[ddod]

Whether it's the "singularity" or just software naturally improving over time and taking on more "thinking" work, there's going to be a huge and insurmountable unemployment problem in the near future. The market values human thought/labor to the extent that it's cheaper or more effective than an automated solution. When that isn't the case, you can fill in the blanks. That, to me, is the scary part of AI.

It doesn't sound like this project has any scope to address this practical concern, which to me, is largely economic. I don't see how universal access to AI puts food on the table.

[henrikschroder]

There are many dystopic future possibilities as automation eats jobs.

There's also a few positive ones, and I hope we can move towards them. One way would be to shift from taxation of human labour to taxation of the means of production. Another way is if access to quality of life products becomes so cheap that they require very little labour to earn.

If you extrapolate the progress of solar power, 3D printing, and synthetic meat, you can imagine a machine that is cheap to produce, but which would make each human completely self-sustainable. Not needing to work to put food on the table every single goddamn day would transform our society quite a lot in a positive way.

[bad_user]

I understand your angle, but relying on 3D printing and synthetic meat, probably from petroleum derivatives because 3D printing can't happen from thin air, in order to feed humans ... dude, to me that doesn't sound like a life that's worth living.

[henrikschroder]

Thin air contains all the carbon that plants get their bulk mass from...

Extrapolate further, imagine a machine that runs on solar power, and creates whatever food you want from water, carbon dioxide, and human poop. Essentially short-circuit the whole raise-crops-feed-cattle-slaughter-get-meat cycle. Make the food out of the machine perfectly nutricious as well, because why not.

There would still be things to strive for, to work for, if you want. But baseline survival is just taken care of. Sounds like a good future to me.

[bad_user]

In combination with sun light, the carbon taken from air provides the energy that plants need to grow, however plants also need minerals from a healthy soil.

When it comes to food, baseline survival is already taken care of in western countries and we are wasting about one third of the food we produce. It's not food that's the problem, but living space and forever rising health care costs.

But you know what the irony is? We don't know a thing about what constitutes a nutritious healthy diet, as the reductionist science we've been applying is not up for this task. Even more aggravating is that trying to shorten the "raise-crops-feed-cattle-slaughter-get-meat" cycle and do it on an industrial scale (by means of replacing sun's energy with fossil fuels and do it in concentrated operations) is precisely the root cause of many of the problems we find ourselves into.

As meddling with the things we ingest has given us the modern day diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease, not to mention that we're on the brink of going back to the dark ages due to the upcoming "antibiotics apocalypse".

And yet here you are, hoping that some future 3D printer will synthesize meat out of thin air, instead of fixing the real problems in our society, which is that we consume and waste too much from processes that aren't sustainable. But yeah, 3D printing will save us, seemed to work for Star Trek characters at least. Good luck with that mate.

[daveguy]

This is why I hope the experiment in Finland works out such that it is feasible to expand minimal guaranteed income to everyone. In our current state it is essentially fearmongering. The singularity will happen just like flying cars happened, but eventually there will be major social changes around more automation and less necessity for humans to work.

[reddytowns]

How about the experiment in Greece? Oh yea, I forgot, we're never supposed to mention that.

[toomuchtodo]

> It doesn't sound like this project has any scope to address this practical concern, which to me, is largely economic. I don't see how universal access to AI puts food on the table.

Benevolent AI dictator that runs farm machinery and food distribution networks?

I only half joke. At some point, we're going to need to ditch the puritanical bullshit that work is required, and realize that GDP as a metric is hogwash. Quality of life, happiness, those are what need to be measured and delivered on.

[ddod]

The problem with the benevolent AI idea is that it's not in the interest of anyone with power/money/production to create it.

That's why I agree with your second point of rethinking "work". Instituting a Universal Basic Income lets us keep capitalism while putting more power in the hands of consumers and not relying on the kindness of AI/strangers.

Otherwise, we'll continue to see an increase in wealth disparity until there's no longer any function of the market.

[henrikschroder]

The beauty of software is that it has a marginal cost of distribution of 0. All it takes is one altruistic person to make a piece of software that solves a problem, and then all of humanity can have that for free, forever.

However, looking at the current trends, it's clear that the owners of the hardware are going to be the gatekeepers and middlemen. If a benevolent AI that's working for you requires you to run it off of AWS/Google/Azure, power will be concentrated to them, and they will always be able to run a more powerful AI since they could utilize their entire hardware capabilities.

[toomuchtodo]

Cloud providers are so much smaller than the aggregate consumer computing devices out in the wild.

[toomuchtodo]

Agreed. But we're going to have to fight hard for a UBI.

[kobayashi]

It's not meant to do so.

The threat of superintelligent computing is a serious risk to humankind, and this threat magnifies if there are few AIs and those few are only accessible by the rich and/or powerful.

I imagine that Musk would rather live in a world in which superintelligent AI never comes into existence, but since he has no power to stop that future, this seems like the next best alternative.

[snowwrestler]

Jobs are being lost to automation--does that mean we can theorize that increasing total automation will result in decreasing total employment?

Probably not, because at large scales there is a positive correlation between automation and employment. That is, the nations with the most automation are also the nations that have developed the best employment. The U.S., for example, has much better employment than it did 100 years ago, and better than China today. China would love to have the economy of the U.S., automation and all.

[ddod]

That argument is like saying at the introduction of automobiles that cities with the most cars also have the most horses.

[snowwrestler]

No, because automation has been replacing jobs for 150 years now, and the positive correlation with job creation could not be more clear.

[Kiro]

You sound like the people protesting the industrial revolution. Automation of all jobs should be the end goal.