This has been a pathology in the computer/software industry for a very long time. It's never been actually true except in a couple of special cases, but the industry acts as if it is. That has led to all sorts of bizarre and undesirable things.
> Guys, what the heck are we doing??
I think we're playing with fire and, without extreme caution and careful consideration (which I'm not seeing much of), this could end very, very badly for both the industry and society.
I have always been optimistic about technology and society, but (perhaps like you), my optimism has largely evaporated over the last several weeks. I wish the future didn't look so dark. Perhaps, though, things will look less gloomy with time.
If that perception is accurate, it's really hard to see how this can lead to anywhere that isn't much worse for most people.
If that perception is not accurate, people will still be upset by what looks like an existential threat to them, and if there's economic disruption for any unrelated reason, they will blame AI.
Either way, I'm really struggling to see a good outcome from any of this. I'm not saying ChatGPT is bad, but I think the rollout of it has been done in a way that is incredibly insensitive, reckless and damaging.
It's very easy to see that, actually. Consider the problem statement again: economy is becoming more productive overall because we now have robots that can do some things that previously required people. This means that we can generate more total wealth for the same effort as before. That this translates to people being worse off, somehow, is a problem with the distribution of that generated wealth, not the ability to produce it. Even a sensible implementation of UBI could fix the most immediate problem, and I think we're looking at much bigger shifts in our economic system within the next couple decades.
Exactly so.
> Even a sensible implementation of UBI could fix the most immediate problem
Which is simply not in the cards. The people who have the wealth are absolutely not going to give it away, because wealth equals power and they want power.
So what is more likely to happen is that the very wealthy will become fewer in number, and much wealthier, and everyone else will become poorer (in absolute, not relative terms) due to the reduction in the amount of jobs available that pay a living wage.
> I think we're looking at much bigger shifts in our economic system within the next couple decades.
Perhaps so -- but you can't ignore the serious harm between now and then.
The bigger political problem in US specifically is just how hostile the public opinion is to anything that "stinks" of socialism. There's also the perception that AI is automating away "useless" white collar jobs, and not "real man's work". The right-wing intelligentsia who tries to sell UBI to their electorate is having a hard time getting past that, but I don't think it's insurmountable with the right approach, and it's also much less of an issue in most other countries. In any case, I think attitudes will change very quickly once more people outside of tech and art get first-hands experience with job loss, if not for themselves than for someone they know.
The harm between now and then is serious and real, yes. I just don't see any feasible way to prevent it through regulation, not to mention that it would face just as many political hurdles. We have already jumped; let's not waste time trying to flap our arms to see if that works, and try to arrange for a safe landing instead.
That would be nice. I sincerely hope that we can swing that. I just don't see a realistic path for it. And almost everything that I've been hearing the enthusiasts say just makes everything seem more hopeless.
But I'm very much hoping that I'm wrong. At this point, hoping is the only thing I have the power to do.
So, regardless of one's ethics and political philosophy, we have a very strong collective interest as an economic class to prevent this scenario. Most of us don't have any more direct political power than your average voter, but we can throw more money at the politicians. In my experience, this doesn't help one bit with "wedge issues", but this all is so new that nobody has managed to weaponize it across political lines just yet.
In tech world the cost for R&D/design/code is generally much larger then continuous code. That means that it's extremely expensive to have 1 user, but really cheap to have 1M users.
Thus winner-takes-all makes sense, as company who is ahead can continue developing/designing at a cheaper price as opposed to company with no users.
- Customers were only willing to walk so far to go to a bakery
- A store could only stock so many varieties on it's shelves
Now, the cost of distributing goods across the globe, and the incremental cost of creating new goods has shrunk to virtually zero for digital goods, combined with people's general hesitance to the friction of switching providers, creates a the natural "winner take all" effect
The places where you'll see this NOT happening are areas where those costs are still significant for some reason.
Examples:
- Different ride sharing services are popular in different countries, many of them local ones, since foreign companies had a harder time getting distribution started.
