[lumost]

Anecdotally, the concern I hear from many is that the current positioning of AI as labor replacement doesn't benefit them at all. An expensive AI which simply takes your job or forces you to work harder is categorically worse for people's quality of life.

What consumer benefits is ai driving? at least with industrial automation consumers benefited from new technologies, cheaper goods, and new job categories.

[epicureanideal]

In case someone at Anthropic reads this.. if you find some way to make software developer salaries go up as a result of using your tools, or find some way to fast forward society to that stage of the effect of AI, you’ll have a lot of fans, and even faster adoption.

It would be great if there was some internal “make this benefit Main Street and knowledge workers” department, helping find ways for workers or creators to capture the value of some of the increased productivity.

[heavyset_go]

> It would be great if there was some internal “make this benefit Main Street and knowledge workers” department, helping find ways for workers or creators to capture the value of some of the increased productivity.

If they wanted to do this, they could put their models in a public trust for the public's access and benefit in research, education, etc. Then it could be licensed, pay a dividend like a sovereign wealth fund, etc.

Considering that they copy and train on the sum total of all human creativity, a public trust is something that would be in line with both the spirit, and first and fourth considerations, of fair use doctrine:

    1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
    2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
    3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
    4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

That way everyone is rewarded with the benefits of running a model that was trained on everyone's creations.

[HoldOnAMinute]

I don't need software developer salaries to go up. That would be kind of selfish and narrow minded.

What I need instead is something that takes the burden off my entire society and gives them a breather. Universal health care to start. They could also use a higher minimum wage, and lower housing costs.

[redrove]

>Universal health care to start

That already exists in any other country but the USA. Aim higher.

[Cytobit]

Multiversal healthcare?

[AlienRobot]

You have my vote.

[brigandish]

Is it more selfish and narrow minded to wish for a "utopia" that is economically unsound and happens to be your personal preference, or to wish for productive workers' salaries to increase - something with an actual track record of improving any society it occurs in?

All perl programmers should be wishing for ponies, that's definitely less narrow minded.

[doesnt_know]

What part of universal health care, higher minimum wage and lower housing costs sounds like "utopia" to you?

That's just the system we have, but slightly better and completely achievable.

[brigandish]

It doesn't sound like utopia to me, hence the quotation marks. Eminently achievable, but not actually good. Only those engaged in utopian thinking - with a heavy slice of ignorance of basic economics and history - would think it is utopia or leads to it.

[mjamesaustin]

Universal healthcare is very sound economically. Costs are lower and outcomes better than under private insurance, and overhead is dramatically reduced.

[brigandish]

This is not true, the Kings Fund publishes a report that the Guardian fauns over whenever it comes out because it shows how "cost effective" the NHS is, yet if you read it you find that actual health outcomes are generally worse than other, insurance based systems. Give me wealth and health over a postcode lottery produced by utopianists.

[UncleMeat]

The economically sound thing is to accrue more power to those with wealth. The owners will have access to a machine that turns money into money without a cent flowing outside of the owner class. That'll improve society /s.

[ehnto]

I am afraid that will be up to individuals, the business you work for likely hasn't got much incentive to let you capture the new value.

You'll either need to freelance, or start a company (or maybe a co-op) to capture the new value created by your ability to leverage AI.

It won't be much different to when a company buys more CNC machines and the employees don't get any more money despite producing way more parts.

[qsera]

>if you find some way to make software developer salaries go up

This is quite easy. Just optimize the models to do reviews and bug finding. This would make developers (who normally hate reviews) quite happy and let them do more coding, thus delivering more value and possibly earning more...

[mdavid626]

Sigh… that’s not how it works.

[qsera]

How what works?

[alex43578]

Is that feasible? The coding tools already unlock a ton of possibilities for people to create value, but people have to capitalize on it.

I have no clue what this would look like other than maybe an investment fund for people creating apps/businesses based on Claude tools.

[ip26]

It’s often lamented that some employees have a difficult case to argue for their impact on the bottom line, and as a result probably get paid a lower fraction of their value to the business than other roles where the link is easy to measure.

I can at least “imagine” a model that tries to crack this nut.

