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The AI Revolution Could Usher In a New Age of Stagnation (jacobin.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 128 points 4 months ago (9 children)

For enthusiasts, AI promises to usher in something that socialists have long dreamed of: a world without scarcity in which human beings can move finally from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

Like many problems techbros try to solve, this is a problem of politics and social organization, not technology. We have had the technology to free the entire human population from several fundamental scarcities for decades (food and housing most prominently, but also many diseases), but the groups with the resources to do so actively choose not to solve those problems. Mostly because they are antisocial psychopathic billionaires.

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  • [–] 21 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    It's like global malnutrition/hunger, it's not that we don't have enough food (I believe total global calorie per capita per day output might be significantly above the recommended 2,500 or so calories); it's the distribution where the problem lies.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    We absolutely have the resources to solve those distribution issues, there just isn't an economic incentive to allocate them that way.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Which to OPs point is a socio-political problem. We have the technology and means to distribute it globally, or ensure it’s created closer to the need, it’s just not being done.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    This is one of the most infuriating arguments AI proponents make. It is absolutely ridiculous on its face if you think about it for more than a second.

    Yesterday someone quoted Elon at me, which go fuck yourself but I digress, saying "we'll have universal basic abundance". Who? Not me and you, that's for fucking sure because we literally have enough RIGHT NOW. So where is it? Rhetorical question of course because the same dickhead making these absurd claims about a tech utopia is also actively fighting against systems that would make it harder for people like him to hoard so much wealth.

    Goddamn it.

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