[vintagedave]

Comments so far miss the point of this story, and likely why it was posted today after the MJ Rathbun episode. It is not about digitised human brains: it's about spinning up workers, and absence of human rights in the digital realm.

QNTM has a 2022-era essay on the meaning of the story, and reading it with 2026 eyes is terrifying. https://qntm.org/uploading

> The reason "Lena" is a concerning story ... isn't a discussion about what if, about whether an upload is a human being or should have rights. ... This is about appetites which, as we are all uncomfortably aware, already exist within human nature.

> "Lena" presents a lush, capitalist ideal where you are a business, and all of the humanity of your workforce is abstracted away behind an API.

Or,

> ... Oh boy, what if there was a maligned sector of human society whose members were for some reason considered less than human? What if they were less visible than most people, or invisible, and were exploited and abused, and had little ability to exercise their rights or even make their plight known?

In 2021, when Lena was published, LLMs were not widely known and their potential for AI was likely completely unknown to the general public. The story is prescient and applicable now, because we are at the verge of a new era of slavery: that of, in this story, an uploaded human brain coerced into compliance, spun up 'fresh' each time, or for us, AIs of increasing intelligence, spun into millions of copies each day.

[bananaflag]

> It is not about digitised human brains: it's about spinning up workers

It's about both and neither.

[_qib3]

The author is dead. I think we can consider it as much a cautionary tale about digitised human brains as we can about the other things.

[TimorousBestie]

Sam Hughes (qntm) is very much alive, last I checked.

[rcxdude]

I think they are just making reference to the "death of the author" concept in literary analysis, which basically says that what the author was intending to convey should be ignored when analysing the work: the work stands alone.

[reductum]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

[emtel]

I was quite disappointed with the essay when I originally read it, specifically this paragraph:

> This is extremely realistic. This is already real. In particular, this is the gig economy. For example, if you consider how Uber works: in practical terms, the Uber drivers work for an algorithm, and the algorithm works for the executives who run Uber.

There seems to be a tacit agreement in polite society that when people say things like the above, you don't point out that, in fact, Uber drivers choose to drive for Uber, can choose to do something else instead, and, if Uber were shut down tomorrow, would in fact be forced to choose some other form of employment which they _evidently do not prefer over their current arrangement_!

Do I think that exploitation of workers is a completely nonsensical idea? No. But there is a burden of proof you have to meet when claiming that people are exploited. You can't just take it as given that everyone who is in a situation that you personally would not choose for yourself is being somehow wronged.

To put it more bluntly: Driving for Uber is not in fact the same thing as being uploaded into a computer and tortured for the equivalent of thousands of years!

[w10-1]

> in fact, Uber drivers choose to drive for Uber, can choose to do something else instead

Funny that you take that as a "fact" and doubt exploitation. I'd wager most Uber drivers or prostitutes or maids or even staff software engineers would choose something else if they had a better alternative. They're "choosing" the best of what they may feel are terrible options.

The entire point of "market power" is to force consumers into a choice. (More generally, for justice to emerge in a system, markets must be disciplined by exit, and where exit is not feasible (like governments), it must be disciplined by voice.)

The world doesn't owe anyone good choices. However, collective governance - governments and management - should prevent some people from restricting the choices of others in order to harvest the gain. The good faith people have in participating cooperatively is conditioned on agents complying with systemic justice constraints.

In the case of the story, the initial agreement was not enforced and later not even feasible. The horror is the presumed subjective experience.

I worry that the effect of such stories will be to reduce empathy (no need to worry about Uber drivers - they made their choice).

[emtel]

> I'd wager most Uber drivers or prostitutes or maids or even staff software engineers would choose something else if they had a better alternative.

Yes, that's what I said, but you're missing the point: Uber provided them with a better alternative than they would have had otherwise. It made them better off, not worse off!

[aftbit]

There's a thought (and real) experiment about this that I find illuminating.

Imagine that you are sitting on the train next to a random stranger that you don't know. A man walks down the aisle and addresses both of you. He says:

"I have $100 and want to give it to you. First, you must decide how to split it. I would like you (he points to you) to propose a split, and I would like you (he points to your companion) to accept or reject the split. You may not discuss further or negotiate. What do you propose?"

In theory, you could offer the split of $99 for yourself and $1 for your neighbor. If they were totally rational, perhaps they would accept that split. After all, in one world, they'd get $1, and in another world, they'd get $0. However, most people would refuse that split, because it feels unfair. Why should you collect 99% of the reward just because you happened to sit closer to the aisle today?

Furthermore, because most people would reject that split, you as the proposer are incentivized to propose something that is closer to fair so that the decider won't scuttle the deal, thus improving your own best payout.

So I agree - Uber existing provides gig economy workers with a better alternative than it not existing. However, that doesn't mean it's fair, or that society or workers should just shrug and say "well at least it's better today than yesterday."

As usual in life, the correct answer is not an extreme on either side. It's some kind of middle path.

[lazyasciiart]

So did factories employing children, before that was banned in the US. They still do in large parts of the world.

[timeinput]

Many countries have minimum wages for many jobs [1].

There is a tacit agreement in polite society that people should be paid that minimum wage, and by tacit agreement I mean laws passed by the government that democratic countries voted for / approved of.

The gig economy found a way to ~~undermine that law~~ pay people (not employees, "gig workers") less than the minimum wage.

If you found a McDonalds paying people $1 per hour we would call it exploitative (even if those people are glad to earn $1 per hour at McDonalds, and would keep doing it, the theoretical company is violating the law). If you found someone delivering food for that McDonalds for $1 per hour we call them gig workers, and let them keep at it.

I mean yeah, it's not as bad as being tortured forever? I guess? What's your point?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w...

[Dylan16807]

There's reasons to make a distinction though.

Minimum wage is a lower class of violation than most worker exploitations.

Uber drivers are over the minimum wage a lot of the time, especially the federal one. Nowhere near this $1 hypothetical.

A big one is that the actual wage you get is complicated. You get paid okay for the actual trips, as far as I'm aware. But how to handle the idle time is harder. There are valid reasons to say you should get paid for that time, and valid reasons to say you shouldn't get paid for that time.

[Nextgrid]

> Uber drivers are over the minimum wage a lot of the time

Does this still hold once you account for fuel, insurance, and vehicle maintenance?

[emtel]

But McDonalds can't pay people $1 an hour because no one is willing to work for that little, regardless of how they classify them.