Debate me, AI will negatively impact society.

[Mu_]

Atleast in the sort term with no intervention, say the upcoming 3-5 year if it becomes very proficient.

I'm looking for some strong counter points to what I wrote, since I believe if there isn't intervention/rejection of AI from the general public or government that there will be a noticeable increase in peoples inability to provide for themselves.

I think it could be argued and maybe I'm wrong or partially wrong that there is only so much time and money people have to consume a product or buy basic needs. There's already a log of stuff that people have allotted their time to in relation to consumable products or products they need for basic survival and these can't budge much for the average person. Maybe its 5-10 hours a week of time towards games, movies and shows, and then everyone pays for heat/electricity water/cloths/transportation etc.. Now that time nor need will grow, a persons day only allows so much and the human body only requires so much.

Now without AI  games, movie, and shows require lets say 100 people to make and costs 1 million. Now if Ai can lets say improve that process so that it can be done with 50 people who are yes using AI as well to make those gains, thats 50 people not doing that. Now if those 50 people who lost jobs, then go and make movies/games/shows with AI as well or not, there is now 2x more content, with consumers who have a limited amount of time and money to purchase that. If the price is the same, there's now 2x more shows to watch which people dont have the budget for nor the time. Now maybe the amount it costs goes down for consumers because it costs less to make and the people who are making it can sell it for less while making the same, there isn't enough of peoples time to consume and pay for the new content that would be coming out and even if there was, there would be that much more ads/marketing/junk out there to get through to find what you want, which again takes again more time to find.

So, its the consumers time and budget that will make it harder for people who lost jobs from AI to make the same they were before. And this I think is true in area's like marketing, book keeping, insurance adjusters, artist, banking, healthcare, clothing producers, car manufactures, electronic manufactures, maybe electric/water and all sorts of fields where an AI can improve output or efficiency whether by itself or with another human by 20-50%.

For example lets say your in insurance or banking, and are let go because AI+your coworker can do his and your job.  Now proponents of AI will say, these people can now go work for someone else or themselves using AI to earn a living doing something similar.  But most people already have a bank and insurance.  New upstarts are going to have a harder time getting into the space of insurance or banking because people already use/trust the ones they are using and only have so much of a need for one (and this is true in so many industries).  Lets say Bank of America has 100 employees and makes 1 million a year.  If they reduce their workforce by 50%, they instantly increase their profit margin.  Now lets say those 50 people who lost their jobs start America's Bank, they are competing with Bank of America for the same amount of consumers who have the same amount of money/need/budget.  There's no way that they can both be as profitable as before with the same amount of consumers with the same budgets and needs.  Most likely what will happen is BoA will charge the same, maybe lose 10-30% of its userbase, and make that much more money because its making double than it was before because of half the workforce costs (not exactly accurate to reality, but works for this thought experiment), but America's Bank in trying to get new customers will charge less and as a result will all make less. This in turn means that there wont be enough need for people to do these jobs or part of the population doing these jobs will earn less and will result in more people needing outside assistance.  

 

Edited September 17 by Mu_

[Fearey]

Lost jobs seems to me a non-issue when you realize the potential upsides in productive output. In a world where humans are no longer needed for most kinds of labor, you simply won't have to get up in the morning if you don't want to. You can pursue whatever you want, whenever you want.

AI seems to me to be the natural next step in our evolution, and it also seems the only way to solve world hunger, large-scale wars and climate change. Every physical need being taken care of however, is going to be a very radical change for most people, and a large portion of people are going to need to learn to find meaning within themselves. I see depression rates skyrocketing as a result, but also an increased level of life satisfaction for the average person.

We already have the technology to automate the overwhelming majority of jobs out there, the cost-effectiveness just isn't there yet for businesses to be willing to implement this technology on a wide scale.

 

I think it's unfortunate that so many people are afraid of this technology.

Edited September 16 by Fearey

[Leo Gura]

This is how technology has always worked.

Email made the mailman broke.

In order to make a living in life requires constant adaptation to new technological environments.

You can't just expect to be safe as a mailman forever. That's not how life has ever worked.

The #1 rule of life: Adapt or die.

It is your job to get on the winning side of every new technology. And if you don't, don't be surprised when you end up screwed.

Edited September 16 by Leo Gura

[Staples]

Will you complain when robots replace all the sweatshop slaves? 

The sooner basic needs-meeting can be automated the better, so we can all get on with self-actualization.

