Ageed, the stakes of not doing this to appease some short term disruption is not worth the opportunity cost. Some might say we need better social support for lower wage jobs getting replaced by AI, but if we've learned anything from history is that humans (and especially gov) does not act until it was obvious it was needed yesterday.

I'm not willing to pretend that we'll somehow get basic income before the need and economic tradeoffs become very apparent. Democracy rarely ever works like that and the alternative isn't any prettier.

Regardless, like most tech/social evolution, we can't stop it even if we wanted to. Even if we try to slow it down it will probably just slow it down for some and build a bigger moat around the few with connections to power.

Except that’s not what’s happening right now. That’s just a list of flowery “might happen” ideas people can use to justify the disruption of society so some people can pad their bank accounts. If they cared they wouldn’t be focusing their attention on art/music.

We've been on this track before. Even more will be toiling in the dirt. Quite literally when AI takes every job that doesn't involve physical labor.

If you assume that an AI capable enough to replace all knowledge labor will simultaneously be forever incapable of designing commodity robots to let it also replace all physical labor, then sure.

Physical resources are limited and take time to ramp up regardless of how many smarts you have behind it. Knowledge work has significantly fewer barriers.

They will eventually come for it, but it will happen much slower.

How many jobs lost and how many created?

On this track, we continue to toil in the dirt, unless we figured out how to automate all the farming too. In fact, it looks like we're automatic all the fulfilling jobs and only leaving toil for the humans.

> we continue to toil in the dirt, unless we figured out how to automate all the farming

Who, on this forum, is forced "to toil in the dirt" for subsistence?

It seems like... everyone soon.

I am for the jobs that AI will provide!

Are as many jobs created as lost? People always assume this because it's been true in the past, but is that really enough reason to believe it will always be true going forward, especially when a technology threatens to upend so many types of jobs across so many industries all close to simultaneously?

And even if it were true, what's the quality of those new jobs? Sitting in front of a command line engineering "prompts"? Sounds more like a particularly dystopian sci-fi story than a bright future.

The answer to this entirely depends on who it is gets to hop on board the “free energy, solves diseases” train. If the tracks continue on the current American path of widening inequality and declining lifespans, I’m sure plenty of people would be happy to see the whole thing derail.

American innovation, and innovation of all countries flows through the world. Reactor designs, fiber optic cable, the internet, wikipedia. These are a few examples of the old world. The new world will feature new achievements that will unlock more prosperity.

Restating my point: prosperity for whom? The answer for the past 50 years has certainly not been “everyone” or even “most people” in wealthy countries like America.

> prosperity for whom? The answer for the past 50 years has certainly not been “everyone” or even “most people” in wealthy countries like America.

The poorest state in America, Mississippi, is richer than most of the world [1][2]. (No. 19, between the U.K. and New Zealand.) The post-war era experienced the largest and most broad-based increase in material prosperity in human history. Our poorest Americans saw real economic gains rivaling multi-generational ones for Rome's richest. If there is something that will kill us, it's ahistorical nihilism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

I would say that someone looking at all the problems that Mississippi has, while existing inside the richest country in human history, and saying “well, it’s not as bad as XYZ poor country” is a textbook example of the nihilism and failed imagination that has led us to wealth inequality and declining lifespans.

> someone looking at all the problems that Mississippi has, while existing inside the richest country in human history, and saying “well, it’s not as bad as XYZ poor country” is a textbook example of nihilism and failed imagination

I'm not saying there aren't problems. We're comparing medians. The poorest Mississippians struggles with problems on Maslow's hierarchy well above the median or even top quartile human.

So yes, we've been halfway better than nothing at distributing gains. That isn't an argument against change. But it is solid against arguing were should stall all progress until some imaginary threshold is met.

If we’re comparing medians, it’s far better to be born an average person the UK or New Zealand than Mississippi, where your risk of dying from childbirth, disease, or injury are far more guarded against, you have the right to paid time off, better labor protections, etc. This is another classic example of Americans mistaking the wealth of some small percentage of society for its general well-being.

Not all roads are paved, but everyone who accesses learning content on the internet is a beneficiary. Anyone who accesses youtube to learn a new skill is a beneficiary. The development of the train, a British technology I know, allowed the movement of massive freights for pennies compared to automobile traffic. That cost of transport allows food costs to be as low as they are in places that use trains. Which is everywhere. Technology facilitates the costs we have for subsistence.

This same sort of logic can be applied to a lot of things like Soviet style collective farms. A few Kulaks killed and starved is better for the Soviet Union. I just don't think it is a good argument.