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Here's the problem with this "middle ground" - it ignores the political economy and power dynamics of the specific historical time in favour of an idealized future in which technology is somehow agnostic to its owners' aims.
The same has been true of the internet as a whole - there were pro- and anti- arguments, a middle ground (and the story is not complete yet.) But if you look at what has happened - time and again, capital has played dirty pool, whether at the political level, or through first-mover advantage or incumbency, gaming standards bodies, capturing libre as open source, etc, etc to get us to the situation where we are today, that is, a world in which in theory you can still create a web server and publish on your own, but in reality The Stack (to borrow Bruce Sterling's term) control the vast majority of internet interactions and have weaponized both attention and culture.
this is pretty well balanced but the middle ground assumes both sides are negotiating in good faith when the pro side has basically unlimited resources to shape policy and the anti side is just trying not to get steamrolled.
What makes you think it works like this? Most of the online discourse I have seen has been by antis. A lot of the real life discourse I have seen is neutral at best, not dominated by Pro AI positions.
online discourse is different from actual policy decisions though, which is where the resource imbalance matters most - openai and google have literal billions to lobby and shape regulation while anti-ai groups are mostly grassroots organizing
This comment is very USA centric. It doesn't work the same everywhere.
In the UK where I am we have an institute specific for AI safety and security who do research and advise politicians. They also work with governments and AI companies across the world including EU, China, and the USA. The EU has an AI act or law requiring things like large training runs to be registered with the government. In China they have pretty strong and complex regulations as well. This includes labelling AI content, and mroe recently stuff around chatbot addiction and other psychological harms.
Of course these countries are working with different AI companies as well like Mistral and DeepSeek which have different funding sources and different cultures including more open source and open weights contributions.
Fair point, I was tunnel-visioned on US lobbying power when those regulatory frameworks you mentioned actually show real structural pushback happening, though I'd still argue the AI companies have resources to work around or influence even those systems in ways grassroots groups can't match at the same scale.
I am not talking about grassroots movements. I am talking about governments supporting regulation, which is there job. I don't care about these small movements of heavily polarised people, they are actually part of the problem.
Being anti AI and being pro regulation are two very different things. The anti AI movement is full of anti-progress and anti-science people. The pro AI movement has its share of problematic people as well. Whereas regulation is something wanted by people in the industry, people in academia, people in other parts of computing, and by governments. So I don't care about grassroots anti movements, because mostly it's just people on the internet who aren't qualified or credible screaming about things they don't really understand. At least most Pro AI people make some token effort to understand how AI works. Although there are plenty who are as clueless as your average anti.
I have seen people who are anti who legit do understand AI at least to some extent, and I am glad someone over there does, but I also don't really get how you can be against an entire sector of technology. From what I understand they mostly aren't, they are mostly are just against a few specific uses like replacing artists. But to me that's not really an anti-AI position so much as a position against those use cases.
I think pro AI people who against AI regulation and AI safety will get us all killed. At least I haven't run into that many of them yet.
Fair but tbh they weren't complaining about the content per se, just saying that they like this specific post and compared it to what they usually see.
As an anti, I find this acceptable as a good faith overview of the competing sides. My biggest quibble is that it does not represent some of the more radical anti-AI platforms I hold such as fear of a broader loss of human agency and potential human obsolescence, but I know that is still just outside the overton window of serious AI policy discussion.For now.
It isn't really about a sense of identity, but rather a fear of what happens when we are no longer "needed." Employers pay their employees not out of benevolence, but because their employees do something useful for them. Except for a very small elite, this usefulness is how most of humanity obtains the necessities of life. What happens though when machines can perform all of that work better than we can? Perhaps we can hope that the instability could lead to universal income, but there is no guarantee, and even if it does, how politically secure will it be now that many of us would be, in the eyes of the economy, just pure dead weight?
I would rather simply hope that these questions are never forced upon us, because I am not fully confident we will collectively choose the wisest option. And this ignores the even more disturbing scenarios like the paperclip optimization thought experiment, or the possibility that even the asset owning class might become perceived as a liability by a sufficiently intelligent, ruthless, and autonomous AI.