Edited September 16 by Staples

[Carbon]

2 hours ago, Fearey said:

it also seems the only way to solve world hunger, large-scale wars and climate change

Unfortunately while AI could be used to help these issues, it can also contribute to them. AI is being used for oil extraction. AI is contributing to new arms races. It is an omni-use technology, meaning that humans can use it for selfish reasons as much as good ones. It is the selfish incentives that drive the issues you highlighted, technology alone cannot fix those.

[Carbon]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It is your job to get on the winning side of every new technology. And if you don't, don't be surprised when you end up screwed.

Do you really believe this is possible for everyone? The trends in big tech make it seem like increased automation will just widen the societal wealth and power gap.

 

25 minutes ago, Staples said:

Will you complain when robots replace all the sweatshop slaves? 

Maybe. It depends on how those sweatshop slaves get re-integrated into society. Will their lives be better? Will new work replace them? Or will they be forgotten?

[ici]

AI made the intelligent broke.

[Ishanga]

Look Up Resource Based Economy or Jacques Fresco, his whole concept of Society is that AI controls the Resources in a way that everyone is provided the basics, as well as AI designs proficient and efficient/effective designs for cities, manufacturing, and everything it takes for Us to not have to be slaves to the Dollar, once everything is basically provided, crime will go down. I know this will not work for this generation or the next, but the ones after it can easily work, its just matter of adaption.. Once work is being done by AI/Robots, we can do what we are meant to do, find ourselves, what sort of creative work we want to really do, if You think You were born to go to the job you hate to go to. this is not so...

[Carbon]

12 minutes ago, Ishanga said:

Jacques Fresco

I am actually reading his book right now! The Best That Money Can't Buy. I just got to the AI and automation part so I am interested to see. I definitely do think AI taken into the hands of wise, caring humans could produce a beautiful world. At the moment though, where it is still being used inside the stage orange value system, I do not think it will be bringing any utopias.

[DocWatts]

AI 'will' negatively impact society? It's already happening.

We're already in the midst of an epistemological crisis, due in large part to the algorithms of social media platforms that are siphoning people into echo chambers, fueling polarization, and pushing dangerous political extremism. (Of which Trump is a direct beneficiary, the MAGA cult wouldn't have exploded in the way that is had without the algorithm driven radicalization pipeline)

This has been having a disastrous effect on the civil societies that sustain our democracies, since people are increasingly living in incommensurable Realities. This has made it pretty much impossible to reach a foundational consensus for productive disagreements.

Edited September 17 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Carbon said:

Do you really believe this is possible for everyone?

Of course no.

[gettoefl]

10 hours ago, ici said:

AI made the intelligent broke.

AI killed IQ just like buggles killed the radio star (top song from 1980)

[Scholar]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course no.

Then it cannot be the fault of individuals for not being able to survive, which you just implied, as a way to excuse the dangers of this technology and dismiss it's negative impact.

[Mu_]

17 hours ago, Fearey said:

Lost jobs seems to me a non-issue when you realize the potential upsides in productive output. In a world where humans are no longer needed for most kinds of labor, you simply won't have to get up in the morning if you don't want to. You can pursue whatever you want, whenever you want.

AI seems to me to be the natural next step in our evolution, and it also seems the only way to solve world hunger, large-scale wars and climate change. Every physical need being taken care of however, is going to be a very radical change for most people, and a large portion of people are going to need to learn to find meaning within themselves. I see depression rates skyrocketing as a result, but also an increased level of life satisfaction for the average person.

We already have the technology to automate the overwhelming majority of jobs out there, the cost-effectiveness just isn't there yet for businesses to be willing to implement this technology on a wide scale.

 

I think it's unfortunate that so many people are afraid of this technology.

Basically what I'm saying is lost jobs are inevitable if AI levels up and integrates into the fabric of society more.  This isn't a certain yet, and all sorts of integration issues and resistances can happen along the trajectory, but it does seem more likely than not that those that are currently in power and investing towards the AI revolution will dictate the first evolutions of this change which will be to let AI into their workspaces to improve efficiency and as a result people will lose their jobs.  

What your talking about is a long term potential which sure may happen and I hope does, but the truth is, world hunger, large scale war and climate solutions have been around for a while, its the implementation and the acceptance of these plans and who it impacts that has always been the issue.

16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is how technology has always worked.

Email made the mailman broke.

In order to make a living in life requires constant adaptation to new technological environments.

You can't just expect to be safe as a mailman forever. That's not how life has ever worked.

