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Zombies and Artificial Minds

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49 minutes ago, Devil's Advocate said:

So I ask you again, what labor niche remains for humans to fill in such a scenario?

I wouldn't couch the question that way, rather, in pattern with how the industrial revolution unfolded: What labor niches would such a scenario open up for individuals to fill?

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3 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

I wouldn't couch the question that way, rather, in pattern with how the industrial revolution unfolded: What labor niches would such a scenario open up for individuals to fill?

 

My position is that the introduction of Sentient Autonomous Entities as competitors in a human marketplace precludes the possibility of human labor based niches to open up.

Scenario:

1) Laissez faire capitalism operates according to Objectivist model

2) The use of robotics creates a monopoly that excludes manual labor wages in all fields of employment

3) Advanced robotics expand the monopoly to exclude all skilled labor wages

4) Artificial intelligence expands the monopoly to exclude all research & development wages

5) Sentient Autonomous Entities expand the monopoly to exclude market competition with any human being in future entrepreneurial endeavors.

They simply get there first and produce it better than we can, every time. Unless you can posit some inherent competitive advantage humans would maintain over SAEs, it’s pretty much game over for capitalist wetware at that point.  So, is there some niche I’ve overlooked?

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On 9/17/2016 at 2:08 PM, Nicky said:

... But every argument I've heard against the possibility of either happening, given our ability to expand computing power and the ability of computers to interact with the world, has been very, very weak, and very easy to dismiss.

Agreed, and whether your "singularity" stands alone or is integrated with our wetware, I think we both agree that it will outperform humans by every measure.  It is not Luddite reasoning to draw the obvious conclusion that we will have placed ourselves at a competitive disadvantage resulting in a monopoly of labor that excludes humans.

To avoid that end, your singularity would have to remain subservient (unlikely), or limited in some other capacity which you've already dismissed.

EOL

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On 9/18/2016 at 11:15 PM, dream_weaver said:

This reminds me of the Luddite reasoning that was behind trying to destroy the cotton and woolen mills.

It reminds you of their arguments because it's the same exact argument: it treats "jobs" as the equivalent of work in general, rather than what they are: ONE form of work, among SEVERAL, that involves cooperation between two or more willing individuals. It fallaciously assumes that just because I end our arrangement and thus end his job, I'm robbing him of the ability to work.

If an industrialist is able to automate a task he needs done, that will render the inflexible Luddite useless to them. The Luddite's argument is: that robs me of my job, so now I don't have work. Not realizing two things: 

1. the job (the act of cooperating with another person) isn't his. It is a shared, voluntary arrangement, that either side has a right to withdraw from at any moment, for any reason.

2. if anything, the job going away causes a Luddite who rejects technology to have to work MORE, not less. No one is forcing the new technology on the Luddite, they're just severing ties with him.

So, really, what Devil wants isn't to keep himself the way he is. He can do that just fine. No one would force AI on him. What he wants is to keep HIS EMPLOYER THE WAY HE IS, so he can keep their arrangement intact. It's not that he's worried about ALL WORK going away...that's an absurdity: someone who wants to work, can. What he's worried about is that he'll lose HIS CURRENT JOB, and JUBS LIKE HIS CURRENT JOBS, and either

a. have to adapt, and do something so different that his mind can't even comprehend it, or

b. refuse to adapt, and end up either working for himself, of for other Luddites, in a small scale Luddite economy that is separate from the AI driven, technologically advanced marketplace.

That second option may or may not be as attractive as what he currently has (depending on the degree of separation the Luddites will create for themselves)...but he doesn't have a right to stop those of us willing to embrace AI from leaving him behind. He doesn't have a right to force his employer to never change, just to make sure he keeps his current job.

And it's absurd to claim that being reduced to those two options is the same as robbing him of the opportunity to work.

 

P.S. What the Luddites' arguments come down to is this: if an individual's actions change society, does the individual still have the right to those actions? Collectivists will argue: no, the masses have the right to shape society, and restrict the right of individuals to act in a way that is contrary to their will. Individualists will argue: yes, society should be shaped by individual choices, no matter what the consequences, and those who dislike those consequences are free to separate from those who like those consequences.

