MIT Economist Daron Acemoğlu Takes on Big Tech: "Our Future Will Be Very Dystopian"
MIT Economist Daron Acemoğlu Takes on Big Tech: "Our Future Will Be Very Dystopian"
The rich and powerful have hijacked progress throughout history, says Daron Acemoğlu. They did so back in the Middle Ages and also now in the age of artificial intelligence. In an interview, the MIT economist dives into the question of whether Silicon Valley is plunging humanity into destitution.
Our present is pretty dystopian to be fair.
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.
I agree, but sometimes I think, imagine you were in the middleages and your village just gets raided by a Ghengis Khan battalion or a Viking tribe or something, your wife and daughter get raped and killed in front of you, your frinds killed, you get chosen for blood eagle for later on in the day. Wtv middleages scenario, or any other ancient lawless period of time you choose, these events were not that much unlikely to happen. What word do we use for that? Not dystopian but what? Were things ever better than what they are now? Maybe democracy was an interesting experience, convenient for times when the beer flows easy out of the barril, and everyone's happy. Now, the tide is changing, ressources are scarce, environment is changing, we're now 8 billion and counting. Maybe dystopian times were always inevitable. I will resist it sure, but, thinking rationally, there doesn't seem to be a lot of hope honestly. Unless Aliens show up to straighten us up or something wild like that.
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.
Nuclear weapons, the maxim gun, lead paint, lead gasoline, basically all lead-based products, thalidomide, CFCs, the electric chair, agent orange, asbestos, oxycodone, zyklon b, refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, disposable plastics, cigarettes, trans fats, ...
I think @PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com is doing a great job of pointing to the actual substance of the argument, so I'll leave that to them, but it's actually really easy to come up with a long list of technological horrors that absolutely did not benefit most people but had huge impacts on our economy.
I do think "impact on our economy" is a pretty squishy phrase that'll give you some wiggle room, but many of these nightmare technologies are inextricably and inseparably tied to the way we've structured our economy. Likewise, I think it's easy to define "technology" in convenient ways for these kinds of arguments, but also ends up being circular pretty quick.
I can, totally, see AI only benefitting the people who own the code and make policies for it. Despite the fact that it may be used to "benefit" most people, the ones who will benefit the most are the people who own it. Similar to targeted ads. It's a multi-billion dollar industry that gathers insane swathes of information on individuals, and that information is bought and sold to the highest bidder. You could make the argument that it's easier to buy shoes online, but is it worth having literally everything about you sold to whoever is willing to buy it? It's usually a ruse crafted by people with the ability to profit off of others, making the majority think they're benefiting in some minute way.
What Acemoglu is saying is fundamentally a Marxist argument, and I'm saying that with no value judgments attached, I'm just pointing out factually that he's essentially saying the same thing as Marx. In summary, technology tends to disproportionately benefit the people who can afford to implement it (the owners). AI is a means of production. While it's currently possible for anyone to download the means of production for free, no violence required, currently you've got several large AI companies (like OpenAI) trying to pull the ladder up behind themselves under the guise of safety and ethics concerns. They're trying to protect themselves from the tendency of the rate of profit to fall by angling to limit the pool of competitors. Indeed, much of whether a technology benefits society at large is dictated by the barriers to entry to using that technology. If they are successful, the barriers to entry will be made much higher, and it will all but guarantee that the benefits of AI stay at the top.
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.
Getting rid of capitalism is the first step to a better future. AI advances and productivity are completely and utterly incompatible with capitalism.
UBI and near 100% tax on all AI productivity gains are critical to avoiding the worst of the worst dystopian hellscapes.
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.
Permanently Deleted
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.