to past events as evidence that the automation of labor will always continue to be good in the future. I used an extreme example to show that one day, if a new technology that automates labor is actually a net negative for society, your philosophy won't catch it. It will slip right through.

To spell it out so we don't keep going around in this circle: it's worth looking at indicators other than the past to judge a technology's benefit to the labor force.

If a technology is improving life for a handful of people (that you happen to be part of)

but making it measurably worse for vastly more people

can you really say that that technology is "improving life for humans"?

> but making it measurably worse for vastly more people

It isn't.

Quit your job if you believe this. After all your salary is holding back the glorious future!!

Why? I'll gladly wait to be automated away, and when I eventually am I will embrace it. I certainly won't be whining about it. This is just the cost of progress. That cost doesn't magically stop applying in 2026.

I don't have anger against AI. I am a disgusted by the companies rolling it out.

UBI also won't fix things. A post ai world that the us tech ceos want us to imagine is not a utopia. The us manufacturers almost nothing on the world scale. Our biggest contributors to the world economy were things like farm goods(which are in peril), fuel (which most countries are trying to phase out for environmental and recent geopolitical issues), software which will be commoditized through AI. Anything the us can manufacture China can do better, cheaper, and faster. It's not been in our culture for decades, and our infrastructure is shoddy.and will be shoddier once data centers spin up and more wealth is concentrated to people who do not pay any taxes.

GenZ and those coming after have no chance at a sustainable life if the billionaires get what they are asking for. Also in a capitalist society asking them to sacrifice their lives for the good of others is hilarious. Especially if there is no foreseeable good to come after.

Your imagining of a post AI world seems very shortsighted. Automation of labor enables the curing of most diseases and Dyson swarm type futures.

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