Astro Hacker News - AI Zillionaires Are Starting to Get Scared as the Public Turns Against Them

wturner |next [-]

Incentives and consequences mold society. The extreme rich have a near monopoly on the incentives that create government policy via their economic power. They're above the law. Using whatever means the public has to impose consequences on them is all that's left over. A rapist is the president they rallied behind. They should be afraid.

jqpabc123 |next |previous [-]

From a societal perspective, AI is a means to transfer wealth from employees to AI vendors.

Only 2 small problems:

1) Employees are slowly catching on to the scheme.

2) AI doesn't buy the products that AI produces.

Basically, AI is capitalism gone wild. The obvious antidote is socialism --- the forced sharing of the wealth that AI is intended to accumulate and concentrate.

cyanydeez |root |parent |next [-]

3) AI produces black swan events every n runs and eats up a significant portion of the gaina.

ahartmetz |root |parent |next [-]

I wouldn't call them black swan events. LLM oopsies are a couple orders of magnitude more likely than black swan events.

jqpabc123 |root |parent |previous [-]

Reliability and competence (or the lack thereof) is a real issue but separate from the societal impact.

cyanydeez |root |parent [-]

i dont think those thing are separate because people are using it to make critical decisions.

general1465 |root |parent |previous [-]

> 2) AI doesn't buy the products that AI produces.

Yes, this is a point I am trying to get across so many times and people can't comprehend that if everyone automates employees away, then your customers will disappear because they won't have money to buy stuff, because they don't have wage, because they were automated out of their job. Now nobody can buy your goods or services, you are going bankrupt as well.

The AI in Sam Altman's vision is completely short-circuiting every aspect of capitalist economy.

watwut |root |parent [-]

I think that they don't care. They wont go bankrupt. They will keep what they have, which is a lot already. A stagnant world with few rich who can do whatever and many poor does not bother them, it is the goal. They already got theirs.

jqpabc123 |root |parent [-]

They already got theirs.

Yes, but the system they're building is unsustainable. What they've got can be taken away. It's been done before.

bluefirebrand |root |parent [-]

They don't believe it can be

They think they can hide far enough away, or hire enough muscle or eventually build autonomous drone defenses that don't rely on other people, to keep themselves safe

They might even be right

jqpabc123 |root |parent [-]

They don't believe it can be

Then they are truly naive.

Living in isolation is not really practical and not much fun even if it was.

bluefirebrand |root |parent [-]

I agree, but what are you gonna do

cyanydeez |previous [-]

thats what, like 5 people? Instead of doing what capitalists and fascists do, should we just like humanize them? Point out there's like 5 people who are amassing so much power (eg, if a bank loans you a few billions, that's the banks problem) that they're scared?

bluefirebrand |root |parent [-]

I don't really have that much sympathy for the richest people around

"Oh no I could just take a tiny fraction my money and enjoy a retirement wealthier than any human ever has, but instead I have to keep buying businesses to run into the ground and politicians to change society so I can continue to amass all the wealth"

Frankly the problem is that these people are never satisfied. Elon Musk is a fucking trillionaire and he is still out there fucking around in politics as if he needs to keep making more money? Why?

cyanydeez |root |parent [-]

you dont need sympathy, but empathy and then realize if we eat the rich, thats like maybe 10 cannabals. thebrest of us will be fine.

think of it like the difference between congress, supreme court and donald trump.