Comment by arjie
13 hours ago
Personally, I just can’t find it in me to be that self-interested. It’s how other people oppose buildings near them because it blocks their view. I really don’t want to stop other people from writing software. If they want to use AI to do it so be it.
That’ll be somewhat detrimental to me perhaps (which isn’t certain), but that’s okay. I’d rather attempt to adapt to a changing world.
I don't know that unions would necessarily negotiate for no use of AI. The SAG-AFRA deals don't preclude all use of AI; they just requre consent and negotiation in certain cases.
A union doesn't give you unilateral power; it just gives you a better seat at the bargaining table. Capital pools its resources to negotiate better as a single bloc; why shouldn't labor as well?
The giant strikes were hugely based on AI issues
Yes, and these prevented actors being copied in 3D, in all their likeness and cast for any and every movie they fit practically for free.
I don't have a voice or likeness in my code. Sure, I have a very specific style in all the code I wrote for the past couple of decades, but you can achieve the same outputs with completely orthogonal styles as well. (like AoS vs SoA) so what would I even negotiate for when everything I ever thought of got distilled into neural network weights to be high-pressure sprayed to the masses?
I'm unsure how you reach the conclusion of "self-interest". Unions are about collective bargaining power, reaching (ideally) what's best for most of the people it represents, even if it's detrimental to you specifically.
This is the first time I've heard someone argue that unionizing is a self-interested pursuit. It's called "collective bargaining" for a reason; workers who cooperate in negotiations with their employers have more leverage than those who negotiate individually. The entire point is to work together for the betterment of the group!
People also forget the role they play in protecting and helping corporations. Without unions as a legal and negotiating intermediary you get things like factory workers burning down the factories when they are overly exploited.
See current situation where the Carpenters' Union in California is pushing hard against an initiative that would make it much easier to build more housing in the state because it would also reduce requirements for union labor.
Unions are very much an in-group vs out-group phenomenon (and in many cases, the benefits are specifically to the more senior union members vis a vis the less senior ones.)
> Unions are very much an in-group vs out-group phenomenon (and in many cases, the benefits are specifically to the more senior union members vis a vis the less senior
In the US. In the UK all the major unions I know don't require membership and fight for all employees in the industries they represent. E.g. as a software developer on a research project at a University I got all the negotiated benefits of the academic Union.
They've also been proven to increase wages for people in the same industry who are not even in the union due to raising the floor in general for what good labor should cost
> See current situation where the Carpenters' Union in California is pushing hard against an initiative that would make it much easier to build more housing in the state because it would also reduce requirements for union labor
If you're talking about AB 1751 (Missing Middle Townhome Ownership Act) I think you have this exactly backwards.
> Unions are very much an in-group vs out-group phenomenon
As opposed to what? You and the GGP phrase this as a dichotomy, but I'm really curious what the other side of this is, because "not being in a union" doesn't erase your self interest or all the many many groups of people doing the same that don't feel like they're apparently being overly self interested by forming corporations, governments, non-profits, advocacy groups, etc, etc, etc
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I can't speak for the OP, but I don't think their point was that they're against the self-interested nature of unionizing.
I read it more like they're against trying to stop, hinder, or prevent the use of new technology, simply because it's personally threatening.
And I feel the same way. If I was part of a union, I would believe in the collective bargaining power, but I wouldn't necessarily believe we should use that to pursue every single possible agenda that might benefit us. And I've personally pooled my capital with others in the past in order to achieve certain outcomes. And in those situations I also didn't attempt to reach so far as to limit the totally valid freedoms of others just because I knew it might be better for me.
Acting in the interest of a collective doesn't mean one must also abandon the ethics they usually employ when acting in their solo self interest.
their point is while the 'group' wins, the rest of the world loses.
localized gains, distributed loss.
as an art enjoyer, i do not feel that having less media written, drawn, or voiced by a computer is a loss.
a computer can never be sad or horny or have taste. it can only make product. i also think artists should be paid living wages with good working conditions.
thank you SAG-AFTRA, WGA, IATSE, AEMI and Teamsters.
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There is no moral imperative to help the world reach an optimum. Rather, the world is full of competing interests.
Have you ever not been able to send your kids to school for weeks (or years in the case of COVID) because the teachers refused to work? Have you ever been unable to get timely medical treatment because nurses refused to work? Have you ever been unable to work yourself because the transit workers refused to work?
Nurses have very strict legal requirements on when they can strike and for how long. Not unlike railroad workers.
When have you not been able to get timely medical treatment at the fault of nurses ?
Maybe if employers offered better working conditions and salaries people wouldn’t feel the need to go on strike?
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Well… yeah. But I didn’t blame the employees, I blamed the employer who must have seen the writing on the wall for a long time and yet let it come to this.
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Those self-interested unions better stay away from my interests!
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>Personally, I just can’t find it in me to be that self-interested
Caring about your ability to pay your bills, and support your family is "self-interested" in the same way that choosing to not drive into oncoming traffic is "self-interested".
Has it occurred to you that it isn't only self-interest but concern for others that drives collective bargaining? It's essentialy a way for the little guys to stand up to the 1% to fight against the unending series of abuses and diminishment of the average person's ability to earn a livable wage and work under fair conditions.
Yes. But there's a clear difference between, say, stealing someone's voice, identity or intellectual property, and preventing someone from using automation to do labor.
The former is obviously unfair to the person whose identity is stolen. The latter is sour grapes from people who want to control the future.
I also can't bring myself to get incensed over someone using a robot to write code. It's literally the modern equivalent of smashing knitting looms.
A software union probably wouldn't tell you what tools to use when writing code. It would help protect you from being completed replaced by code
You keep framing it as getting incensed over other people using ai to write code; but that isn't what it's about. A dev union would not attempt that; it would attempt to ensure quality of life for your class of people (and their families) as much as possible. It isn't about policing entire industries or other entities; it is about DEFENDING those who they would, do, and always have exploited when binding contracts or legislation don't prevent them from doing so.
Union = a group of people defending their rights and that includes the right to a life that isn't at the utter mercy of perpetual enshittification due to the infinite mechanical plodding of heartless (by definition) megacorporations that would never hesitate to eradicate peoples' livelihoods and treat humans as material for the orphan grinder if they could get away with it.
And by the way, they do, if you haven't noticed.
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> Personally, I just can’t find it in me to be that self-interested.
Yes, exactly. Do not advocate for yourself and your colleagues by joining them in a united front. Your voice does not matter. You will continue to adapt to widening wage disparities.
You will accept a pay cut and increased productivity goals and be happy to continue adapting as your cost of living keeps on climbing.
You may be surprised to know that residential areas in San Francisco are height limited, sometimes as short as 4 stories. They're not exactly anti-progress.
Height limiting is anti-progress, which was his point.
Ok SF needs somewhat higher-density housing. But wanting something good for yourself and your peers isn't anti-progress. If the benefits accrue to only a few people, it's not progress.
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Thats great, although understand that unionizing protects the more vulnerable of also the software engineered. You not advocating for your rights also means weakening others. Is it still self interested to unionized from that perspective?