- Legal regulations also have been hindering the spread of payment companies across country-level borders
Without this the gravity is much less powerful. Seems like where to focus if you want to empower people against the winner take all monopoly effect.
Areas where switching costs are low are areas where you have standard APIs and where your data resides locally, is easy to move, or are not data intensive at all.
Sure, but look who is over there in the corner next to OpenAI: Microsoft with their $10B stake. The company that was the winner prior to Google being a winner.
Basically, with tech, you can build a product with a very limited amount of people and resources with a potentially infinite customer base. And this means that this product can suck up money from the whole world and redirect it into the hands of very few. At its essence, this is the case. With tech, this phenomena is exacerbated to the extreme compared to other industries where more physical resources and labor are required to scale production and distribution of the product, which means more wealth getting spread.
At its core, tech has the potential to exacerbate wealth inequality in mind-boggling proportions.
Our current economic system is not made for tech.
A single barrel of oil is estimated to replace about 5-10 years of a human's effort in pure energy terms. Our human ability in physical terms was already significantly obsoleted by that.
AI feels like the discovery of cheap oil but for mental effort.
At the same time, oil is getting more and more expensive and energy intensive to drill (and costly to the environment to use).
AGI will focus primarily on problems that can be mostly solved within digital worlds where it can cycle incredibly fast. Building software, finance, paperwork, etc, etc It will eventually evolve to design, control, and operate physical systems, but will need humans to intervene and fix systems (hybrid).
The human economy will built on experiences that are explicitly, and intentionally void of computers. Restaurants, guided tours, exploration, etc, etc.
However, even if humans remain dominant (political power-wise), eventually there will probably be fake humans/cyborgs, like Cylons in Battle Star Galactica, that can do everything humans can but better. And also provide human-level experiences. Impossible to know how long this will take though.
Tech might bring more inequality, but what is the problem with it if it substantially increases everyones standard of living?
Will backfire at one point if it continues.
"Tech might bring more inequality, but what is the problem with it if it substantially increases everyones standard of living?"
The problem is that ultimately, wealth inequality decreases the standard of living for most people. There are a finite amount of resources. This world we live in is finite. And these resources are being concentrated at the top, in the hands of a few, which leads to less and less of these finite resources being available for more and more people. Although economics is of course complex to some degree, don't lose sight of this very simple mechanism because it is a reality.
"I would argue that is caused by regulatory capture and government interference (e.g. zoning laws) and not technological progress"
If by regulatory capture, you are referring to regulatory corruption influenced by lobbying, then yes, of course that is increasing wealth inequality, and thus decreasing standard of living. Regarding government interference - it's the exact opposite of what you say - proper government interference is what we need. Under current conditions our economic system is not distributing wealth properly. That much is evident and easy to see. And there will be worse living conditions under more stark wealth inequality as opposed to a more even distribution of resources. As mentioned, this world we live in is finite. If they are syphoned to the hands of very few individuals, this leaves less of these finite resources for the rest of human beings. And as mentioned, tech has contributed to accelerating this, for the reasons mentioned in my above post.
What this means is that improving the standard of living of the average person by 5% while improving it by 50% for a smaller population will hurt more than it helps.
Naturally this is disputed by those on the right and implicitly believed by those on the left.
See the book "The Spirit Level" and subsequent discussions around that for more info.
Or historically, if this wasn't true we would be the happiest humans to ever live on earth. Doesn't seem to be true on any possible metric.
You need a phone or computer these days to participate in society, to earn a living and so on and you buy these and further services from big tech.
If you can do it with limited resources, then so can anyone else.
(This is an oversimplification, of course)
"To those who have everything, more will be given, and from those who have nothing, everything will be taken."
I've found it exceptionally hard to stay positive about all of this. It almost feels as though the advent of LLMs has shined light on a fundamental law of the universe that does not work out in the little person's favor. It's like survival of the fittest on steroids. Guys, what the heck are we doing??