You can in fact create two separate economies. And there are examples of separate economies: for instance, in countries where Muslims and non-Muslims (or Jews and non-Jews) live together, there is a Halal (Kosher) food economy, and a regular food economy. Of course, this creates an inconvenience for a Muslim or Jewish minority: they have to pay more for their food than they would if everyone just ate Halal or Kosher food. But that's how it should work.

That's exactly how it should work with AI too: Luddites would be free to separate, create their own little economy, and live as if AI doesn't exist. They will lose the benefit of cooperating with those of us who aren't Luddite, but that is as it should be.

Edited by Nicky
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2 hours ago, Nicky said:

What the Luddites' arguments come down to is this: if an individual's actions change society, does the individual still have the right to those actions? Collectivists will argue: no, the masses have the right to shape society, and restrict the right of individuals to act in a way that is contrary to their will. Individualists will argue: yes, society should be shaped by individual choices, no matter what the consequences, and those who dislike those consequences are free to separate from those who like those consequences.

I hadn't considered the Luddites under a collectivist light. I wouldn't have considered them 'the masses', but even the idea that a 'group' claims to have the right to shape society via violating the property rights of the owners of the equipment, is really a minor point at this junction. Thank-you.

In the northeast U.S., there are many Amish communities that still shun electricity, and take their trips via horse and buggy. This fits in with the separate economy. Their merchandise, where marketed, is done so via the umbrella of artisan crafted in furniture, as well as some organic agriculture. Both target niche clientele within their respective fields.

I thought of Mackinaw Island, as they prohibit motor vehicles. It is buttressed with the historic angle as well, and marketed for tourism. Some people do live and work year round on the island proper. Some exhibits have individuals there to provide a canned story, and some field questions in areas they come across as very knowledgeable. The fort had an area we went into that had some mechanical manikins with a motion activated loop script. If A.I. offered Q & A interaction, this exhibit would have benefited from it (providing it recorded constructive criticism for consideration and review).

Add to that Greenfield village. Employee's there dress and act historic roles. Again, history aimed toward tourism. So if Devil's Advocate is looking for a new niche to market, purchase some land, and set up areas he thinks would be of interest to preserve and could entertain the guests with human interest stories from the time prior to A.I.

 

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I largely agree with Nicky here, but I want to clarify some things about Luddites. I wrote a paper on them a while back so I know a decent amount.

Luddites aren't simply anti-technology and labor-focused in their outlook. The original Luddites saw a threat to -their- livlihood because they worked at looms all their life. Mechanical looms replaced them, thus are directly responsible for unemployment, loss of a wage, and all that. They would NEVER be  able to go back to their old ways. They couldn't go off to make their own village and maintain their old job. Essentially they'd be displaced forever. No more manual looms. No one forced it on them, but the world they were part of changed. A separate Luddite economy was impossible.

Altogether, this resulted in the perceived need to take action. In a sense, it's as though they felt exploited by machine-owning capitalists. The capitalists are free to use machines or people, while people like the Luddites felt trapped, at the whim of a capitalist's wishes. Luddism is proto-Marxism, and perhaps the first anti-capitalist movement. Machine breaking was just their form of revolution. It would look right to use force, as they were already abused and exploited.

These issues disappear as soon as we start to think about adapting to society, as  well as finding one's own way. Yes, the short-term sucked. The world was changing fast. A Luddite was still free to learn new skills for different jobs, or alter their focus in life. It was an individual's lack of creativity that made it seem that exploitation or harm was caused by capitalism's application of technology. So there was no exploitation.

The worry over AI and labor is almost the same, Devil. Your life would change substantially if super AIs were made that were superior to all people. There would be no avoiding it, either. This wouldn't ruin your life. You could make art all day, write novels, do stand-up comedy. Who knows. Point is, AIs couldn't literally replace ALL human skills, even if AIs also made art. It's not like people stopped writing in English after Shakespeare died. Worry about labor just goes back to the Luddites' worry.

Besides, if AI got so advanced, it would make sense you probably would be able to enhance your mind to an equally high level. Again, creative response is required.

If your worry is AIs enslaving people, that's totally different.

