> What I'm saying is that the automation is happening, so we need to deal with that reality.
This is not a force of nature.
Perhaps what you mean to say is that certain people, heavily featured on this forum, are working on something that causes harm to many, which they are not concerned about because they get paid well, or at best because of some long-term utilitarian math—alongside those complicit in it by investing in the effort, trying to make it seem as if it’s “natural” and “inevitable” and “normal”, and so on.
If that’s what you mean—perhaps that’s true, and that’s exactly why this thread is happening.
It is man made, and unlike reality in which we’ve been living for thousands of years and which we are well adapted for this change is being forced by a wealthy minority onto the rest of humanity in the span of decades. Luckily it is far from being “reality” yet and it can well be stopped.
> Perhaps what you mean to say is that certain people, heavily featured on this forum, are working on something that causes harm to many
No that's not at all what I mean to say.
I see technological advancement as inevitible and good. A robot that can do jobs so that humans don't have to is a good thing. It's progress. People working towards progress aren't evil. I assume that they, like me, believe that our society can and should evolve with the technology. If it can't, that's our fault, not the fault of the tech. If our government is so embarrisingly bad that it exploits the people that it represents rather than helping them (which I agree it is), well that's also our fault and not the tech's. The government is us. We better get our shit together.
The wealthy already own and control everything. So your status quo goal of a fair society where we all work all day and feel needed and appreciated and have a nice comfortable life is already dead. You're defending a dead body.
> I see technological advancement as inevitible and good.
It’s false, simply because it is a product of human effort and human choice to do this or the other.
> A robot that can do jobs so that humans don't have to is a good thing. It's progress
A “good thing” is what benefits humans. Robots replacing humans at what humans choose to do for their own benefit is decidedly not a good thing—aside from humans who profit from running the robots.
You may have noticed that I am repeating myself[0]. You are yet to show how this benefits humanity in a way that outweighs harm to humans who lose their jobs (especially considering many of them provided, without consent, the data instrumental for the robots to work in the first place). If you are among the people who work on robots, I think you ought to pause and reflect.
> The wealthy already own and control everything.
“They” don’t. A lot of “them” are here, by the way. Wealth gap is high, but to say it’s absolute (100% is owned by the rich and we are all just slaves for them) is simply wrong. We should work towards decreasing the gap, not increasing it.
[0] I am basically reiterating my original comment:
> “robots are coming for your jobs” is a valid argument against robots even if they can do those jobs better and faster, under two assumptions: 1) humans benefit from having jobs and 2) human benefit is the end goal.
> You are yet to show how this benefits humanity in a way that outweighs harm to humans who lose their jobs
I think it's pretty obvious if you think beyond trying to protect the status quo. The benefit is simply that machines do work so humans don't have to. It's no more complicated than that. It's what we humans have always strived to do: to make our lives easier. It's why an electric screwdriver exists.
The fact that making our lives easier has become a problem is the actual problem. We should address that problem instead of trying to protect it.
> The benefit is simply that machines do work so humans don't have to.
Why is it a benefit? Because not having to work the ultimate ideal? Why would that be the case?
To me it seems like it’s only an ideal for those who wield the robots who do the work and profit from that, not to people who wouldn’t be able to do compensated work if they wanted to. (Ultimately, it’s a means of control: if there are no jobs, the people in power get to decide how to distribute sustenance to jobless population. Rest assured, that population will not dare to bite the hand that feeds them.)
The ideal is to be able to choose to do work you enjoy doing, feel pride in it, get fairly compensated for it. To not be able to do this seems like a strongly negative outcome.
> making our lives easier has become a problem
Is “easier life” the ultimate ideal? Why? There’s many other, more compelling things it could be (e.g., “fulfilled”, “happy”, “meaningful”, “satisfying”) and many of them are not exactly aligned with “easy”.
Even if easier life was your ideal, the precedent has been that automation does not lead to that—we are doing more work (and more challenging, a.k.a. the opposite of “easy”, work) instead[0]. As jobs go away, whoever is still lucky to have one gets getting paid less to do more work (that’s just market forces at work), while a small minority profits and benefits from more accumulated power. Is that what you want to happen? If yes, we don’t have anything to discuss further. If not, you have the power to be part of the change.
> Is that what you want to happen? If yes, we don’t have anything to discuss further. If not, you have the power to be part of the change.
I think I've been pretty consistent that I think the change necessary is a social/political one, not a tech one. Whether or not we're capable of this change is another question.
I have not seen a description of what this “target reality” should even look like. It sounds like either you have not thought about what it would be, or you did but you would rather keep it to yourself.
It is not even a question that it would be strongly unethical (like evil addictive social media/crypto scams/online casino times a thousand level of unethical) to proceed on working on job-replacing robots without considering what a tenable no-job reality would like like, or after deciding it is probably not achievable.
This is not a force of nature.
Perhaps what you mean to say is that certain people, heavily featured on this forum, are working on something that causes harm to many, which they are not concerned about because they get paid well, or at best because of some long-term utilitarian math—alongside those complicit in it by investing in the effort, trying to make it seem as if it’s “natural” and “inevitable” and “normal”, and so on.
If that’s what you mean—perhaps that’s true, and that’s exactly why this thread is happening.
It is man made, and unlike reality in which we’ve been living for thousands of years and which we are well adapted for this change is being forced by a wealthy minority onto the rest of humanity in the span of decades. Luckily it is far from being “reality” yet and it can well be stopped.