154
MIT Economist Daron Acemoğlu Takes on Big Tech: "Our Future Will Be Very Dystopian"
(www.spiegel.de)
Our present is pretty dystopian to be fair.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Technology
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Trump is almost 1:1 a character straight from Transmetropolitan.
Then you have people like Elon that are straight from any cyberpunk media corporate heads.
The parallels between the themes of a cyberpunk dystopia and the present are drawing pretty close.
We just don’t get any of the cool shit like cybernetic implants.
We will but they’ll be owned by Musk et al
And if your don't pay your bill, your eyes will shut down, vision as a subscription service mwah
The new iSight, for only 69.99$/mo.
It's actually $69.69/mo (nice), please be more accurate next time sir.
What I like about this interview is that it demonstrates the absurd, thought-terminating clichés that modern elites use...and Acemoğlu just steamrolls them. Like this:
DER SPIEGEL: But it is true that humankind has indeed benefited a lot from new technologies.
Acemoğlu: That is the reason we have to go so far back in history. The argument that you just gave is wrong. In the past, we’ve always had struggles over the uses of innovation and who benefits from them. Very often, control was in the hands of a narrow elite. Innovation often did not benefit the broad swaths of the population.
There was no argument. A sentence does not an argument make. But regular people trying to argue from a similar perspective would say "...well, yes, but..." whereas Acemoğlu is just like "Nope. You're wrong."
Edit: After a several hours and many responses, it demonstrates that the terminating cliché of "...but humanity has benefited from progress" isn't a counter-argument. What are the premises of the asserted conclusion? Had Der Spiegel been more clear about how he'd arrived at that conclusion in context, the conversation would've been significantly easier to follow. So, remember that: don't just assert shit; explain yourself.
I am sorry, but I am not buying his point. Every technological change that had significant impact on our economy (fire, iron making, machinery, electronics, computers, internet) benefited most of the people. I challenge you to name even one counter example.
But that's not the point. It did have a significant impact. Acemoğlu's point is about the distribution over time of that impact. Elites tend to accrue for themselves the benefits of technological change.
In terms of AI, it makes some people more productive that others. So, right now, only some people are benefiting from the introduction of AI. Jobs with a $1 million salary are being advertised to replace striking Hollywood writers. It's easy to say technological change creates winners and losers as I learned in my econ classes. But in the midst of such change, how long winners remain winners and losers remain losers matters a great deal to both.
In other words, the transition to cleaner energy sources puts coal miners out of a job until the sun goes out and the wind stops blowing. And it's foolish claim the trade for higher quality air and a decline of associated respiratory illnesses is worth a miner's despair and depression because they're forever unemployed, their skills worthless.
You are making very different argument, with which I actually agree. But his point was counter argument to the statement that technology benefited us in the past. And his counter argument is bad and just wrong.
AI is nothing like what was in the past. That should be the argument, not that in the past technology did not benefited us.
From the article:
Take medieval windmills, a very transformative technology. It changed the organization of textile manufacturing, but especially agriculture. But you didn’t see much improvement in the conditions of the peasants. The windmills were controlled by landowners and churches. This narrow elite collected the gains. They decided who could use the windmills. They killed off competition
Except technological innovation didn't benefit "us", it benefited elites.
Der Spiegel's implicit argument (in the one sentence of ("But it is true that humankind has indeed benefited a lot from new technologies") is that technological change benefited "us" over time and, therefore, technological change is good. Acemoğlu offers a different amount of time to survey to determine the effects of innovation, which challenges the idea that technological change is always good.
I find his statement about wind mills without any merit. I am not historian and forgive me for being lazy, but if If I ask ChatGPT4 about it, here is the answer I get:
The invention of the windmill had a substantial impact on peasant life, particularly in medieval Europe. Before windmills, much of the labor-intensive tasks like grinding grain, pumping water, and other mechanical work were done manually or with the help of animals. The introduction of windmills automated these processes to some extent, making life easier for peasants by reducing their labor burden.
The windmill can be considered one of the key innovations that started moving societies away from purely manual labor, allowing people to focus on other tasks and thereby improving overall quality of life. While it didn't entirely revolutionize the peasant lifestyle overnight, it was a step towards greater efficiency and productivity.
—-
Yes, I understand that it is not really a proof, but at least some evidence that his statement is simply hot air.
Humanity is already plunging into dystopia without AI. Changing A.I. Doesn't matter as much as changing our economic system, and flaunting of wealth and power to ensure it only gets worse. A.I. Just makes it more immediate and obvious.
I'm really worried about what will happen when a paradigm-changing technology is in the hands of a precious few. The last few times went alright. But will this time be different?
The last time was social media, and that hasn't has benefited anyone except the shithead billionaires who got rich off of it. Social media is an astounding disaster.
The Fediverse is the first pebble rolling down the hill of corporate internet. 3D printers, AI generated media, right to repair, modular phones and laptops, all are the beginning of the end of mega tech companies in the consumer sphere. Our grandchildren will look at us the same way we look at medieval societies.
Bless your mouth. I hope you're right.