[alex43578]

But your value to a company doesn’t just come from your impact, but how tough you are to replace, how much others value your skills, etc.

Nike’s logo designer was paid $35. One model says she should’ve gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars, because of what her work product went on to become. Another model of the value says it was worth $35 because that’s what she agreed to.

If, as an employee, you think you’re massively undervalued for the impact you generate, go out to the market and either get another job or start your own business making widgets - either you’ll get that pay bump you expect, or you’ll see you actually were relying on a lot of other supporting mechanisms to generate that value.

[ip26]

If this was all unequivocally true and the end of the story, then no one would make commission, and yet some do.

[weird-eye-issue]

Lol they don't have control over the free market. But it absolutely does make the top 10% of developers much more valuable.

[palmotea]

> What consumer benefits is ai driving?

The intrinsic satisfaction of increasing the wealth of shareholders. We should all be happy to devote ourselves to getting them more, nothing is more important than that.

[neonstatic]

Of all the possible criticisms that's the one you chose? If that's the worst of the problems you can see, why don't you buy some stock and became the shareholder. Per your own words, you will get more.

[palmotea]

> Of all the possible criticisms that's the one you chose? If that's the worst of the problems you can see

The point is there is little benefit to these technologies to the consumer, especially in relation to likely harm in other areas (you lost your customer service job, but AI overview will answer your trivia question with slightly less effort). Note: little does not mean none.

So the farce is they benefit by religiously worshiping capitalist shareholders.

> why don't you buy some stock and became the shareholder. Per your own words, you will get more.

LOL. Don't you get it? The kind of smallholdings of shares available to regular people won't provide the kind of returns to mitigate any of these harms. They work as a ploy to trick dumb-ass workers into identifying with capitalist tycoons (e.g. opposing pro-worker things that'd get you a dollar more an hour in wages to get a penny more a quarter in dividends, it works because most don't do the math).

[neonstatic]

Yes, yes, workers of the world unite. It worked so great the last few times it was tried. You are very smart.

[palmotea]

> Yes, yes, workers of the world unite. It worked so great the last few times it was tried. You are very smart.

No, I guess I wasn't smart enough to realize there are only two options: the present day status quo or Soviet central planning. Nothing else is possible.

Nothing.

Enjoy your pennies.

[HoldOnAMinute]

>> What consumer benefits is ai driving?

My kids like to use AI to discuss things they learned in school in greater depth, and from different angles than they learned in the textbook. They can also ask "What if" and "Why not" questions from this infinitely patient teacher.

[heavyset_go]

At least with search engines, or even libraries, you're aware that there are many authors of varying reliability and the publications/sites might not be reputable.

AI chat bots will summarize the top N web search results as if they're fact, weaving them into seemingly coherent narratives, all while reassuring the user that their questions are really good and they're learning a lot.

[IlPeach]

Oh no

[wongarsu]

Most adults are terrible at answering 'what if' and 'why' questions. An AI assistant with search will do much better than the average parent

That might not apply to the kinds of parents that hang out here though

[didibus]

Also it's better not to answer, but flip the question back and let your kid think through it, offer hypothesis, and so on, helping him problem solve, recall, and all that.

[archagon]

Except for the... you know... human interaction part. Arguably the most important part.

[andrei_says_]

An infinitely patient and somewhat schizophrenic teacher.

[ehnto]

I guess you could argue that there should be cheaper software, but most software people interact with is free/ad supported. Where it is paid, it's already a race to to the bottom.

Basically consumers don't really pay for software in the first place, and the leverage from labour companies get through software is already through the roof even before AI. Will much change for consumers of software?

[lumost]

The companies offering free software will leverage AI to extract more value from you via increased surveillance, ads, and paid preference shaping.

So... not much benefit either.

[Sol-]

> An expensive AI which simply takes your job or forces you to work harder

But this implies higher productivity, no? This must mean more outputs that should benefit someone, unless the jobs that are being automated had little value to begin with. Seems paradoxical.

[throwaway27448]

This is like begging your replacement for comfort... what's the point? What words could change reality?

[lumost]

There is a practical upper bound on how much labor can be replaced before deflation becomes a problem. AI firms risk spoiling the pot if no other business model is discovered.