alt Hacker NewsI vehemently disagree that meta or airbnb have done more to benefit society than not, but I'll take the overall argument; that technology, on the whole, benefits society overall.
Which is true, on the long term. But we have no reason to believe that AI will be different in that case. In the short term, technologies have absolutely been used to exploit the average person; the industrial revolution benefited us all over time, but tell that to the kids killed in early industrial manufacturing centers.
Look at how the transition to globalization went in the 80's-10's; entire sections of the US were essentially shut down because of the improvements in communication technology, and unless you're in support of the current state of the US, you'd agree we're still dealing with the consequences of that.
Even in your own case, there's an argument to be made that CFCs meant the overall damage to humanity was greater than the ice trade, just spread out over more people. The exploitation was similar, but it was less visible. Even if we've eventually reached a point where people were better off, you can't argue that the health of the average person was never exploited for the benefit of the few.
To be clear, I'm not separating myself from this; I'm fully aware that work I've done has displaced people. I'm just chafing against the moralizing around it. It feels like the people making these arguments are trying to remove themselves from responsibility while continuing to build on top of companies like Amazon, that are built on top of exploiting people that absolutely cannot advocate for themselves.
We agree for the first few sentences! I’m a huge proponent for AI displacement taxes because of the rapid pace of acceleration and a lack of confidence that our economies reabsorption mechanisms are adequate.
If your claim is that in the short term there are negatives caused by innovation, then… well yeah! There is no such thing as a free lunch, and it’s exceedingly rare to ever have pure upside in anything ever. Life is a series of trade offs and hard decisions. The Industrial Revolution literally lifted a significant portion of the population out of poverty, and also hurt children in the beginning. I’m very glad we have child labor laws that are strict and well enforced. If your claim is that the Industrial Revolution was a net negative because children died, I would like for you to pull up the chart of child mortality from before and after the Industrial Revolution and go ahead and tell me what you see.
On the other hand, I think lots of people over index on the harms caused because it’s so easy to. You’ve clearly thought at length about quantifying the harm of big tech and your work. But have you ever quantified the positive impact? You can rationalize the tradeoffs of your actions without moralizing the harms you caused.
It’s not okay for children to die in factories, but without those factories far more would’ve died from illness, hunger, etc.