Hard to understand, when essential human nature is so predictable? Sure, we will do novel things with it. But society in the main will use to it exploit labor. same as it ever was.
That's a false-dichotomy. Capitalism was good for artisanal workers before the industrial revolution, and then it became pretty goddamn bad for them. We're worried we're staring down the barrel of that right now - just saying 'well it was even worse before capitalism' does nothing for us.
yes it does, it says that trying to prevent technology in order to protect the interests of some special class up people at the expense of everyone else is dumb and shortsighted.
If if people actually listened to the people wailing "but what about the horse carriage business!!!" in the 20th century, it would have been a disaster.
Sure, but AI pessimism is allowed to be personal. Am I supposed to be optimistic that I feel I'm about to get shafted? Should I be less concerned that I need to provide for my family, because in the long term this is going to be a great step forward for humanity?
You are addressing something totally different to the original claim - which tried to say that capitalism is inherently exploitative on labour which is just outdated Marxism
To be frank, I thought trying to twist this into an argument about whether capitalism is inherently exploitative was a complete waste of time and I replied as such. If you'll recall what we were originally talking about here - "AI, should HN users be optimistic?"
That's a good idea and FWIW I agree that as a person who might lose their job to AI, you do deserve to feel apprehensive, even if it might lead to some good later.
“Exploit labour” is just outdated Marxism. No self respecting economist believes this kind of rhetoric anymore but it only exists amongst west coded leftist.
It’s a sort of cynical fatalism to think everything is exploitation — directly coming from Marx.
It’s not exploitation to mutually agree on a deal. Most of population know this except Marxists!
a) just hand wave away that there is a massive power and wealth differential involved in this "mutual agreement" b) dismiss all discussions which recognize that fact... as "outdated Marxism"
Plenty of mainstream economists are capable of seeing the real world which you are pretending doesn't exist.
Even Marx meant the word "exploit" in relatively value neutral terms, just recognizing that in any economy built on private property we exploit humans the same way we do any "resource". It's up to the reader whether they see that as having any moral connotation.
Massive power and wealth differential is just simply a reason to be jealous. It is precisely this concept of mutual agreement (capitalism) that brought most of humanity out of poverty.
>Plenty of mainstream economists are capable of seeing the real world which you are pretending doesn't exist.
Not really. There are total of zero economic policies made by analysing economy through Labour Theory of Value or whatever other crap Marxists believe.
The above poster used "exploit" in non value neutral terms. Marx tried very hard to be value neutral about it (but its clear what the intentions were) but his readers don't play that game.
