Rockefeller, the “competition is sin” guy, sure that has nothing to do with greed. His philanthropy had a positive impact but he was still an unethical business person hellbent on stopping anyone else from making money on his turf
Because only people who aren't actually sorry spend their time saying sorry instead of doing the one thing that would actually help people – provide detailed information on what the hell is going on.
Similar to how AI assitants give you answer directly instead of making you search through walls of text. Generative UI builds the right interface based on the context and intent of the user.
You say this, but if the US actually expanded nationwide fiber like we were supposed to there would have been a whole lot of ditches to dig up and refill. Public works projects don’t have to be wasteful.
You may know this already, but we did lay the fiber already like we were supposed to have. Most of it just never got used until ~20 years later. Because corporations need to milk their profits.
> Also, if techno-feudalism accelerates and public purchasing power collapses, leading to the introduction of UBI
This always makes me laugh. What motivation would the oligarchs have to pay out UBI? If they can automate the labor who needs more mouths to feed? They’ll push undesirables into ghettos and start a slow genocide of starvation and disease.
Historically, such things have been brought about by extreme political violence, brought about by poverty. For instance, worker's rights (any at all, e.g. the right to go home every day) were a compromise between workers owning the workplaces (what workers demanded) and workers shooting their bosses to death every few weeks in frustration (what was actually happening at the time).
The industrial revolution feels like an imperfect analogy because industrial automation still required human labor to operate the machines. The premise of this paper is a regime where machines could also operate the machines.
Because, think about it. Let's assume techno-feudalism is complete. Every piece of infrastructure is going to have usage fees attached anyway. Everyone is using AI, so are you going to be the only one not using it? Of course you'll use it. It's a structure where everyone has to rely on a specific corporation's products to get anything done, meaning the wealth will automatically be absorbed back to them anyway. So why would they go out of their way to commit a massacre?
From a cost-benefit perspective, I think it's a terrible idea. In the case of a massacre, long-term instability makes it hard to build a supportive faction. But if you provide just the bare minimum to survive through UBI, the capitalists will gain a loyal faction that will act as their Red Guards to attack dissidents, which I think is much cheaper in the long run. There are already plenty of people who blindly defend corporations even when they do terrible things, right? In my opinion, UBI is simply the cheaper option. Historically speaking, post-massacre recovery has always ended up costing much more.
>It's a structure where everyone has to rely on a specific corporation's products to get anything done, meaning the wealth will automatically be absorbed back to them anyway. So why would they go out of their way to commit a massacre?
Isn't it obvious? Your existence is margin that they leave on the table. And for what reason if you have no real skills or anything to offer? You are a leech. You exist to consume. You create nothing in this new future. You have no value. You aren't even an asset. You are a liability.
And what you think they will fear instability that we will bring upon? We will be armed with sharpened sticks and a smattering of ar15s at best case, while we are targeted from orbit by automated precision ordinance. Imagine a war between two AI controlled nation states. One has to manage a population during this war, the other opted to cull its population early in the war and maximize all its resources into the war effort. Guess who wins that war every time and likely takes control of the planet.
>But if you provide just the bare minimum to survive through UBI, the capitalists will gain a loyal faction that will act as their Red Guards to attack dissidents, which I think is much cheaper in the long run.
Automatic gun turrets are even cheaper in the long run.
Every bit of money that circulates is absorbed by every part of the economy. For instance, 100% of money is used to buy cheese and flows to sellers of cheese.
Me too. Here is some history to back up how absurd the statement is.
In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay title "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren"
He predicted that in 2030, technology, productivity, capitalism would solve the economy. There would be so little work to do and so many resources that the average work week could just be 15 hours!
He wrote that once all us plebes were liberated from work, what we would face is humanities greatest problem. What purpose will we have with all this new found leisure time!
The user base on Hacker News has really gone down hill. Voting down my comment above has no basis in the guidelines or the strictly information content of post, and hence, I have to conclude people just vote down opinions they do not like.
I propose that voting on comments should have a required field addendum, so that before a vote can be cast, the voter has to type into the field the reason they are voting it up or voting it down.
I see things differently. This is a change unlike anything in the past. Back then, it didn't replace human intellectual activity. However, problems of increasing scale will continue to arise, and inevitably, issues will emerge that are too difficult to solve through the efforts of human communities alone.
The performance gap between free and paid AI models is massive. The resulting divide between children from low-income and high-income families is quite evident based on my observations in my country. It will only get harder to keep up.
I don't support UBI either. The fact that UBI is even being discussed means the market is broken. The problem is that in the current market, prices for freelance work tied to intellectual labor have been absolutely crushed by AI. Looking at indicators from Booth or the Korean freelance market, "middle-tier" jobs are disappearing. While currently established professionals remain unaffected for now, the volume of work has drastically decreased for developers or writers who are still building their reputations. There are statistics from Japan showing this as well. My workload has also decreased to a ridiculous extent. The so-called barbell structure is becoming entrenched.
The core issue is this: if that happens, how will society handle the dissatisfaction of such a massive number of people? If more than half the population are workers, there is no problem, but if more than half are unemployed, that is a serious issue. Income polarization is continuing to accelerate.
Because there are no aristocrats without slaves, capitalists need workers to elevate themselves. Wealth and power are strictly relative, and they need miserable ornaments to make themselves feel like "awe-inspiring beings." To confirm their own sense of superiority, capitalists require human spectators who look up to them while suffering in misery. Why else did ancient Rome unleash lions and gladiators in the Colosseum?
Later on, things made by humans will become expensive luxuries, while commoners like me will be fed UBI—the bare minimum bread for survival—along with cheap, AIslop.
If making money by learning a skill increasingly requires a longer time investment, you have to endure the period it takes to learn that skill and build a reputation, which is incredibly difficult for the average working class. It requires the financial backing of a wealthy family to afford a college degree, travel to academic conferences, and survive on low wages. And if someone can endure all that to build a reputation, it will naturally lead to a massive concentration of wealth at the very top.
Let me clarify one point I was trying to make. It is my belief nobody is going to give you UBI. I offered up Keynes prediction as a little bit of evidence about human nature. The United States could have easily built infrastructure and safety nets to feed all of its citizens. It could have easily provided a much improved welfare system, universal health care, and other social services. But it did not.
>The core issue is this: if that happens, how will society handle the dissatisfaction of such a massive number of people?
Looking through history books: not well. Not well at all. But with the course of things, it seems inevitable unless new leadership comes in and takes a huge 180 on policy.
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