alt Hacker NewsYou operate within the "logic" of capitalism, where no other value exists but the (short term) economic one.
AI indeed goes far beyond "autocomplete" and other nonsense. But the question is, whether it's a good idea to just let the "market" run wild with it.
Short-term capital interests don't align with the public good. AI greatly scales capability, but without anything to restrain it, that implies those non-aligned interests overwhelming society's defenses, outright destroying it in the process.
The idea of rich people being some kind of benevolent caretakers, who independently and dependably foresee and manage the consequences of their actions in everybody's best interest, is laughably wrong already.
With AI, that reality gap will swallow whatever is left.
Replies
The market is irrelevant. In the 28 centuries of recorded history, the human race has pursued power in it's various forms (political, military or economic), without regard to the "public good" (which is really, just a polite euphemism for the established order and those that benefit for it).
Without capitalism, you wouldn't be able to restrain AI adoption any more than the armored knights of the middle ages were able to restrain the adoption of the firearm.
Capitalism isn't the most palatable economic system, it's the one that best matches the reality of nature (competition)
I think the vast majority of the rich are greedy bastards, but IMO being rich does not imply greedy bastard 100% of the time.
> You operate within the "logic" of capitalism, where no other value exists but the (short term) economic one.
I operate within the logic of how the world actually works.
Which I find infinitely more useful for practical topics like the reality of AI development in a global economy.
Fantasizing about alternative realities where all the leaders of the world unite and halt technology development without any of them secretly defecting and developing it further isn’t very useful to discuss. These things aren’t going to happen.