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Comment on Ah, Yes! AI Will Surely Save Us All!

Technological progress reduces the amount of work required to perform certain tasks. In any just system, this would improve the lives of the general population, either by reducing the amount of work required to make a living, or by increasing the amount and range of products and services.

If technological progress does not do that, and instead makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, the problem isn’t technological progress, but the system in which it is applied.

So what I’m saying is this: AI isn’t the problem. AI replacing employees isn’t the problem. The problem is that with a class divide into investors and workers, the ones profiting the most from technological progress are the investors.

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Allero@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
And this tracks with AI itself too, and the tendency to close source the models.

This, right here, is the actual issue with current AIs. Corporate power over things we increasingly need in our everyday life, censorship rules instated by unelected people up above, ability to shut model down for those who don’t pay, etc.

The technology itself is great! Now make it work in the public interest and don’t even try to say “AI is dangerous, so we would surely take proper care of it by closing it off from everyone and doing our shenanigans”. Nope.

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- Daxtron2@startrek.website ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thank you, I’ve been trying to get this point across for months
  
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Jumuta@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Technological progress shouldn’t reduce the amount of work required to do tasks. It should reduce the amount of people that have to do work they don’t enjoy, or increase the quality of living overall by reducing the cost of certain tasks/items.

For example, it shouldn’t try to make redundant the work of artists that enjoy making art, or hobbyists that enjoy writing code. If there is too much demand for these services, then technology can be used to compensate for the part that these work enjoying people can’t provide, but technology shouldn’t make their work redundant.

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- Johanno@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It isn’t replacing artists. It’s a tool that makes it easier for everyone.
  
  Meaning the competition increases and prices drop.
  
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  - DmMacniel@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Sure AI doesn’t replace artist. But corps replace artists with AI.
    
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    Johanno@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well cooperations usually just pay enough that the job gets done.
    
    Meaning before we had underpaid artists that did it because they love their work and accepted inhumane wages and now they are replaced by even cheaper AI.
    
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- LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Cringe take.
  
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  - Jumuta@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    no, because that is compensating for demand that can’t be fillled by people that enjoy what they’re doing
    
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    LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So duh? Art school is something I can’t do, neither in terms of money nor time, there is no one to help me, teach me and there is no way for me to learn economically, and the few meme making chops I got in PS just don’t cut it alone, so why not have a tool that helps out?
    
    Especially when it’s in the public library form that imagegen AI like SD is, open weight, open source, locally run, libre and free as in free beer with tons of additional apps built by volunteers like Automatic1111.
    
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sudo42@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Am I summarizing you correctly by saying societal asymmetry is a social problem, not a technical one?

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- Lemvi@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  yup
  
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intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I mean, for $20 a month I now am part of the “investor” class. I get to have my little AI minion do work for me, and I totally reap the rewards.

$20/month is a very low barrier to entry into the bourgeoisie, so I’m not too worried about capitalism being incapable of spreading the good around to everybody.

The thing I am worried about is the ultra heavy regulation — the same sort of thing that makes it illegal to make quesadillas on a hot plate and sell them on the sidewalk, which even a homeless person could do if it weren’t illegal.

There is far too much regulation (always in the name of safety of course, of course) restricting people from being entrepreneurs. That regulation forces everyone to have some minimum amount of capital before they can start their own business, and that amount of capital is enormous.

I worry that our market is not free enough to enable everyone to benefit from AI. The ladder of success has had the bottom rungs removed, forcing us to suck of either a government or corporate tit like babies — protected, but powerless, and without dignity.

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- Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think you’ve supped far too much on street quesadilla.
  
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- jkrtn@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “There is far too much regulation,” yeah, food safety is truly holding society back. What a utopia we would have if we could all be eating sidewalk hot plate quesadillas from a hobo with no refrigeration or sanitization tools.
  
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