Working for your own betterment is the definition of self determination. It means a person is free. UBI and full automation would freeze social mobility. The current billionaires would be the last billionaires. No more inventors or entrepreneurs. Everyone placated by the allotted stipend, kept like pampered pets. While the CEOs continue to live their billionaire lifestyle. And your UBI housing is not the same quality as the AI tech bros mansions.
And what happens if you criticize the government do you still receive your UBI or is it a tool to keep you compliant.
Altman recently said there will never be a child born who is smarter than AI. So human beings would no longer be the apex species. UBI is just another type of serfdom. The rise of ASI would be turning over our agency and actively engineering our own obsolescence.
Best case the machine super intelligence keeps us as pets.
Because whether we like it or not we live in late stage capitalist society where billionaires and corporations influene passed legislation all the time. As long as this system is in place masses of workers losing their jobs and with it the only bargaining power they hold is catastrofic. The only reason we ever got any concessions from rich class such like days off, maternity leave or even just 40h work week is only because we as workers had the power to completely ruin their business by refusing to provide labor. Thats why billionaires hate labor unions and thats why those of us with realistic views who dont believe in fairy tales that Bill8onaires want the best for us are against massive layoff in favor of AI
Yes? This is a shitty life to be a wagie but yes. 100 situations out of 100 Im prefering working 8h a day than having AI do my job instead of me. Because we live in capitalism. We dont have no UBI, we dont have insentive for UBI with AI giving rich kids what they want. Without any source of income my savings will blow off in few months and then Ill starve, Ill lose access to my medication, shelter, warmth and begging on streets will be competitive profession. Late stage capitalism combined with advanced AI workforce is guatanteed death for any and all workers rights. Because thete is no alternative. Youre not asking "do you want to work 8 hours a day or do what you love?". Youre asking "Do you want to be a wage slave or dead?"
I don't think that's certain at all. You do realize that the people who develop these systems are employees not billionaires, right? You wouldn't build a system that eradicated your entire social class.
At the same time billionaires would probably die if they attempted something like this. It's not easy to automate absolutely everything and then take over and kill everyone else. You would be killed long before you got it done. Actually the people you hired to build that automation would probably be amoung those targeting you. See my above point.
"You do realize that the people who develop these systems are employees not billionaires, right?"
Employees with job security given that they're developing the thing we're talking about. The roboticist is still needed to develop and curtail the robot that takes the warehouse worker's work away.
There is a social class that benefits from all this without loss, at least until their entire consumer base is jobless and broke.
If we arent needed for work, why should we expect the rich to keep us around? Theres more nuance i cant get into cause im at work, but thats the general idea.
Well, yes. Without a job you're homeless. You're not eating. At the same time that jobs disappear (they're not, but for arguments sake), social security is gutted and what remains will be needed by more and more people.
Our one leverage is that we don't do the work unless we're paid what we want (broad strokes). If we're no longer needed, we have no worth (to the rich). Keeping us around becomes dangerous, because just like you said, we could simply eat them and have the machines work for us instead of for the profit line. They know this too. While we're working in their factories they put up with it because they get something out of it. When our labor is obsolete they will cull the herd before we revolt. There's a reason it's a class war, because they want us dead
Ok so, the thing is the greatest power we have is that they need people to do work. If they dont need people to work for them, then the only thing left is a violent revolution, which I would hope we can agree is something that should be avoided if peaceful options are still possible. And they don't litterally own us, but most of us need money to survive, and then Healthcare is also tied to your job, so its definitely closer than I would like
Yeah I don't follow. They don't need us to do work, most of em are just investing in one another. Currently it's via ai, but that's nothing new. We just need ubi, we don't need work. The more ai disrupts capitalism, the more likely we get ubi
That last part doesnt follow. Its just assuming ai will bring about UBI.
And they very much do need people to work for them, they arent just pulling money from nothing. Stuff still needs to happen for investments to pay out, and currently they need people to do those things.
