It works at the individual level but won't if mass adoption happens.
The mechanism will become like taxes, you don't have to use public services thus pay those taxes, unless most people comply as it's easy to oppress those who don't.
The parallel isn't about legitimacy, but Mechanism. Some companies already oblige employees to use AI to deliver their work. In a near future we may see jobs seekers registering their AI ID for companies to decide which humans qualify to be plugged into the compensation system, at what rate, and usage conditions to avoid terminations.
Food delivery systems already show a glimpse of how it could look like.
I can't even manually resolve the merge conflicts alone that happen between my code and that of everyone else submitting code at agent speed in my team's repo. So long as I have financial obligations toward my family, I cannot opt out. I must use these things.
And then the Amish see the world around them using electricity and cars and think, "Yep, I'm happier without that." And they're one of the few groups on earth with a growing population, so they're doing something right.
1. Your assumption that a growing population is the metric of success is questionable. A population that grows but is subject to famine, epidemics, and natural disasters because they haven’t developed the scientific and technological capacity to escape the existential risks of the physical world is living on borrowed time. Not saying I agree with that, and I would actually agree that there is merit to the Amish hypothesis that a certain existence is more compatible with individual and societal fulfillment. But there are obvious counterpoints.
2. The Amish are not a good example because AI will confer an advantage to those that control access to it that has never existed.
It works at the individual level but won't if mass adoption happens.
The mechanism will become like taxes, you don't have to use public services thus pay those taxes, unless most people comply as it's easy to oppress those who don't.
The parallel isn't about legitimacy, but Mechanism. Some companies already oblige employees to use AI to deliver their work. In a near future we may see jobs seekers registering their AI ID for companies to decide which humans qualify to be plugged into the compensation system, at what rate, and usage conditions to avoid terminations.
Food delivery systems already show a glimpse of how it could look like.
I can't even manually resolve the merge conflicts alone that happen between my code and that of everyone else submitting code at agent speed in my team's repo. So long as I have financial obligations toward my family, I cannot opt out. I must use these things.
Not that simple. If I opt out and others don’t, and it confers a competitive advantage they win and I lose.
At this point, or perhaps not too far off it's like opting out of electricity, or the automobile.
Sure you can. But you're going to have a bad time.
And then the Amish see the world around them using electricity and cars and think, "Yep, I'm happier without that." And they're one of the few groups on earth with a growing population, so they're doing something right.
1. Your assumption that a growing population is the metric of success is questionable. A population that grows but is subject to famine, epidemics, and natural disasters because they haven’t developed the scientific and technological capacity to escape the existential risks of the physical world is living on borrowed time. Not saying I agree with that, and I would actually agree that there is merit to the Amish hypothesis that a certain existence is more compatible with individual and societal fulfillment. But there are obvious counterpoints.
2. The Amish are not a good example because AI will confer an advantage to those that control access to it that has never existed.
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