[LordHumungous]

If the worst predictions about AI's effect on employment turn out to be correct, then I'd expect to see movements to force government regulation of AI. Particularly if it becomes the case that profits are accruing to a few massive corporations who run the AI.

There is no reason people have to tolerate a technology that is destructive to society, anymore than they have to tolerate companies selling fentanyl at 7/11.

[Gud]

You are thinking about this as a reasonable, compassionate human being who is at the very least neutral toward your fellow man’s well being.

The psychos who run the show don’t think like that. Many of them enjoy abusing other people.

They will wall themselves off with their robots with instructions to kill to control the masses.

Unless, power is given to the people through widespread (direct-)democratic reform, urgently.

[TFYS]

I wish it was just psychos with power that are causing these issues. It's worse than that I think. It's the competition based systems of human organization that will result in what you're describing.

Even if people in one country manage to get rid of the psychos and give power back to the people, the countries that continue at full speed to full automation of the economy and the military will just win the competition over resources and power. For as long as our economic system and the systems that govern relationships between countries are based on competition, we are forced to continue on this path. The ones that choose not to will lose.

We would need to quickly build systems based on cooperation instead of competition if we want to avoid a disaster. No more markets, no more competing nation states. Probably an impossible task considering we don't have much time left before we have automated systems that make it impossible for people to take back control from the owners of those systems.

[Gud]

I believe you are fundamentally wrong.

I believe decentralized, democratic systems(not the sham imposed in most countries) are inherently _better_ systems than autocratic rule, and will produce better rules for the whole.

Competition is good, but must be done by rules enforced by the global community.

[TFYS]

Could be, if we can come up with efficient ways to govern using direct democracy that lead to better decisions than what we now have. I don't see much work being done to come up with such a system, though.

[Gud]

Already implemented in Switzerland.

[TFYS]

What they do there is not enough. All decisions should be made using some form of direct democracy, otherwise you leave an opening for power concentration again, which will lead to the same problems we're now facing. We can't make all decisions using referendums.

[Aurornis]

> then I'd expect to see movements to force government regulation of AI

The big question that never gets answered is: What regulation, specifically?

Any one country could come out and declare that AI can’t be used or just be taxed at an exorbitant rate or something along those lines, but what would happen? The AI usage would go to another country.

If the US heavily regulated AI, China just runs away with it all. None of the calls for regulation I’ve seen have an answer for this, aside from the completely crazy calls to bomb data centers in other countries.

[LordHumungous]

Most people are far more concerned about their livelihood than about abstract notions of beating China in a game of geopolitics. In that scenario the US becomes an isolated economy, and other nations likely follow suit. It will be a poorer, less dynamic world, but most people will choose that outcome over poverty.

[dist-epoch]

Where were those concerned people when they lost their jobs due to production moving to China?

Seems like what you are saying already failed in the past.

[lucyjojo]

very easy.

nationalize. the people own the AI and the profits go to them.

[falcor84]

Because countries that nationalized their industries are have historically prospered?

[UncleMeat]

I'd expect it to be more dramatic. The worst predictions are something like "50% of all jobs will be completely eliminated in two years." That's violent uprising territory, not pressure on governments to improve regulation.

[Aurornis]

> The worst predictions are something like "50% of all jobs will be completely eliminated in two years."

Yes but we’ve been hearing this for two years now and it’s not happening.

Even the silly AI2027 project was predicting society destroying levels of AI arriving next year and that has aged poorly.

[Supernaut]

If "50% of all jobs will be completely eliminated in two years" comes to pass, then there will be a violent contraction, perhaps even a total collapse, of all advanced economies. In this eventuality, the venture capitalists who funded the rise of AI will lose their money.

If a large percentage of jobs have not been eliminated in two years' time, it will be because AI has largely failed to deliver on its boosters' predictions. In this eventuality, the venture capitalists who funded the rise of AI will lose their money.

What's the end game for these people?

[falcor84]

The desirable end game is somewhere there in "a large percentage" - e.g. if they can realiably automate 5% of jobs each year, theirs is the Earth and everything that's in it.

[MontyCarloHall]

>I'd expect to see movements to force government regulation of AI.

I agree. It will be an interesting debate to watch play out, because a) lots of end-users love using AI and will be loath to give it up, and b) advances in compute will almost certainly allow us to run current frontier models (or better) locally on our laptops and phones, which means that profits no longer accrue to a few massive AI labs. It would also would make regulating it a lot tricker, since kneecapping the AI labs would no longer effectively regulate the technology.

[LordHumungous]

That would be an interesting scenario.

[coffeefirst]

Yes, and that’s the least catastrophic option. I get the sense the boosters don’t read a lot of history.

[Havoc]

> There is no reason people have to tolerate a technology that is destructive to society,

All evidence to the contrary. Aside from the French occasionally burning down some cars the western populations (me unfortunately included) have become remarkably relaxed about such things.

Even very extreme examples like blatant refusal by government to investigate absolutely horrific stuff like Epstein gets at most some mildly upset TikTok reels

Add some aggressive lobbying by big tech and perhaps a sprinkle of palantir population monitoring and I don’t think we’ll see a refusal to tolerate at scale

[disgruntledphd2]

There's a big difference between the Epstein files and 50% of your voters losing their jobs and being unable to find another one at similar pay-rates.

One of those is an annoyance, the other is full blown revolution territory.