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jayfeather31 t1_j64gri5 wrote

Reply to comment by pegothejerk in BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150% | CNN Business by KennyFulgencio

I am not against automation, but knowing our capitalist economy, I guarantee that it'll be used for all the wrong reasons.

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AGINSB t1_j64o0d7 wrote

In a good world, automation would free everyone up to work less while increasing productivity, allowing everyone to live better lives. In reality it'll just push more wealth to the wealthy.

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pretender80 t1_j6581sv wrote

Even in the star trek post scarcity replicator world, the people would still have had to seize the means of production (replication) first

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Zombie_Harambe t1_j65u7mu wrote

Less star trek "only work because you enjoy the feeling of fulfillment" and more Elysium "heavy handed elite live in literal ivory tower as we starve"

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PPQue6 t1_j64jeef wrote

Absolutely! You've got idiots worried about immigrants taking their jobs, when in reality it will be AI and automation taking their jobs.

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pegothejerk t1_j64l59s wrote

Which wouldn't be such a bad thing if we had wealthy people in favor of guaranteed basic income as a way to transition society from one reliant on coerced labor to function to one that encourages more choice and opportunity for varied work, study, and enrichment. Instead we still have them pushing the idea that being poor is a character flaw, and also preventing changes from a system that will create more impoverished.

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chaogomu t1_j64px38 wrote

An idea I had once would be to transition from glorifying the hoarding of wealth to a sort of leaderboard of who gained the most this year, with very high taxes to keep people from hoarding.

But the dragons don't want their hoards to diminish, and see anything that prevents the rapid growth of the hoard as diminishing it. We need a modern St. George. Likely in the form of an empowered and fully staffed IRS.

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thatnameagain t1_j65gk6b wrote

I agree with the spirit of your comment but I think the details here are really important.

Firstly, it's not rich people who need to be in favor of it (they never will) it's regular people. In the U.S. 80-90% of votes in primary elections go to Republicans or centrist democrats, and until that changes we won't see policies that don't reflect the far right or the center. If we want UBI, we need to vote for it and that means in primary elections since thats where you'll find the candidates who support it.

Secondly, UBI is actually not a good solution in itself to automation because it will create a wealth gap in society that makes the growing one we have today seem tiny in comparison. Why? Because corporations / the 001% will own all the robots and make ALL the money, and then UBI is what filters out to regular people in an economy with minimal upward mobility. So we either need a solution that is based around increasing career upward mobility for most people, or we need to go full socialist and make all corporations publicly owned and all the income publicly distributed.

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PPQue6 t1_j64sh4h wrote

Absolutely agree. The time is coming sooner rather than later, where the need for labor will be a relic of the past.

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illy-chan t1_j65uhr4 wrote

And the wrong people will profit from it.

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johnniewelker t1_j68al1k wrote

Automation will reduce the need for so much labor that we have now. Over time, earth will probably be okay with half or even a quarter of our population… still 2-4B people.

Kids who are being born today will be insanely rich in 30-40 years as fewer kids will be born and machines will cover the gap.

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tragiktimes t1_j64tu7c wrote

You use the word capitalist as if it's a bad thing.

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