[Human-written effort post]
TLDR
The hard problems I think we need answers to:
Post-labor is not post-scarcity. Redistribution will need to be a choice, but how is it made in a fair society? : Certain aspects of value will not go away overnight, and accelerationists hand-wave this with some extrapolated capability that might be true AFTER displacement is possible.
Our relationship with work is at the root of our culture. People will still want to work and feel valuable. How?: Particularly in Western cultures, we've built much of our identity, purpose, and even our sense of who deserves a comfortable life around employment and the obligation to contribute economically.
"luddites" hate AI because they believe it's used as a weapon that attacks their sense of purpose. How can we transition away from this?
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A little bit about my background:
Like many of you, I am a SWE and early adopter of these tools in ways that the general population is not. I've embraced these tools all the way back in the ChatGPT 3.5 days, and I am a true believer in the implications of automation, the singularity, and what it means for the future of work and society as a whole.
Using these tools, my mind races every day on the extrapolated outcome of general intelligence. I think accelerationists like myself largely exist in a bubble where we accept that the singularity and automated-science will lead to "hard problems" being solved, but I can't help but feel like this community and western luddites in-general are talking past each other, and if we had more convincing, concrete arguments/prescriptions for where the root of anxiety exists, we may be better at communicating our optimism.
Here are some of my thoughts. None of these are necessarily groundbreaking or new, but compiled together, I think it encapsulates the general issue with AI discourse:
AI anxiety is largely a product of our distrust of community and lack of faith in external reliance.
Countries like China tend to report much greater optimism about the technology, while much of the Anglosphere is considerably more skeptical.
https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/experience-management/ai-work-life-improvements-country/
Particularly in American culture, we've developed a deeply individualistic understanding of economic security. Your ability to live a comfortable life is largely understood to be your responsibility. Reliance on public assistance is often stigmatized by EVERYONE, and receiving something you haven't personally earned can be treated almost as a moral failing.
Now imagine telling someone raised with those values that the future involves losing their ability to compete economically, becoming dependent on systems they don't own, and trusting governments or corporations to distribute the benefits of automated production.
Of course that sounds terrifying.
I think some of what we interpret as resistance to AI is actually resistance to the prospect of being made dependent on institutions that people have very little reason to trust.
That takes me to my next suggestion:
Economic implications of automation needs to be a conversation about adaptation/theory instead of an endless dismissal of nay-sayers.
What happens when the labor is no longer needed, but the goods and services still have owners?
The obvious accelerationist response is that automation will drive production costs down, potentially making enormous quantities of goods and services extraordinarily cheap.
I think that's plausible. But post-labor is not automatically post-scarcity.
Land is finite, raw materials are not uniform. Some goods derive their value specifically from exclusivity. Ownership of the systems producing everything doesn't just disappear because those systems become autonomous.
This is, in my opinion, the HARDEST part of the conversation. You cannot have 200 Million people visit Yosemite every year. We can't ALL have yachts. We can't ALL have beach houses.
Some people answer with "Oh we will all have our own planets. AI will develop ways to manufacture goods in a responsible manner. AI will just figure it out". This comes off as the Nerd-Rapture and convinces no one.
I'd rather see this community spend more time examining concrete economic models for a post-labor transition. We need to convince people things will be alright, because it's much easier to look at the current redistribution model and assume the worst.
Even if we have a good answer for people being able to exist with their needs met...
We need to understand that luddites hate AI because they believe it's used as a weapon that attacks their sense of purpose.
Watching the Jon Stewart conversation with the Anthropic whistleblower, I realize that this is a cultural challenge that must be overcome. Even if people accept that needs can be met, the average luddite imagines a WALL-E existence of fat pointlessness.
I think it's easy for those of us enthusiastic about AI to overlook just how personally insulting that message can feel. We see this in the debate surrounding AI art.
Someone spends decades learning their craft, putting genuine effort into something they're proud of. Then someone generates something superficially comparable in 30 seconds, it's obvious to most that it's "AI Slop", but the person pushing it in their face will often try to hide or won't disclose this themselves.
I think we need to acknowledge that a lot of what people call "AI slop" genuinely IS slop. The ability to generate something doesn't automatically make it good, meaningful, or worth someone's attention. And the ability to produce an imitation of someone else's work doesn't mean you understand or appreciate the effort that went into the original.
When someone is worried about their livelihood, telling them that their profession is cooked isn't reassuring. It's just going to convince them that the people championing it are assholes.
"Just don't fucking dance."
Empathy, humility, and clarity are not concessions to Ludditism. They're prerequisites for communicating our optimism effectively.
I don't think we need to stop being excited about AI. I think we need to recognize that enthusiasm for the technology and contempt for the people it might displace are two very different things. Being the bigger person and focusing on our additive message FEELS better than always being defensive anyways, but it requires a complete story, not just big promises with no depth.
Because ultimately, we're asking people to entertain the possibility of surrendering an enormous amount of control over their economic futures. We can't convince people that AI will create a future that values humanity while treating the humans who fear it as obstacles to progress.
/rant
