Could A.I. redistribute wealth for us?
“Wealth inequality is one of the great moral issues of our time. In an era when the world has more money than ever before, billions still live on less than three dollars a day. The disparity becomes more striking in the light of studies that show most income inequality comes down to luck, with people of average talent able to shoot to the top of the ladder by being in the right place at the right time.
Making the problem even more severe is the specter of automated unemployment. As countless jobs have been lost to automation already and thirty percent of American jobs are at risk of being automated out of existence within the next thirteen years, it may not be long before mass unemployment caused by automation intensifies the difficulty and urgency of solving the inequality problem.
But, is it possible to solve one problem with another? Could AI be used to redistribute wealth justly?
Feng Xiang, a professor of law at Tsinghua University and a Chinese legal scholar, thinks so. He argues that…”
http://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/could-ai-redistribute-wealth-for-us
#future = #REALnews #robots #tech #innovation #science #design #singularity #engineering #automation #AI #artificialintelligence #economy #finance #universalbasicincome #basicincome #money #UBI
Why would we want ANYTHING “redistributing” wealth — stealing it from hard-working people?
How about it CREATES new wealth? Well, it is AI after all!!!!!!
absolutely not
AS SOON AS YOU DO THAT NO ONE WILL WORK BECAUSE YOU WILL GET AN EQUAL SHARE FOR DOING NOTHING
Friedrich der Große Peter Chango You should both probably do a little bit of research before you stand up on those tired outdated and weathered soapboxes of yours. This is 2018, not 1918. No one is talking about stealing anything and no one is talking about not working. Read a little before looking for opportunities to simply react. Thanks.
Wasim Muklashy Redistribution of wealth — what do you think that means? Stealing it from one person and giving it to another… or using it for something else. We have way too much of that going on these days.
Friedrich der Große Again, I beg of you, please please please read the thing and educate yourself on AI, robotics, cryptocurrency and UBI before simply seeking out comment sections to preach your biases. Please. I’m not trying to argue with you, I”m just simply stating that we live in different times, with different methods, different priorities, different technologies, all of which require different approaches if we want to remain at all relevant on the global stage. Otherwise, we are exactly what we claim to be against…living in the past. The taxation will come on the ROBOTS, not the people. The companies using automation in place of people will save money on personnel AS WELL AS make MORE money. Those taxes on companies that use robots are what gets distributed amongst the populations that got replaced by those robots in programs enabling them to spend more time building their communities and starting small businesses. Please, all I ask is to do a little bit of research on something you might not be familiar with before allowing emotional biases and pride to get in the way of growth or education. “We have way too much of that going on these days.”
Thank you Wasim Muklashy for keeping a level head. A lot of people don’t seem to realize or understand that the introduction of AI into the mainstream working environment will require a major reconstruction of how society and wealth flows. The AI revolution won’t be like the Industrial, destroying old jobs but making new ones. There won’t BE enough jobs for everyone to work in the next 20 years, even if we wanted to. These are indees major issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, people keep having those knee-jerk reactions, mostly in the Baby-Boomer generation who don’t realize how dramatically human society will be transformed in the next few decades. Doesn’t help that these are also the people in most government offices.
Wasim Muklashy Learn about AI??? Dude, I write AI software!!! I mine cryptocurrency, and I am hardly a stranger to Robotics!!!!
Friedrich der Große First of all, thank you. I appreciate you and the work you’re doing. In many ways, you are helping us move forward in a world and society that desperately needs in. I suppose my next thought is, please help me understand how all of the points I laid out in my last comment all seem to be going completely over your head and how those paradigms, especially in regards to crypto, UBI (or similar, perhaps more evolved, programs) don’t factor into what seem to be a major part of your life. I’m a bit baffled and would genuinely like to understand, especially as a crypto miner and AI developer, you yourself are inherently playing a role in the future of income and wealth distribution.
Tyler Martin Of course Tyler. Thank you for your comment. I’m not one to try to argue, there’s already enough of that, especially the past several years. I created this collection several years back as an antidote to other platforms that seem to be all about grandstanding and conflict. In “The Future Is Pretty Rad,” I’m trying to do my little part in showing people that while most are focusing on the crap in the world, there’s also amazing stuff happening (plus, if things get too out of hand and people try to impress conflict upon the collection rather than constructive dialogue, I have the power to block them from the collection LOL. There are mannnnny outlets that will gladly invite that. This is not one of them). But yes, I couldn’t agree more that major paradigm shifts in just about every aspect of life we know, from agriculture to work to economy to communication to finance are not only a necessity, but are already happening, and those not paying attention will unfortunately be on the wrong end of evolution. This is an INCREDIBLE new Vice documentary that seems right up your alley… impact.vice.com – Watch VICE’s New Documentary, the Third Industrial Revolution
In theory, yes, AI could provide the objectively based mechanism. However, as the article says, “…All we would need to do, hypothetically, is give it data and instructions on how we want the numbers to be crunched. ” Who controls the instructions? And how do we assure the data is not “corrupted” to elicit the “right” answers? I don’t trust people.
