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From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Things I never thought would appear
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2024 03:07:40 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: United Individualist
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Gary McGath <garym@mcgath.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> I'm suggesting that, given true AI, people would be hopelessly
>> outcompeted by AIs in literally *every* field.  Ten years after
>> that doctor saves money by replacing his human receptionist with a
>> robot receptionist, his patients save money by replacing him with a
>> robot doctor.

> What money?  People have to earn it somehow.  Comparative advantage
> still applies, or else people simply wouldn't be part of the economy
> and hence couldn't pay for the services of machines.

Those without property or savings wouldn't be part of the economy and
hence couldn't pay for the services of machines, since they couldn't
gain money by selling their labor, since all human labor would have
become worthless.  Unfortunately, plenty of people are already in this
position, as their labor is worthless due to their lack of skills.
There's much less demand for unskilled labor than there used to be.

It's claimed that the US unemployment rate is very low, but I suspect
the government simply defines most unemployed people as not being part
of the labor force.  There seem to be more and more homeless people
every year.  The Washington Post keeps asking why so many people
believe the economy is in bad shape when the government informs us
that it's in great shape.  My conjecture is that the government is
lying to us.

In the AI scenario, like today, plenty of people will own land, stock,
or other property, and gain income from rents or dividends, not from
their labor.

> Unless, perhaps, the humans became the pets of the machines,
> maintained because the machines are programmed to.

Yes, that's a possibility.  Presumably they'll spay and neuter us,
so we won't use resources needed for the AI computations.

Another possibility, even with today's technology, is a universal
basic income, i.e. a negative income tax.  Improvements in
productivity imply that it ought to be possible.  Candidates talk
about extending Medicare to people of all ages.  Why not do the same
with Social Security?

But instead we see that, despite high taxes, the US government has
somehow accumulated the largest debt in world history, and it's
increasing at an ever-increasing rate, and neither major candidate
has any plan to change that.

So perhaps the productivity improvements are either illusory or
are going to just a few powerful people.  As I've mentioned, my
grandfather bought a large house free and clear while supporting
five dependents and earning a three-digit annual salary.  This was
in the 1930s, when the economy was supposedly in much worse shape.

> An artificial brain, if we're talking about replacing rather than
> supplementing the original, is different in kind from an artificial
> heart.  Consciousness resides in the brain.

There's no sharp distinction between replacing and supplementing.
Suppose your neurons were dying one by one, so surgeons were replacing
each one, as it dies, by an electronic circuit which behaved exactly
the same.  Eventually, all your neurons will have been replaced by
electronics, but your behavior would be unchanged.  Your behavior
includes your honest answers as to whether you felt you were still
the same person.

We already supplement.  A forgetful person can write things down.  I
believe much of one's intelligence is outside one's brain.  It resides
in one's papers, surroundings, and friends.  As I learned the hard way
47 years ago, if I'm suddenly in a hostile environment, surrounded by
liars and cut off from my records, family, and friends, I am much
diminished, and quickly come to doubt everything.
-- 
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.