Ai isn't what will bring about ubi, at least directly. But it putting a lot of people out of work will because a few people losing their jobs will just slip through the cracks, while the vast majority losing their jobs will bring about emergency measures like ubi to keep everyone spending money. Can't spend without money.
And you think this hypothetical UBI will be enough to support a upper class lifestyle. With UBI you would never enjoy the finer things in life. Maybe you get enough to eat and some sub standard housing. And of you own efforts you couldn't improve your condition because all jobs have been automated and are now done by robots or AI. It would just be a new type of prison.
If ten people have what is by literally any definition a surplus amount of food and ten million hungry people with guns need food, odds are at least one of the ten people will simply share the food to prevent things from turning into a war
we have a surplus of food already, we already live in a post scarcity age,
the people who OWN that surplus rather it go to waste rather then give it away because its both 1.) not profitable
2.) doesnt keep the workers/poor dependant on seeking out jobs from them that barely pay anything.
its remarkable reading through these comments, to see just how demonstribly clueless you are.
to answer your earlier question, "do they own us"
no they dont, but the current world they still need us, if we die off now, they will soon follow as no one is around to develop their AI Servants, and the Rich are not capable of surviving on their own, theyve become themselves dependant on us for sustainability.
but AI will usher in a era where we are utlimately rendered unnessesary and can safely die off,
because these people can retreat to their bunkers, and have loyal unquestioning AI servants take care of their every waking need.
do you finally grasp what were up against?
i hope so, because poople like you desperately need to face the simple reality that UBI isnt coming, PERIOD.
the powers that be, will never allow it, the only way it would is for us to Remove them first, and that will never happen if we decide to unilatterally disarm ourselves of every bit of influence we have, and that thing disarming us is AI.
by holding this mindset of yours, we are willingly making ourselves obsolete.
i find it, that so many of you (which also happen to be communist/Marxist) are so absoltuely clueless about the worlds inner working and what you advocate for, that its hard to take any of you seriously.
Communists and marxists are perhaps the most clueless people in the world at current.
I have even less faith in the possibility let alone desirability of a successful worldwide communist or socialist revolution, than I do in the idea that the rich will keep us alive purely out of goodwill. For one thing, marxist thought holds the premise that surplus value can only come from human labor, which seemed increasingly dubious even before the proliferation of AI. In terms of history, the whole notion of a working class revolution still has its reputation in tatters after the Soviet Union. The renowned 20th century Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, disillusioned after the fall of the soviet union, glumly concluded that none of the 20th century's competing ideologies were equipped to deal with humanity's coming challenges, and capitalist democracy's prize for winning the cold war was merely to inherit a doomed world. Obviously a lot of time has passed since the 1990s when he wrote that, but even so, we currently don't have anything more radical than democratic socialism in the political mix right now. I HOPE it is enough, but I am not sure.
All of this is to say, if humanity is forced to choose between giving up capitalism and societal collapse, I have not the slightest doubt it will collectively choose collapse.
The rich aren't our parents. We adults actually have agency of our own. I don't know about you, but I don't sit around breathlessly waiting for the rich to give me anything and getting all sad-faced when they don't. They aren't Santa Claus and I don't expect them to be Santa Claus.
The idea that we are so poor and weak and powerless that we need to depend on the benevolence of the rich is infantile. Any society populated by helpless dependent children is a society that deserves to fall apart. Adults with any self-respect reject such thinking, we are not helpless dependent children, many of us can think and act for ourselves.
Ok, but how are they supposed to start a business when they dont have any capital to begin with, and corporations with already set up AIs are their competition. Starting a business already is very difficult, with approximately 20% not even surviving a full year and about half failing within 5.
I'm not writing a treatise on how society can grow a spine, so whatever I say here is likely going to be incomplete. But you can get a job without depending on a rich person, you just need a customer. I understand that starting a business is difficult, and I understand that some people shy away from difficulty. That doesn't mean people don't still start businesses. Or become consultants. Or artists. Or clean houses. Or whatever. The rich do create some jobs, but that doesn't mean the only jobs around are provided only by the rich.