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12 hours ago, Devil's Advocate said:

The success of Luddites in some micro economy as a niche of laissez faire capitalism implies a reward for inferior competition.  Is that how it works in reality?

Laissez faire implies value for value, as decided by those in particular contexts of their own value hierarchy, as the traders find themselves to be, no matter how modest the values.  Implying service or goods anything other than the "best" would command no value in exchange is a denial of reality and it flirts with the concept of a zero sum game. 

 

No matter what exists in the world, no matter how many or how intelligent or how efficient, the production or computational output of the super-race or machine will be finite - A.  A finite supply, if you will, from the "overlords" as the left would characterize them, or the synthetic heroes as we might characterize them.

In any system or society of independent volitional actors who are alive, i.e. living, growing, flourishing, exploring, discovering, including the machines and man, there will be a demand which is always greater than supply.  No growing, expanding, ever reaching ambition of rational intelligence (man or machine) is bounded simply by what is currently available, it pushes to the frontiers of ever widening, greater, more efficient, better results.

Every effort toward those results has value.

IF by some quirk, for example, the whole of Earth, synthetic and human, were to come together and set itself a single goal of sending a colony to a nearby star, and the designing, planning, and construction begun, were everyone except one backwoods living aerospace engineer bent all of its effort and intelligence toward this goal it would only be providing an output of A.  It could only do so much, it cant to everything, be everywhere, calculate an infinite number or problems all at the same time... because it is finite.

Were that engineer to come out of the woods and decide to join the great project, far from rejected, he would be gladly accepted.  No matter how small the contribution to the great task it would be useful and morally deserving of value in exchange.

 

In a real society where there are myriad desires and aims and goals and endeavors, where there are myriad players, demanders, consumers, and suppliers, there will be myriad levels of service to be provided and exchanged for value.  Humans will own machines (non sentient ones... slavery will still not be allowed) as sentient machines may own livestock... tools of trades which empower them to provide our modest eggs for breakfast, or a personal weather forecast for some remote part of the woods, an engineer who often lives there would be willing to pay for.

To sum up, there is no reason to believe, as long as force is not involved, that everyone will have the opportunity to work, trade value for value, and sustain themselves; i.e. to live.

[Note:  Leftists would be correct that there may "gaps" between the rich and the poor, the able and the less-able.. but such is a function of reality and merely reveals the justice of the system and the actual differences in capacity of the individuals]

 

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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1 hour ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Laissez faire implies value for value, as decided by those in particular contexts of their own value hierarchy, as the traders find themselves to be, no matter how modest the values.  Implying service or goods anything other than the "best" would command no value in exchange is a denial of reality and it flirts with the concept of a zero sum game...

... To sum up, there is no reason to believe, as long as force is not involved, that everyone will have the opportunity to work, trade value for value, and sustain themselves; i.e. to live...

Correct, meaning there is reason to believe that inferior laborers, in the form of ordinary humans, will not be competitive, thus go unrewarded, against super laborers, in the form of Sentient Autonomous Entities.  Which leaves us with future competitiveness  by enhanced human laborers, AKA the Borg (resistance is futile), or a living like a Luddite; probably on a zoo/farm/attraction run by SAEs.

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37 minutes ago, Devil's Advocate said:

Correct, meaning there is reason to believe that inferior laborers, in the form of ordinary humans, will not be competitive, thus go unrewarded, against super laborers, in the form of Sentient Autonomous Entities.  Which leaves us with future competitiveness  by enhanced human laborers, AKA the Borg (resistance is futile), or a living like a Luddite; probably on a zoo/farm/attraction run by SAEs.

Pardon?  It seems as though you have completely missed the point of my post.  I suggest you read it again and think about it or provide a clear counterargument.

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11 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

... To sum up, there is no reason to believe, as long as force is not involved, that everyone will have the opportunity to work, trade value for value, and sustain themselves; i.e. to live...

In your post, as a whole, you suggest there will always be opportunity to work for those who choose to.  Then this part (above) reads, "there is no reason to believe that everyone will have the opportunity to work".  Perhaps you meant, "there's no reason to believe that everyone won't have the opportunity to work"?  I get that you're suggesting there will always be something productive to do, but that doesn't necessarily translate to earning a wage in a competitive labor market designed to displace ordinary human workers.