Software?
Blas Navarrete Araujo Humans write the software … at least initially.
Well an A.I. has no need for money. So there would be no reason why the A.I. would take money. But people will find things to bitch about.
Wasim Muklashy You spoke of wealth REdistribution, which is what I have a problem with. Why worry about wealth distribution at all? It, like many things in nature, follows the 1/f power scaling law.
And usually attempts to alter that natural distribution normally ends up in abject failure.
I currently live in a country with a near 50% tax rate if you’re single. Sweden is near 60%. But they tell me that the “benefits” are great.
I’d like a choice in the matter. But my only “choice” is to choose to live somewhere else. Which I can do, of course. But one must choose wisely.
Friedrich der Große I understand your concern with the re-distribution versus distribution, and I think we might be on the same page, but with a mis-understanding of what each means by wealth and what is being redistributed. As I read it in this particular article, they speak of utilizing systems like UBI by taxing those companies that use robots and AI, and using that money generated to offset the incomes of the jobs lost to those robots and AI. No one is taking any money from anyone. Everyone wins in that system.
And coming from the U.S., I’d gladly pay a higher tax rate for my basic necessities to be covered, especially health care and some sort of retirement or investment benefits, schooling/university, childcare and maternity/paternity leaves, any kind of elderly care and/or pension and things like that.
We currently have none of that here.
Everything becomes privatized and built solely for profit, losing most and much of the quality and accountability in the process. Capitalism is one thing. I’m fine with that. But blatant financial rape of the lower and middle classes is another. I’m not fine with that. And that’s what our current system here has morphed into.
While I can’t speak for the effectiveness of those systems in Sweden since I don’t live there, I can only speak for the existence of them – and believe you me, we spend MUCH more of our personal funds than those 50-60% taxes you’re paying in countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark just to try to keep up with those things at what I guarantee you is a much lower quality. As a matter of fact, these days, the majority of all income is going towards those things, and furthermore, that’s in 2 full-time income households that are barely surviving. It’s no coincidence that ever since neoliberalism began here in 1980 with Reagan, we’ve become a country of zombied pill popping trigger-happy crazies.
I will grant you that 60% does seem excessive, however, I also think the return on those investments might be one of those things you take for granted until you have it no longer.
Wasim Muklashy I stand against all taxes, and don’t think the whole “taxing” robots to pay displace workers bit is a sustainable strategy. For starters, how would one even make that determination? It’s not like can do a direct comparaison…
All these socialistic systems of taxation have one common flaw: None of them are sustainable. What happens when these systems go bankrupt, and those who have grown dependent on them — who have paid into the system all their lives — get nothing in return?
For you see, those who work today are paying for the benefits used today. There is no “retirement” scheme set up at all. And with fewer and fewer pushing out babies, it must come to a head eventually. The math does not lie.
And so you have the current insanity going on in Germany right now with inviting millions of 3rd world migrants who are under-educated and the like to come here — with the hopes that they or there offspring will eventually become productive enough to keep the farce going for a bit longer.
Alas, the „Flüchtlinge” are eating into the benefits coffers now. And will continue to do so. Many if not most have not come from war-torn countries, but too late, and Germany is finding it rather difficult to deport them.
So a desperate and valueless attempt to buttress an unsustainable system.
You start giving people “freebie” stuff, and they will grow in dependency. Indeed, many of them may not even bother with trying to become independent. Why should they? Actually getting up and going to work everyday when the money comes in for free? A generation or two of that and your’re totally screwed.
Friedrich der Große
There is NOTHING that is fully sustainable, as that would be an absolute that is unaffected by environment and external factors, and there no such absolutes in a world that is constantly changing. A world that is a living moving evolving data set of organisms.
If something was to be fully and perpetually sustainable, then there would be nothing evolving, nothing advancing, nothing happening, no movement, no change. We would be in a perpetual state of what is – no movement no life – and that’s not how physics works. The only thing that is fully “sustainable” without adaptation is death.
As things change, we must change and adapt our models to be sustainable to the data set we have at that time. And right now, the systems we have are absolutely not sustainable and need to adapt to the changing paradigms across everything from technology to medicine to food to finance.
So here’s the thing – how about offering a solution or two, give me something to work with, because if all I’m going to be is another sponge for a series of complaints, which is what every single one of your comments and replies has been so far, then I have no reason to continue this conversation, as I will learn nothing other than you’re someone that likes complaining. I’m trying REALLLLY hard to turn this into something constructive and you’re not giving me much to grow on.
Please, please give me something to work with. What do you propose?
Wasim Muklashy Give you something to work with? Easy.
Let the free market decide.
We can all go home now.
For everything you’ve just stated about change the free market already “knows” how to deal with. Things go awry when you try to meddle and centralize control because no centralized control can possibly hope to be nimble enough to adjust quickly and rationally enough to the ever-shifting dynamics.