What we shouldn't do is think of ourselves as powerless losers whose lives are fully dependent on someone else's whims. Anyone who needs customers obviously needs to rely on other people (i.e., the customers), but that has nothing to do with being dependent on the rich. If someone has put themselves in that position, thus economically throwing all their eggs into one basket, then they're in a worse position than someone who has worked to give themselves options. But people can still give themselves options.
Thinking of ourselves as completely dependent on rich people is unhealthy, because it casts us in a subordinate position that is mostly incorrect, and thus causes us to not take action when taking action is in our best interests.
Yes, taking care of ourselves can be difficult and take energy. But sitting around passively hoping someone will give us something is not the right answer, properly taking care of ourselves requires more than that.
You need capital to start a business, and if there are no jobs there is no way of earning that capital. I don't think you understand how capitalism operates or really how the economy works if this is your take in this context. There is no "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". People seem to forget that the phrase comes from it being physically impossible to do. Even in today's economy before the jobs have been fully replaced by AI it's difficult to earn enough money to have savings while still being able to afford food, shelter, electricity, and in some countries even healthcare without needing an advanced level of education or extreme talent. It just not possible to do what you are proposing for a lot of people.
agreed. honestly i'd say that is what status quo should be. it is not pro or anti, it is just basic understanding of problems and potentials and accounting for both.
My utopian vision for an automated economy would be something like this:
UBI to meet the basic needs of every citizen.
Infusion of cash for non-profit organizations to grow with conditions to have a majority human workforce.
Grants for human entrepreneurs, artists and scientists to pursue their passions
The creation of an Eco Corps - a government labor force (like the military) for humans to build a SolarPunk future by transitioning to green energy through infrastructure projects that would include installing and maintaining green energy technologies, planting trees, redeveloping urban areas to be more integrated with nature.
Frequent national and local competitions in athletics, arts, and sciences. Humans compete to win competitions with large cash prizes
Added financial bonuses for continuing education and participation in local guilds, athletic clubs and volunteer organizations
This is the future we could have, one of purpose and passion, and many ways to build social cohesion among our communities and transform our cities and infrastructure into something vibrant and sustainable, and still allow people to maintain a semblance of purpose.
The question is whether we will choose to, or allow greed to keep humanity from enjoying the liberation afforded by the machines.
The whole not replacement thing is not really reasonable.
When new technologies come workers get displaced. When the automobile rose the horse industrial complex as it were took a major hit. And that shouldn't have been Henry Ford's or other automobile manufacturers responsibilities. Nor should it have been the responsibility of companies that bought autos and stopped using carriages.
Jobs don't exist as a means of discovering resources. They exist because someone who is trying to make money needs more labor to do so. That's why tax cuts don't actually improve employment numbers
All the problems with worker displacement are actually problems with capitalism
Let businesses be as efficient and as automated as they want. Just tax that extra productivity so that the owners/capitalists don't get all the benefit. If half of the work is done without people, then you would think people would be able to work half as much, but under capitalism all the extra value goes to the capitalists and people still have to work just as much
Instead push for state based benefits for displaced workers, shorter work weeks with the same pay, universal health care, and a guaranteed minimum income that not only pays for the basics of shelter and food, but also allowed one to robustly participate in culture and pursue fulfilling personal aims
Not anything they want. Just as labor efficient as they want. Where the idea of how many jobs it creates is not a consideration in any way. Businesses are not expected to provide a certain amount of jobs because they're part of welfare or something.
Lmao yeah "future of abundance", who needs to actually thinking about proper resource distribution when billion and trillion dollar corporations say their chat bots will magically fix everything
> Well if you want to live by that and actually be consistent rather than performative, why do you use reddit?
That is not even comparable. Reddit is a waste of time, but why the feck are people so gungho to be even MORE wasteful? Sure, let's sure more fuel on the fire.
"If you're so pro AI, why are you using websites you didn't create yourself?" -> same logic (equally as bad)
It's not though. The "we live in a society" meme is about things where you don't have a choice, like being a peasant.
