Comment by KaiserPro
4 days ago
I think for me is, that history is not kind to the people who are left behind.
For example, weavers were one of the most powerful professions (if thats a thing) in the middle ages. In england there are the wool churches(not entirely weavers....), in the low countries, the weavers guild fomented revolutions, and shaped the borders of countries.
But that came to a crashing halt over the space of 200 years. slowly at first, then all at once. the power loom, then cheap imports from india turned a cottage industry into dark satanic mills. Yes there are/were specialists that still hang on, but they are like football stars you can probably name all the people who make money, the rest are barely scraping by.
For us, in the programming world, we will not have a 200 year grace period. Yes, AI produces shit code, but thats not the point. its cheaper and there are vanishingly small places were "good" code matters anymore. AI could be used to help a large range of people, provide support, trusted advice.
However because of the people who are funding it, that will not be the case. it will be used to reduce wages. Just like offshoring, resulting in china being the worlds manufacturing hub, AI, and the current people funding it will aim to make the expensive worker redundant.
In short, I weep, because Altman, and the money behind him ans his ilk want me destitute. I have committed the crime of wanting to earn a wage, and thus I must be punished.
It's profit chasing as well as practical - it kneecaps the educated workers increasingly asking questions about the morality of business and technology. It takes away the income that affords them the space to push back, threatens high ed, critical thinking. The salivating over AI makes perfect sense in that context.
Profit is the driving force behind civilization, motivating innovation and progress and allowing us to live longer and better lives instead of remaining stuck in the Stone Age.
That's too cheery - it both pushes innovation and is leading us towards planetary catastrophe.
So the dude in the cave that invented fire on demand was chasing after "profits"? Progress and emerging "civilization" clearly could not have been motivated by profit. We could argue money has distorted a natural, inherent, human drive to improve his and group's living condition.
"AI" tech is actually a perfect specimen here: this could be a genuinely positive net for Humanity if only it wasn't controlled by the sort of scumbags that are only motivated by "profit".
Depending on how broadly or narrowly you define “profit”, your statement is either too weak to be useful, or false.
If you define it so broadly that the hunter-gatherer inventing a spear for hunting more effectively is “profit”, then your statement is a tautology. The spear innovation was driven by “profit” and the “profit” is having the spear. Great.
If you apply a narrow, capitalist definition of “profit”, the statement is false. Plenty of advancement of civilization was and still is being made without or outside of capitalism, especially if you go as far back as the Stone Age that you mentioned.
Profit is what's on the verge of destroying our civilisation, too. Ever heard of climate change and biodiversity loss? And of course the energy crisis.
And we are not trying to address them, we are just trying to make more AI and more techbros.
Yes, it is _a_ driving force, but its not the only one.
the enlightenment was driven by "we can do thing better" and "to know god, we must know the world". A lot of money for research came from the catholic church (including for Galileo who wasn't put in jail for heliocentric, he was put in jail for being a massive insufferable arrogant prick)
In england, a lot of research was carried out by bored vicars, on CoE dime. (well pennies)
So yes, profit can be a motivator, and it can be very effective, it needs to be tempered with humanity. We could go into who a lot of brands we see today that are old were founded by quackers, but we dont have time for that.
the TLDR is, yes profit is a motivator, but its often short termist.
So how do we push back?
Tweek or reinterpret Copyright law.
Declare that the current use of copyrighted works is not fair use. Create a new "generative use" clause which permits copyright use consumption and transformati on provided a number of conditions are met e.g. not-for-profit and for-public-be nefit organisation.
Place a tax on current AI company outputs, similar to CD or harddrive tax in Fra nce. This new "generative use" entities would not have to pay this.
The government/people "owns" all of the land and resources in it's borders and makes it available to people or companies on various conditions. You could interpret that they also "own" all of the copyrighted works (i.e. things become public domain at death+70years or whatever the current scheme is) and choose the mecha nisms, fair-use, exclusive copyright etc, which are or aren't permitted.
Hope that open weight models destroy the monopolies?
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I don't have all the answers but my gut is: resist convenience, educate yourself on how tech is steering politics, give input to city planners on projects, if possible increase your agency so that you have the ability to push back and influence career choice/conditions (build up financial security, live below your means, advocate for housing).