I’ve just found a very interesting article on the net which presents a very interesting prepective on the rise of artifficial intelligences.
The author’s main thesis is that, despite being consciously designed by human beings, AIs will nevertheless develop accordingly to the principles of darwinian evolution and that, if that evolution occurs in the conditions of our current society it is likely to lead to the selection of dangerous ultracompetitivity as a major trait. This means that Elon Musk’s strategy of democratizing AI will actually make humanity’s doom more likely since it would mostly facilitate this scenario.
The only way to overcome this problem appears to be changing the social system so that it entices cooperation instead of competition.
I think this is an alarmist article written by someone with little understanding for rationality and darwinian evolution. And also little understanding of history. Finally, the article also ignores the social realities of our world by assuming we could automate everything while stopping to make anyone responsible for anything. Those reasons should be enough to dismiss the article.
Yet, it still points to the self-destructive tendencies inherent in our current capitalist system, but without realizing that this system is on its natural course for becoming obsolete. Will AI keep the current capitalism alive for longer or accelerate its transformation into something new? I think, that’s the real question that we need to ask.
Ultimately, the question is whether we can actually come up with a scenario in which capitalism keeps going on as it does today – it would have to become increasingly dysfunctional for being able to pull that off, since it would have to “disarm” all innovations that would change its character, starting with near zero marginal costs for copying digital goods, over 3d printing, up to the sharing economy movement and other alternative economy movements. This can only happen in a tyranny that suppresses rationality, innovation, and humanity. Capitalism would need to align itself with ideological or religious extremism to pull that off. The world would resemble the situation in the novel 1984 pretty much.
Is that what we are moving towards? Well, partially yes. Those who profit most from the exploitation of the current systems invest a lot in maintaining them; but they don’t seem to be very successful at quelling every possible source of technological and societal innovation. If they don’t step up their game, they will lose, and we will win.
Nearly all articles about the dangers of AI are alarmist, and I don’t really see any misintrepretations of darwinian evolution in it (although it does oversimplify it), but I do recognize that it’s a little vague and detatched from reality.
Yeah, that’s exactly why I found it interesting.
I not that optimistic. Capitalism won’t become obsolete unless we push for it.
Or maybe the wealthy could just stick to intellectual property as a way of continuing to dominate society. It’s not easy, but it’s becoming increasingly practicable. Governments are getting better and better at bringing down pirate websites and fighting contrafaction.
There’s no doubt that things will change a lot, but I think that the essence of the capitalist system will probably be mantained unless a signifficant portion of the world’s population, supported by political power, strives for change.
Yes, but that’s already happening. Ok, we are still at the beginning of the movement towards post-capitlism, but the rapid emergence of the basic income movement, the Pirate Parties (at least for a while), the maker movement, and the sharing economy make me optimistic that people start waking up to the possibilities that the near future might bring, which would totally disrupt capitalism. The reputation economy is just another piece in the puzzle for creating the post-capitalist system.
How is any government going to stop all these emerging movements at once? It would have to use measures that are as drastic and intrusive as those of the DPRK.
I think that you are seriously overestimating the strength of those movements.
The Basic Income movement is in fact growing in Europe, but given the current financial situation of most countries in this continent, I find its adoption in the near future a fairly unlikely scenario. As for the rest of the world, I don’t see many countries where the idea of a basic income could seriously be considered in the next few decades (maybe Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but I’m not optimistic).
The Pirate Parties are a fringe movement nearly everywhere but Iceland (where they appear to be gaining prominence) and they show little signs of signifficant growth.
As for the maker movement and the sharing economy, I’d never heard of them before, which probably means that it’s too soon to say that they will be signifficant forces in society.
Ãll of these movements are fringe things, in the mainstream people still think very traditionally.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that radical change can’t happen, I’m just pointing out the fact that it’s way too soon to say that capitalism will become obsolete.
These movements might not be strong, yet, but they are exactly what the world needs. And when the world realizes that, it will support them, so that they become really strong. Could they still be stopped? Yes, of course, but only by force. The government could crack down on any movement.
Yet, what also makes me optimistic is that there seem to be a lot of economists who are aware of the problems of our current capitalist system and at least seek to reform it. Sure, there are also the conservative economists who think nothing will ever change, but reality will run them over eventually.
I truly admire your optimism. Your faith in humanity seems to be unshakable.
I just can’t bring myself to think that way. There are tons of psychological, social and cultural reasons that can turn people against these movements.
Honestly, I’m not sure if the odds are on our favor. But who cares about that? Let’s just envision a better future and then work to make it happen!
The government could crack down on any movement.