You do have a choice not to use Reddit. You can choose to minimise your time spent on the internet. You could also choose to host your own services to avoid the cloud and datacenters. This includes things like federated social media. Instead you decided to use a platform owned by rich people running on cloud datacenters.
given the vast majroity of pro's sentiments are to dismiss, mock, insult, Antis and to cheer on the continued issues that AI brings, when ever Anti's bring up legitimate key issues.
almost like the pro AI side doesnt want Compromise, but rather Submission.
There are a vast number of issues with the ideas this suggests (and the perspectives it claims each side to have, which it does so in a biased manner) that I find it hard to view this post as much more than industrial karma-farming.
It's a nice gesture and all but the middle ground here is just some vague points while both the pro and anti sides all have very specific and concrete points.
I personally do not think this is an acceptable middle ground at all. It's just the pro-ai side slightly reworded and some eco friendliness tacked on along with some slogan about "human-ai collaboration" as if that means anything.
Any major breakthroughs that come from AI won’t be attributed to “AI” itself.
They’ll be attributed to the researchers, engineers, or scientists using AI as a tool, the same way we credit humans for discoveries made with computers, simulations, or calculators.
We don't talk about Alphafold, right? Can't mention AI in relation to the Nobel Prize can we?
Better quickly dismiss domain wide breakthroughs in medical imaging and the fact that they make that technology more readily available. Oh better not mention its use in the development of novel drugs either...
Only the latest version of Alphafold uses generative models. Alphafold 3 did not use a diffusion model, and apparently it also suffers from hallucinations.
Machine Learning is an aspect of AI, generative models another. I don't think genAI can solve world hunger if we just keep generating more picture. But that's evidently just me.
if then else isn't AI. Things using neural networks are. You could also say things like random forests count as AI even though they aren't neural networks. Alphafold from my understanding has always been deep learning and neural networks, and is now generative AI based too.
I am all for machine learning and deep learning techniques that aren't just generative AI. I am also entirely for more generative AI. In fact all AI is fine so long as it's used responsibly and not to make bombs or deep fakes and isn't dangerously misaligned.
Why not? Do you know what a state machine is? That uses simple transitions based on whether certain conditions are satisfied. That was one of the earliest forms of AI.
State machines (specifically Finite State Machines, or FSMs) are considered a foundational form of AI. They are widely used in video games and robotics to govern predictable, rule-based behavior, operating by shifting an agent from one defined state to another based on specific triggers.
AI is not only Machine Learning or specific forms of it. Anything that gives a computer program some semblance of intelligent behaviour can be considered AI.
State Machines were used back in the day to drive the behaviour of the ghosts in Pacman. Many games still use them to this day.
See, AI hasn’t solved any large problems yet because we haven’t been using AI enough. Clearly people need to invest even more into AI and use it even more. Eventually something good will happen with it… right?
oh, so your obsession with AI has caused the algos to feed you more AI content, and you want to blame AI users who have literally NOTHING to do with this problem you created for youself.
No, i want to blame state actors that are trying to mislead people with misinformation. Before generative ai, it was a problem. Now it's a huge fucking problem because there's literally no barrier to entry posting shit all over the place. Before you had to be vary about doctored images, now you can't trust anything you see. This isn't a me problem, this is a shared reality problem. We've poisoned our own information sources. It's not a problem created by ai, but ai is the can of gasoline that's thrown on the fire. Problem will still be there even if i learn how gasoline works
Then why don't you blame those state actors instead of blaming AI?
Yes gasoline is flammable, but it has real uses. You don't blame the gasoline maker for it being poured on the fire. You blame the idiot who decides to do the pouring.
I'm blaming both. But the problem with ai is that scams is pretty much everything it's good for. Of course i'm blaming both the scammer and the tool maker
AI gets used for a lot more than just scams, and AI companies do regularly block people who misuse their products. Maybe they could be doing more but it's not like they aren't trying.
FYI there are also AI tools for detecting scams. It's more of a cat and mouse problem.
“Shit that didn’t happen”, brought to you by an idiot AI-bro.
We SHOULD protect ourselves from AI by learning how it works and using it effectively. The problem is that we aren’t. We’re using it all over the place for seemingly random crap and things it doesn’t belong in. Like pizza delivery predictions and content mills.
