alt Hacker News> Bottlenecks rule everything around me
The self-setup here is too obvious.
This is exactly why man + machine can be much worse than just machine. A strong argument needs to address what we can do as an extremely slow operating, slow learning, and slow adapting species, that machines that improve in ability and efficiency monthly and annually will find they cannot do well or without.
It is clear that we are going through a disruptive change, but COVUD is not comparable. Job loss is likely to have statistics more comparable to the Black Plague. And sensible people are concerned it could get much worse.
I don’t have the answers, but acknowledging and facing the uncertainty head on won’t make things worse.
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The black plague's capital-concentration aftermath supposedly fueled the renaissance and the city-state ascensions, and ultimately the great land discoveries of the 14th and 15th centuries.
Not sure if there's an analogy to make somewhere though
> Job loss is likely to have statistics more comparable to the Black Plague.
Maybe this is overly optimistic, but if AI starts to have negative impacts on average people comparable to the plague, it seems like there's a lot more that people can do. In medieval Europe, nobody knew what was causing the plague and nobody knew how to stop it.
On the other hand, if AI quickly replaces half of all jobs, it will be very obvious what and who caused the job loss and associated decrease in living standards. Everybody will have someone they care about affected. AI job loss would quickly eclipse all other political concerns. And at the end of the day, AI can be unplugged (barring robot armies or Elon's space-based data centers I suppose).
I belive the black plague actually caused a massive labor shortage and wages increased. When a huge amount of people die and you still need to have people build bridges and be soldiers and finish building the damn cathedral that's been under construction for the last 400 years then that is what will happen.
Here's an article:
https://history.wustl.edu/news/how-black-death-made-life-bet...