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crap_punchline t1_j73s62t wrote

I think to understand the impacts of AI, we need to look at the earliest effects that we've already seen:

  • Both the proprietary models and open source free models have become sufficiently powerful to put some people out of work (independent animé illustrators for one). I doubt they have been able to immediately walk into another job because it takes a lot of time to learn new skills and they too are at very near risk of automation.
  • The way in which people have benefitted from the AIs so far is that it gives people the power to create things immediately for next to nothing. That also means they're worth next to nothing.
  • The effect then is driving the cost of goods and services close to zero but making them vastly more available and virtually instantaneous.

The only way to make money out of this is to own a slice of the means of production and that means having shares in Microsoft and Alphabet. If you don't own a slice of this then the only way you benefit is from the cost of goods and services being driven to zero.

This process increasingly closes the door to everybody of the concept of trying to get richer than other people. You will either be in the class of people who will be getting wealthier through having a slice of capital that recursively sucks up productivity by owning the means of production or you will be in the class of people who will be able to live increasingly affordably but won't be able to obtain power and luxury.

Ultimately, everybody will gain from this situation but some will gain more massively than others.

The battle will be when people say "OpenAI & Alphabet used all of our work output to create these new means of production" and demand that this is divided up to society. Politicians will probably not care in sufficient quantities as many of them will be invested in these companies anyway. Plus, everybody's quality of life will be rapidly improving, so why rock the boat?

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ttylyl OP t1_j73xjcz wrote

I’m not sure if I entirely agree, but your last point is rlly good. These ai are trained on us, so it kinda make sense that way

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