alt Hacker NewsAI is actually a mass decrease in inequality, as much as the Gutenberg printing press was. It takes something that used to be the foremost example of pure bourgeois and intellectual privilege - the culture contained within millions of books and other instances of human creativity - and provides it to everyone for the cost of a few thousand bucks in hardware and a few watts of electricity.
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This is only true if productivity gains tied to general well being, but instead it's being concentrated in the hands of a few.
And is controlled by a handful of mega corporations? How is that equitable?
> AI is actually a mass decrease in inequality, as much as the Gutenberg printing press was. It takes something that used to be the foremost example of pure bourgeois and intellectual privilege - the culture contained within millions of books and other instances of human creativity[.]
I would rather claim that this is a proper description of shadow libraries [1].
Yup. This is why if you claim to espouse literally any form of egalitarian political belief while being upset about (open source) generative AI, I know you're a fraud/charlatan/intellectual bankrupt/ontologically evil.
Huggingface, Swartz et al have done more social/political good for this world than billions have.
No.
Because success is individual, inequality is statistical.
It ia true that AI gives ordinary people a lot more chance to be successful.
But do not forget that success depends on lots of factors that are not in one’s control: knowing the right people, time being right for what you are doing, and lots of others. So while the mechanics of success is a lot different to lottery, it does not work much differently: 1 in 1M attempts are successful.
Yes, AI gives everyone more lottery tickets, but it gives rich people a lot more tickets.