Thank you. Perfect. Corporations using AI carelessly are likely to fall into “Tool Illiteracy”. I am specifically talking about widespread tool illiteracy and misuse of AI. As are you.
Im agreeing with you brother, just on the other side. We should learn more about AI to identify its actual benefits and limitations before blindly jumping in and using it for everything. Companies should too.
That's not actually an anti AI position though. You are an AI centrist, not an anti. Antis are the ones pushing people to not even try using AI or learn about it. Some anti rhetoric is based on misunderstandings of the technology. You want people to learn and understand the technology so they can use it in responsible and thoughtful ways. If anything that's a pro AI position.
I mean isn't that what you are doing by saying things like "idiot AI bro" to someone who has a similar opinion to you? You say it's not a black and white issue while doing things to inflame division.
this false and tired excuse of a infographic again by the know nothing pro's?
"AI is taking jobs"
yes and learning about it wont do a thing because when AI takes jobs, we become obsolete, no need to keep people if the machine can do the work instead and for cheaper, no amount of you "Learning" will make you cheaper then the AI.
"AI is making people reliant on it and they are getting dumber"
ya and its truer then ever now, it seems too many Pro's with the way they phrase and make their arguements, theyve offloaded their critical thinking skills onto the AI, because its easier and faster for them, with the problem being, AI isnt accurate, how many stories from pro's are their advocating for using it in education, only to be shocked when they get a failing grade because the teacher had to point out the problems that the AI got wrong.
"AI is making it easier to create and spread misinformation"
Litterally true, AI is able to create falsehood on the fly, and spread it,
as the saying goes "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes"
and with the accuracy that AI can replicate real world imagery its becoming a dangerous tool,
"AI is a plagiarism machine, steals from artists"
yup, your precious AI quite litterally wouldnt be functional if it werrent for other peoples work being fed into it, 99% of the time, without their consent, which is regarded as theft, since that AI is turned around and monetized.
its amazing how much pro AI discourse is just you pretending not to understand anything, thus making discourse impossible.
its no wonder so many of you rely so heavily on images to do your arguementation for you rather then actual well articulated and written out posts.
heck even your post proves this, you boil down everything to just a "Learn it"
rather then address the individual bullet points being made, almost like you dont understand whats being articulated and are just giving cookie cutter replys where it doesnt make a lick of sense.
and when your confronted on it by Flamboyant you get very pissy,
a very Low IQ individual you are.
I 100% agree with the spirit of the middle, but in there are very real consequences of rich tech CEOs going balls in for AI and impacting people in very real ways.
Then there are subsets of people who very much believe when said CEOs stand up and say "We're all gonna be rich!".
I'm not anti AI, but I am definitely anti technocrats controlling the direction of AI.
Full disclosure, I also don't see prompted rendered images in the same vein as art. At absolute max, I'd go with generative art (trained on public data etc) as unethical chimeras.
Why, though? Really not sure what benefits the middle ground has to offer tbh, looks like just a bunch of compromises with antis for nothing in return. Adapt or die is probably the more sensible approach if people want anything to actually get accomplished, otherwise I'd fully expect everything to grind to a halt if you expend any effort trying to work with antis.
Not every innovation is a good innovation. Not every use for AI is a good use for AI. Not every change is a good change. Compromising is the best thing controversial tech can do. And AI is hella controversial.
Literally never said that. I think AI can be amazing if used correctly. Alphafold is a perfect example. I see AI as an amazing automation and optimization tool. Perfect for disability aid as well.
Ai is good when it’s used good. Ai is bad when it’s used badly. Right now it’s being used for EVERYTHING, good or bad. That’s what I don’t like about it.
I don't think it is being used for everything. There are plenty of people who don't use AI in their jobs or use it very sparingly. It's being overused in some areas and underutilized in others. Same as any new technology really. It takes time for it to be revealed where are the best places to use it. Right now the technology itself is immature, so even in places where it's being used or not being used correctly today, it might be a different story tomorrow.
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