[the_af]

> If there is mass unemployment, who is going to buy anything from anyone? The "few" don't need or want us to be scraping in the dirt.

> They want us spending lots of money on their products, so their wealth increases.

If we're considering scifi scenarios, imagine this: if full blown automation of everything is achieved, why would the "haves" need the "have-nots" buying anything at all? Why would they need them to exist, at all? Think about it. It's an extreme and we're not near it... yet.

> despite endless advances in tech and automation, the masses can't figure out how to make it work for themselves

If the tech (or the really helpful tech) is guarded behind a lock, and they don't hold a key, it's not a matter of figuring things out. Unless by figuring out you mean revolt?

[munksbeer]

> If we're considering scifi scenarios, imagine this: if full blown automation of everything is achieved, why would the "haves" need the "have-nots" buying anything at all? Why would they need them to exist, at all? Think about it. It's an extreme and we're not near it... yet.

So we reach this post scarcity society, where everyone could be living a life of luxury, but this whole group of "haves" as you call them (who would they be?), somehow form this uniform view that they just don't want 99.9% of other people around and let them all die off while they guard themselves in gated cities or something.

It just makes no sense at all to me. Like in a sci-fi novel or movie where it is a plot requirement, ok, but in reality, I just cannot see the path and all the things required to get to that particular reality. So many ways it would work out differently.

[keiferski]

80% of “serious” discussion on contemporary LLMs is no better then sci-fi. Worse, even, because it’s by the readers and not the writers, who ostensibly made some effort to make their works realistic.

[the_af]

I'll add to this that 80% of any discussion of LLMs is instigated by CEOs of AI companies, and they themselves seem to believe scifi is a real-world education.

So yes, it's a bunch of scifi-addled selfish amateurs guiding and predicting the future. The AI people.

(Remember the "do not build the Torment Nexus" meme? It has a point).

[the_af]

> So we reach this post scarcity society

A full automation society, where the implied post scarcity is not necessarily for everyone. Maybe it needs most of the population not to exist in order for the few to enjoy the lack of scarcity. Resources aren't infinite, but greed is.

I mean, resources and wealth could be far better distributed right now, no need for AI, yet most times this is attempted the wealthy fight tooth and nails against it, even though the impact for them would be very small. What makes you think having AI will magically make them better people?

> [...] this whole group of "haves" as you call them (who would they be?) somehow form this uniform view that they just don't want 99.9% of other people around

A uniform view on this matter is easier to achieve by an extremely small subset of people.

And really, do you need to ask "who are they"? I mean, the billionaires and owners of concentrated capital of the world?

> I just cannot see the path and all the things required to get to that particular reality.

You cannot see a path from unchecked capitalism and extreme concentration of capital, via total automation, to this particular reality?

It sounds like a failure of imagination. I see the people at the top being lying sociopaths and have no trouble believing this.

[BirAdam]

Powerful people like to wield power over others. They want the masses to exist specifically so that they can feel superior and exercise their authority over others. They simply want the masses to be forever below them.

[the_af]

This is actually an argument I find convincing. The powerful need the less powerful to exist, because otherwise in relation to whom would they be powerful? Who would show them they are powerful?

But even then, how many of the others would they need to exist?

[munksbeer]

> It sounds like a failure of imagination.

I see it as the opposite. Doomerism is the easy path. It takes no imagination to repeat doomer memes and sci-fi dystopian tropes, without articulating exactly how we get there. I think what is far more likely is that as these tools proliferate, we continue on the path we've always done, some discomfort, probably negatively impacting some, but ultimately a better life when measured on the median. I don't see a way the billionaires take all power away from 99.999% of the rest of humanity without literally murdering them. And why would they want to murder them? It's much easier to just let everyone benefit.

[the_af]

> Doomerism is the easy path. It takes no imagination to repeat doomer memes and sci-fi dystopian tropes, without articulating exactly how we get there.

It's not "doomerism" because there is a call to action, impractical as it may seem. TFA is stating one possible, if flawed course of action. There may be others. Doomerism just cries "the comet is coming, end your lives now!". Also, if you're honest, there is some articulation of how this may come to be, it's just that nobody is an oracle and the particulars are shifting.

> I don't see a way the billionaires take all power away from 99.999% of the rest of humanity without literally murdering them. And why would they want to murder them?

They don't need to actively murder them, they just need to restrict access to resources required for living (maybe made worse by the climate crisis) and this would alone cull the population "naturally".

Imagine a world of full, total automation of everything. The rich always needed the less rich to work for them, make things for them, pick up raw materials for them, take care of them, even be their security forces. But all of this would be unneeded with an inexhaustible force of robot labor [1]. This is one of my worries if they ever go all-in with the automation of the military... who will be there to have a crisis of conscience if given immoral orders? We're not there yet, but this is something to ponder.

> It's much easier to just let everyone benefit.

There are things right now that would be easy to do that do not get done. And in any case, I don't think anybody is arguing about what would be easier? Also, before you say it: who cares if it's self-destructive? There's a current subset of rich people who don't care if we're destroying the planet, presumably they don't care that much about their children or their children's children. Or maybe they hand wave it away, "someone, somehow, will take care of this problem in the future".

----

[1] a funny tangent, obligatory Bob the Angry Flower: https://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif

[munksbeer]

I just object to your reasoning on so many levels. I regard it as the current zeitgeist of anti-capitalism. Just lazy blame.

We are objectively living in the best times of human history, ever. The global median person in the world is much better off than their predecessors.

Is wealth inequality growing? Yes! This makes people angry. Does that automatically extrapolate to billionaires will murder people (actively or inactively) simply because they can?

A resounding, emphatic, NO. It doesn't extrapolate to that.

What will almost certainly happen is the same as every other time. The technology will disrupt, cause short term pain for some, but ultimately become just another commodity and push up the standard of living for the median person. Billionaires will continue to be billionaires, normal people will adjust, we'll find out ways to put human productivity to use, life will go on.

[the_af]

> What will almost certainly happen is the same as every other time.

This is what seems to me like a failure of imagination. As I said, I envision other possible and even likely futures. I'm not an oracle so I don't guarantee them, I'm just saying we should be aware of those possible futures, and if possible do something about them.

There's no inevitability of progress. That's just wishful thinking.

I respect that you come from a different ideological perspective, but don't disregard mine as lazy. Chalking this up to "lazy anti-capitalism" is, in itself, a lazy position to adopt.

[sillyfluke]

Like you said, it is a failure of imagination. When someone says, "the billionaires and trillionaires won't need anyone else," the dystopian scenerio is not neccesarily "therefore other people won't exist or will eventually become extinct or killed" it's that other people will be straight out enslaved. With all the torture and suffering that entails. You know, the dystopian scenario that is more in line with centuries of recorded human history...The point is the rich won't need to listen to anyone else.

[munksbeer]

Why on earth would billionaires want to do this?!

It is complete dystopian fantasy.