The #1 rule of life: Adapt or die.

It is your job to get on the winning side of every new technology. And if you don't, don't be surprised when you end up screwed.

Yes there will be some or many winners in this revolution which as you point out is not the first time, but it will most likely (hope I'm wrong) benefit those at the top of the food chain the most in the short term.  I do see some potential for the average to the little guys to make it big in the short term if they are at the cusp of riding this wave, but once there is a mass implementation of AI into a wide range of industries, there will be a lot of workers needing assistance.   When this happens, its going to get interesting because how will the government respond when theres 10-20% unemployment and its pretty obvious that its due to implementation of AI, how will the stock market respond, how will the general public feel and what kinda pushback will happen.  I really could see this happening in the next 3-5 years if there isn't a forward thinking action plan towards such.

All that said, AI isn't there yet, and may never will be, but it looks like the potential is there......

[_Archangel_]

3 hours ago, Mu_ said:

Yes there will be some or many winners in this revolution which as you point out is not the first time, but it will most likely (hope I'm wrong) benefit those at the top of the food chain the most in the short term.  I do see some potential for the average to the little guys to make it big in the short term if they are at the cusp of riding this wave, but once there is a mass implementation of AI into a wide range of industries, there will be a lot of workers needing assistance.   When this happens, its going to get interesting because how will the government respond when theres 10-20% unemployment and its pretty obvious that its due to implementation of AI, how will the stock market respond, how will the general public feel and what kinda pushback will happen.  I really could see this happening in the next 3-5 years if there isn't a forward thinking action plan towards such.

in a proper State, those workers will be given welfere until they find a new occupation, providing courses etc. so that they can find a job in fields that are not completely AI-based. Unemployment is a lose/lose situation for both State and workers.

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Scholar said:

Then it cannot be the fault of individuals for not being able to survive, which you just implied, as a way to excuse the dangers of this technology and dismiss it's negative impact.

In the end whether you survive or not is your responsibility. It's not about fault, it's about understanding how survival works.

[Basman]

My understanding is there is a general agreement that the future job market will be increasingly smaller and more fluid with time due to automation. There will be an increasing demand on people to adapt and be creative to meet demand. Our current economic system is dependent on people buying stuff with the money earned from work but if no one has work then no one has the money to buy stuff. Eventually this system will no longer be sufficient as is without adapting. The aftermath of that might be very positive, a kind of post-scarcity society for example but it is hard to predict the what exactly. The process to get there however, within our life times, will probably be awkward and wrought with difficulty. It probably has to get worse before it gets better in my opinion.

When it is no longer possible to ignore the problem of a stagnating economy is when we'll we'll try something else. Humans are bad at proactively finding solutions to systemic problem in my opinion and only change when they can no longer ignore the pain so to speak. It has to become a little bit too late before you'll see change, which is the idea behind accelerationism more or less (plus increasing the intensity of the problem to make it happen faster).

The silver lining though is that when job security is zilch in our future job market with automation then there is no longer an incentive to pick job security over passion, especially if the only way to have "job security" is by being world class at a niche (which is when passion becomes essential).

I've heard talk of perhaps temporarily halting AI development to give society time to adjust to the changes at one point but I don't know how wise that would be. It would also probably be difficult to pull of with competing interests.

Edited September 17 by Basman

[Mu_]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

In the end whether you survive or not is your responsibility. It's not about fault, it's about understanding how survival works.

Im not an expert on these matters but I do feel like there is something unique about AI and how it can have sweeping effects on so many industries at once, not just the steam engine or a single invention that impacts one industry more so than another.

For example I could try and predict how to survive right now and go into programming or robotics.  This is a 5+ year commitment just to get at a potential even playing field with the average of workers, not the top level kinda guy, and by that time those jobs are the ones best done by AI.  Or become a great knowledgeable truck driver, nope, those jobs may be noticeably impacted by self driving and robotics, accounting.... nope easily replaceable by AI, or a high level math, biology and physics major, sorry within 5-6 years it takes me heavily investing those at the mid to top will be using AI and be well above what I could achieve by then (I could get lucky or become surprisingly good, but realistic chances we are talking).

Funny enough I think the safest fields assuming we aren't dealing with a horrible economy do to this rapid change before it gets corrected, is trade industries like plumbers, hvac, electricians, builders.  

All that said, AI isn't there yet, and its just theory at this point.

[ici]

It would take some time before ai/robotics could replace blue-collar jobs.

[LoseYourvelf]

Debate over