What do you mean by fairly distributed? If all my machines are better than you intellectually and all my machines are stronger and faster than you physically...
Then it is completely fair for me to not give you any wealth because the machines out perform you.
People fear AI because the fair outcome is in fact detrimental for a good portion of humanity.
That is the paradoxical irony. In theory to save people you must function as a welfare state with things like ubi. You must deliberately distribute income unfairly. The practical course of action goes against our moral instincts.
> In theory to save people you must function as a welfare state with things like ubi. You must deliberately distribute income unfairly.
This is only true for perverted definition of the word "fair" which allows owners/investors to perpetually capture 99.9% of the value produced by people who research, develop, build, and operate "your" machines.
When this is your ground truth, I can see how you would perceive a truly fair distribution of value created through thousands of years of collective human ingenuity, creativity, and hard work, as "unfair". Particularly in a post-singularity world where AGI and robots replace the majority of human work.
Right so if I'm a janitor and I use chemicals to clean things which is the result of hundreds of years of human ingenuity and chemical engineering I suddenly owe humanity money?
No. That is the perverted idea. I'm simply talking about fair as in fair trade. As in what is defined as a fair trade and a fair transaction according to economic theory and common sense. I am using the absolute most normal and most common sense meaning of the word "fair."
You are the one in your words: "perverting" the meaning. Perversion is actually too strong of a word. I would say you are definitely twisting the meaning and using an uncommon and sort of made up definition.
According to the most common usage of the word fair those who own AI only owe what they paid for. If they give away money then the economy is becoming more socialist or in another words an even distribution of wealth, but certainly unfair in the eyes of capitalism and fair trade and the fair exchange of goods.
Keep in mind though I'm not blindly supporting capitalism. The future of society may rely on a more practical but more unfair distribution of wealth. But we have to face the fact that such a distribution is fundamentally unfair.
"Fairness" in this definition is tied to a belief that everyone deserves a decent life.
The thought is this: we are not a society of cavemen or subsistence farmers. We're the richest society in our history by far, so all people should enjoy the fruits of such a society.
Let's say you develop a debilitating illness that robs you of your ability to produce income. Or, you have a loved one—a child—that is debilitated and will never participate in the normal "fair trade" society.
Society condemns them to a life of poverty and suffering because of their debilitation. Is that "fair" in the context of our economic surplus? If it is fair, how much more should our economic surplus be in order for these debilitated individuals to have a decent life? Will they never ever have a decent life and that's just what we decide for ourselves?
This is ultimately a moral question. Can we imagine or create a society that yields better standard of living outcomes regardless of that person's status or capability? Andrew Yang's UBI policy was essentially because he had a son with down syndrome.
If you had down syndrome, would you prefer the "fair trade" definition of fairness, or the "fair living" definition?
No. I agree that it is morally right to help people in need. But it is not a fair trade.
You cannot redefine the term "fair" to be inline with your moral values. We have different terms for what you are referring to. When you donate to a charity you use the word "donate". You have not conducted a fair transaction.
In the eyes of capitalism, it's certainly legal and to a certain degree, expected that profits accumulate at the top, but I don't believe the majority of the population ever thought of it as a "fair" arrangement.
What I'm trying to say is that your framing of the issue in terms of "fairness" isn't very productive. It may be your opinion that any given arrangement is fair, but the concept of "fairness" is really just a social construct. If your fellow citizens disagree, they are ultimately the ones who will rally to change the system. At first electorally, and failing that, through violence.
What do you mean..? the status quo is like this already. People choose the most competitive product so if a machine is the better performer then payment is made towards purchasing and maintaining a machine instead of paying a worker.
The current electorate 100 percent supports this and considers this fair. You actually have to create a new nation state if you don't want this.
> People choose the most competitive product so if a machine is the better performer then payment is made towards purchasing and maintaining a machine instead of paying a worker.
how do you explain the significant market for hand made products?
regardless, this wasn't my point
my point was the electorate aren't going to support e.g. Microsoft replacing every single worker in the US with a piece of code
regardless of Microsoft's opinion as to what it thinks is fair
>how do you explain the significant market for hand made products?
Because a segment of people think the hand made product is superior. So they purchase it. I never made the claim that machine made is superior to hand made. I made the claim that If machine made was superior then people won't employ others to make hand made things.
For a vast swath of products, machine made is often more superior. With AI, that swath becomes even larger.
>my point was the electorate aren't going to support e.g. Microsoft replacing every single worker in the US with a piece of code
The electorate is not clear about this. Morally it's a strange situation because free trade is a liberty that's part of the American Dream. If a machine can automate all jobs then it's a persons god given right to use that machine rather then pay someone to do the work. The implications of AI nor the morality of the change AI will bring is so muddy it can bring a democratic electorate into a deadlock via conflicts of interest and slow decision making.
>it's no more a god given right that it's an incited mob's right to burn down the fab or datacenter that someone else "own"s
If you change societies current outlook on morality and law then yes you are right. But currently society has laws in place that define burning down a data center as wrong. Those laws do not differentiate between whether it was done by an individual or a mob. These laws are also agreed upon by most people. You can make up your own personal morality, but good discussion should be founded on a shared reality and the status quo majority interpretation of it.
>property rights in liberal democracies will not survive a starving middle class
And this is the paradox I am referring to right? Our current interpretation of morality is at odds with practicality.
Then it is completely fair for me to not give you any wealth because the machines out perform you.
People fear AI because the fair outcome is in fact detrimental for a good portion of humanity.
That is the paradoxical irony. In theory to save people you must function as a welfare state with things like ubi. You must deliberately distribute income unfairly. The practical course of action goes against our moral instincts.