Friedrich der Große Again, we’ve tried that. That’s what this form of capitalism here was supposed to try. And all that happens there is that a very few, that already have a very lot, get most of the ‘free’ market. If that’s your solution, then, well, this is where we’ll have to agree to disagree, as in a growing open-source and sharing economy, that it itself is not sustainable. Isn’t that what Bitcoin was supposed to be? Let the market decide? Decentralized? And what happened there? We have 4 big mining operations that account for over 50% of all Bitcoin mining, which is why fees are ridiculously stupidly obscene (last time I sent 50 dollars worth of btc, it cost me $10 fee) and Bitcoin can no longer be truthfully called decentralized. That’s called centralization without regulation. It doesn’t work unless everyone begins on an equal playing field. And not everyone is on an equal playing field. Show me ONE example where the ‘free market’ has successfully decided for more than one (maybe two) generations.
I’m all about ‘let the free market decide,’ but I’m also about giving everyone an equal opportunity to get in that game.
Otherwise, that “free market” is already rigged from the outset.
That’s a position that can only be held by those that are priveleged enough to be in position to get in the game. ‘Let the free market decide’ only comes out if the mouths of those that already have it ok.
If we start with 100 beans, and 10 people, who already started with 40 of those beans, end up with 90 of those beans, are you really of the mind that those last 90 people have to suffer over trying to figure out how to live on the last 10 beans and that that’s a fair thing?
That that’s the way things should be?
If so, well, that’s a matter of philosophy and varying levels of human empathy, something I feel is of the utmost importance and vital in the growing and emerging sharing economy.
Again, you’re speaking of a system that may have worked in a world of older paradigms. But with the new emerging ones, that’s just simply not sustainable in itself.
Lay out for me what that ‘free market’ looks like? How does it begin? Who gets to be involved in it from the outset? How does it evolve? And how does someone that is born without a penny able to survive in that ‘free market’ versus someone that is born with a million dollar trust? How does someone that is born with disease to survive versus someone that is born with perfect health? Is it just a ‘tough luck’ thing for you?
If so, I hate to say it, but, well, that kind of outdated mid-20th century elitist thought, in this exponentially emerging sharing economy dominated by IOT and crowd- and open- source data, well…is a quickly dying breed that exists on the unfavorable side of evolution.
I HIGHLY recommend you watch that Vice film posted above. There are things, irreversible things, that prevent your system of even making it past beta. Being as how you didn’t even read the article that started all this, I don’t expect you to get through this, but for posterity’s sake, and my hopelessly stubborn refusal to let go of hope, I’ll post it again anyway:
https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/bj5zaq/watch-vices-new-documentary-the-third-industrial-revolution-a-radical-new-sharing-economy
Wasim Muklashy The problem today is we do not have a truly free market. Capitalism is not exactly the same as the free market. Today, governments grant “personhood” to corporations and remove accountability from the founders of such. Those corporations then lobby, etc. government for more rules to favor their enterprise.
You talk about unfairness? When the government grants a big corporation rules that the little guy can’t compete with, or worse — can’t afford to even enter the game due to the regulation, how is that a “level playing field”?
The reason you have not seen true free markets last very long is that eventually governments put their paw prints all over it and muck it up. There, the power elite size it up for themselves and squeeze out the little guys.
Failure is a part of the equation. We all must be free to fail, large and small. That’s how a true free market works. Failure cleans out the mess that doesn’t work, and create new opportunities for those smart enough to understand how to avoid those failures.
Things like the North American Free Trade Agreement was anything but “free”.
How does a free market suppose to work? Simple.
I come in parched from the dry desert. I have no water, but have a buck in my pocket.
You have water, but would like the money.
I give you the buck for a glass of water. We both win.
So, to nail it down to simplest terms, a true free market transaction is a win-win transaction. Anything else does not count as a free market.
Friedrich der Große Yes, I agree, believe you me, I’m not a fan of corporate influence at ALL in government, but I also see that anytime there’s a market, free or not, there’s no way outside of a Utopia that those that are best off in that market don’t exhert some sort of influence on the market as a whole.
That’s just simply unrealistic.
I’ll use Bitcoin as the example again of that promise gone awry.
And the desert scenario, sure, if I have a buck in my pocket. But what happens if I come in parched from the desert, beat up by coyotes and cacti, but don’t have a buck in my pocket?
According to your vision of the free market, well, I’m screwed.
And that’s the epitome of my concern…that this complete free market philosophy only applies to those already equipped to participate in it.
Wasim Muklashy The response to the problem with Bitcoin being exploited by ASICs are Ethereum and other crypto that are computationally hard to do, obviating ASICs. Yoh have to use commonly-available GPUs, which “levels the playing field”.
This is the sort of thing I am talking about. The free market is self-correcting, and if someone is taking undue advantage, others will concoct a more workable alternative.
The recent tax restructuring continues wealth distribution on a massive scale, in the wrong direction.
Whether it’s the “wrong” direction or the “right” direction depends on where you sit.