[alwa]

Is it certain that impoverished people would weigh those potential consequences more heavily than being paid today?

For that matter, do we expect that the impoverished people the gp commenter refers to would resist, say, government-led efforts to compel their biometrics from them? [0]

[0] e.g. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2022/0425...

[croes]

Poor people would sell a kidney if the otherwise consequence is starvation.

That is not a good measure for the willingness of a decision

[alwa]

True, but does that mean the solution is to force the starvation because their choice to alleviate it was insufficiently willing for our tastes? At least they’ll starve with two kidneys, and we hope the would-be kidney recipient can get by on dialysis a while longer?

By all means let’s engineer a world where people are never faced with crappy choices. But people are living in the present, not the glorious future: Taking away the choice in this case doesn’t seem to fix the situation, and deprives people of a benefit they’d accept if you let them choose.

[croes]

But laying the cornerstone for a dystopian future doesn‘t help either.

By your logic we shouldn’t fight child labor or drug trafficking.

All that feeds people too.

[keybored]

> True, but does that mean the solution is to force the starvation because their choice to alleviate it was insufficiently willing for our tastes? At least they’ll starve with two kidneys, and we hope the would-be kidney recipient can get by on dialysis a while longer?

That’s not what anyone who objects to this thinks and you know it. Anyone who objects to people selling away something dear because they are poor want (1) those people to not be poor and (2) those other people to not prey on them. People are outraged when people are forced to drink dirty water—they are not outraged at desperate people for drinking dirty rainwater.

It’s a false choice.

> By all means let’s engineer a world where people are never faced with crappy choices. But people are living in the present, not the glorious future: Taking away the choice in this case doesn’t seem to fix the situation, and deprives people of a benefit they’d accept if you let them choose.

I’m Sam Altman and I approve this message.

[andy_ppp]

Everyone deserves food and political freedom in my opinion. We could probably do it too if we actually tried.

[alwa]

I agree! I think what rubbed me was the idea that the people taking Altman’s deal “do not know the consequences of what they are doing.”

Down that road lies a paternalistic flavor of charity, a spirit of “protecting them from themselves.” And that seems to evoke the idea that poor is the same as ignorant. That there’s only one correct value to assign to your biometric data, and anyone who values theirs differently must do so because they’re ignorant, rather than just having different values from you.

We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.

[lurk2]

> We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.

Sam Altman has a far greater capacity for agency than an impoverished Filipino signing away his biometric data for the price of a Domino’s pizza.

[immibis]

If I tell you to give me your money or I'll kill you, by your reasoning it is good for you that you gave me the money. You are completely ignoring the situation that I set up where you had to do a bad thing to protect yourself from an even worse thing, and that you'd be even better off if some guy killed me so that I couldn't kill you.

[keybored]

People are selling things that should be inalienable, ostensibly because they really need to. The most immediate, glaring problem is that they are poor. This can be answered:

> > Is it certain that impoverished people would weigh those potential consequences more heavily than being paid today?

The answer is: No, it is not certain. Why? Because they are poor.

Poor people have less agency. That’s just a fact. And they are being preyed upon by Altman. Making this about whether poor Filipinos are making an informed agreement with an AI bro is tone-deaf.

[Disposal8433]

Poor people are not ignorant, they are desperate though. And that's why using their private data is despicable.