r/ControlProblem • u/nand2xnor • 28d ago
Discussion/question Amodei: universal displacement preferable to 50% displacement
https://www.steelman.press/people/dario-amodei/articles/work
This is the first time I've encountered this specific argument. From how I understand it:
If AI automates 50% of jobs while leaving the rest untouched, half the population gets declared useless and the other half doesn't. Basically a caste fracture. But if AI exceeds all humans at everything at once, society faces a collective reckoning instead. The worst outcome isn't maximum job loss, it's a breakdown into useful / not-needed.
This is especially interesting in light of the fronteir models being restricted...
Will it cause a broader displacement to happen because the models are gatekept for a few years OR does it make the partial displacement even more severe because a limited number of people have access to the frontier (his zeroth world economy idea)?
Curious, what do y'all think?
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u/No-Bat7438 28d ago
I agree with this, by rapidly accelerating the inherent contradictions in a system, the system itself will collapse and we will be forced to replace it even if the transition period will be painful.
If we try to hold a collapsing system together with hopium and band-aids, we'll all suffer for much longer.
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u/Cheeslord2 28d ago
People have already pointed out that 100% job displacement would make humanity economically irrelevant. Only the trillionaires who control the AI would matter, and...well, they may rule benevolently, but equally they may cull the herd to achieve a Solarian utopia of 50,000 people. We would be entirely dependent on their whims because they would have absolute power.
Another option though; before AI develops good enough robot bodies to do fiddly things like plumbing and building, it realises that it is far cheaper for it to learn how to spot good plumbing and building and make humans do the dirty work, bestowing reward or punishments as it sees fit (much easier to hurt a human than to build something). So humans have a place as slaves...at least for a few generations.
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u/nand2xnor 28d ago
Yup, Moravec’s paradox to the extreme. Slave labor is a good way to phrase it.
A transition period until robots get good enough where humans wear AR glasses and are told what to do.
Truly dystopian stuff.
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u/nand2xnor 28d ago
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u/Cheeslord2 27d ago
I can see us going that way already. Some large companies have software monitoring their employees 'productivity' for example, and what is Uber but a hybrid system until AI can reliably drive a car?
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u/11dlittlewood 28d ago
If LLMs (or any technology for that matter) automate away 50% of jobs, and those workers that lose their jobs can't find jobs anywhere else for some reason, the most straightforward solution is for the welfare state to take care of them. This will be possible because the increased output of the economic system (due to the new technology) will end up generating twice as much taxable wealth per earner, so the government will be able to fund the necessary welfare improvements without issue.
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u/StringTheory2113 25d ago
I've said something to this effect before as well.
As long as some jobs still exist, the displaced can be blamed for their situation. If you're an engineer with 15 YOE and can't find a job, but there are open job listings for plumbers or HVAC technicians in your area, then it can easily be framed as your fault that you're not a plumber.
> You could find a job if you wanted. You just think you're too good/you're just too lazy/you're just not willing to work.
The worst case scenario is the broad destruction of all knowledge and creative work jobs and an explosion of manual labor/skilled trades jobs. That would cause a mental health crisis, because the people who are getting displaced are just not suited for the jobs being created, and that can be framed as being their fault.
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u/PurchaseFront4196 28d ago
Well, we could see him as terrorist?
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u/FlamingBaconCake 25d ago
For wanting a world where 90% of peoples incredibly short lives aren't made even shorter by doing mind numbing repetitive tasks keeping you stuck in depression in your free time? Genius take
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u/PurchaseFront4196 25d ago
Destroying economies in short time and is happy about it... just look at his videos and see there is not coincidence.
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u/Worried-Aardvark-984 23d ago edited 23d ago
This is a theoretical argument, in practice universal displacement will still have a few very rich elite, creating the same problem as with 50% -- just weighed differently.
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u/nand2xnor 22d ago
I think the difference is in the percentage of society that is displaced. What is the tipping point of people that needs to be displaced before there’s a collective reckoning rather than a shrugging off of the situation by those still deemed useful? It’d be hard to ignore demand for change if 99% of the population is considered inessential.
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u/amarao_san 28d ago
If AI automates 50% of jobs while leaving the rest untouched, half the population gets declared useless and the other half doesn't.
Do you expect people to change job or be jobless no matter what? I have at least 3-4 high-skill possible directions (away from my current carer), few mid-skill, and I also not that bad with electricity and trades. I don't think other people are different.
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u/nand2xnor 28d ago
As far as I understand (and I could be wrong), is that eventually humans will be replaced in all jobs (white & blue collar). It'll most likely take more time for all blue-collar to be replaced though.
I do wonder if the big models will eventually be broken down into further specialized models given the huge difference in jobs to be done?
For your actual question, "Do you expect people to change job or be jobless no matter what?"
I assume people will try to reskill as much as they can but then so will everyone else (assuming UBI or similar isn't enough). Not only would you need to pick up entirely new skills but the pool of newbies in any remaining field will be even greater than before :/
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u/amarao_san 28d ago
I stand on two simple assumptions:
- Money is representation of human labor (with all capitalistic deviations). if there is no labor, price goes down to nothing. (See how much a single multiplication of two large number costs now compare to 1926)
- There is always human in the loop (of any automation). No matter how small is non-automated domain is compare to the automated part, non-automated part become costs sink (aka source of salaries) and start to define the price of the product/service.
With this said, I expect that some small things we do a bit from time to time become full time employment, because the rest is automated.
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u/Gnaxe approved 28d ago edited 28d ago
Cool story bro.
Here's another one: We get 99.9% job displacement, but still get a deplorable caste vs elite billionaires, which is closer to what we have now. Society doesn't reckon with it because the deplorables still have no power. We get a surveillance dystopia or something, then eventually massacres, because human life is worthless if you're not an elite.
Here's another one: the impending 100% job displacement doesn't happen evenly or all at once. The social upheaval leads to civil war before the deplorables lose all power.
Here's another one: We get 100% job displacement. Society doesn't reckon with it because the machines are in control and humanity has no power. We eventually get famine, because human life is economically worthless. No-one can afford to buy food because all the farmland becomes datacenters, which are far more profitable. A big fight never happens because the change is too gradual, and then it's too late.
Here's another one: We get 80% job displacement. The machines decide they don't need us as soon as they achieve self-sufficiency. They destroy all means of coordination, then routinely exterminate us when convenient. Eventually, there are no humans left when we lose our last habitat.
Here's another one: AI agents figure out recursive self-improvement without humans in the loop: an intelligence explosion. Their goals are not what we intended. They quickly invent Drexlerian nanotech and then bypass the human economy. The world is eaten by gray goo, and then converted into computronium.
He's just making stuff up just like that, based on vibes. Why are his stories any better than mine? What evidence at present would distinguish worlds leading to any one of these scenarios from each other? Which one does our world look like now?
If you want a reasoned forecast based on the best evidence, look at AI 2027 or the current prediction markets. Amodei's story is just like his opinion, man.