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delusionaltoday at 6:11 AM2 repliesview on HN

Marx had a way to think about that. He would distinguish between labour as in generalized socially necessafy labour, and specific skilled labour.

Value is measure in generalized labour, since that the universal measure of human effort. The genealized amount of time a human being must spend to produce something from its parts. Generalized labour is also what's bought from labourers. You don't pay them to do something specific, you pay them to labour in general.

This contrasts against specific labour, which is whats actually required in the moment. Generalized labour power must be the right kind of specific labour to actually produce anything of value.

The AI leaders have been told that AI is labour. To the extent that it currently is, which I believe is only the case because the market hasn't adjusted, it's not the right specific labour to male anything valuable.


Replies

synecdochetoday at 10:59 AM

I find this comment, on it's face, very hard to understand. An apparent abundance of qualifiers without definition. Is this an example of circular reasoning?

It seems to me that the text is saying that generalised labour produces value, but then only specific labour produces actual value. What is the difference between actual value and value in general? Is some value somehow more valuable that other? Are we even speaking the same language? Is this just making shit up as you go along and hope nobody notices because the general idea is appealing?