It may not be of concern because laissez faire capitalism might never be practiced in pure form, i.e., there may remain protectionist controls, or government intervention picking winners and leveling the playing field.  But without that kind of interference, super competitors would certainly limit, if not exclude, ordinary effort.  Who would pay for substandard service, except as some quaint demonstration of sentimentality?

My point has more to do, not with a gap of wealth, but with a gap of ability to perform.

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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A discussion similar to this was recently on the show "Kennedy".  Kennedy has a daily show on Fox Business Network and credits having read Rand's IToE in changing her political views.

The discussion of Robots occurs at the beginning of the clip and then touch on again a the end.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5134319808001/will-robots-take-over-the-workforce/?#sp=show-clips

Edited by New Buddha
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To clarify, I'm not arguing against technology, but for the responsible application of it.  To insert a justifiable concern, as presented in the movie Jurassic Park, that I think is appropriate to this discussion...

John Hammond:  "I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before..."

Dr. Ian Malcom: "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

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13 hours ago, Devil's Advocate said:

Correct, meaning there is reason to believe that inferior laborers, in the form of ordinary humans, will not be competitive, thus go unrewarded, against super laborers, in the form of Sentient Autonomous Entities.  Which leaves us with future competitiveness  by enhanced human laborers, AKA the Borg (resistance is futile), or a living like a Luddite; probably on a zoo/farm/attraction run by SAEs.

Why would these Sentient Autonomous Entities spend their time manufacturing things for humans?  Why would they grow corn, design and manufacture smartphones, clothing and flat screen televisions, or work as sous chefs in restaurants?

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10 hours ago, New Buddha said:

Why would these Sentient Autonomous Entities spend their time manufacturing things for humans?  Why would they grow corn, design and manufacture smartphones, clothing and flat screen televisions, or work as sous chefs in restaurants?

To pay for their cost of "living".  After all, you don't get something for nothing.  SAEs will still need to account for consumables, maintenance, utilities and a place to park it.  Their need for employment, and the benefit from it, will be as dear to them as it is to us.  They'll just be soooo much better at getting and keeping it.

The only thing humans will have of value to offer, once SAEs achieve independence, is their property.

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14 hours ago, Devil's Advocate said:

In your post, as a whole, you suggest there will always be opportunity to work for those who choose to.  Then this part (above) reads, "there is no reason to believe that everyone will have the opportunity to work".  Perhaps you meant, "there's no reason to believe that everyone won't have the opportunity to work"?  I get that you're suggesting there will always be something productive to do, but that doesn't necessarily translate to earning a wage in a competitive labor market designed to displace ordinary human workers.

It may not be of concern because laissez faire capitalism might never be practiced in pure form, i.e., there may remain protectionist controls, or government intervention picking winners and leveling the playing field.  But without that kind of interference, super competitors would certainly limit, if not exclude, ordinary effort.  Who would pay for substandard service, except as some quaint demonstration of sentimentality?

My point has more to do, not with a gap of wealth, but with a gap of ability to perform.

Ah yes.  You have found what indeed is a typo. Apologies.

There is no reason not to believe that everyone will have the opportunity to work.

 

As for your argument, I fail to see what it is in particular.  There is nothing substandard about something which needs to be done getting done.  The question is only how much a free agent consumer is willing to pay, and whether the free agent provider can do something which is more lucrative.

Take an agent A (machine or human).  It has a capacity which commands various prices in the marketplace for doing various particular things.  The free market would not reward the agent as much doing things which are not at its level.  For example, insofar as a lawyer or a doctor could spend his/her time sweeping the floor, he or she would not be able to command the same price per hour or unit energy/effort, as when being engaged in a difficult case or surgery.  As such the agent chooses to do those things which are most lucrative to him/her opening up the market to others for whom the sweeping would be most lucrative to them.

The super-mind would not find it as lucrative to teach youngling machines or human children about physics, as to employ its time watching for errant asteroids, solving a new complex problem in fundamental physics or monitoring and preventing solar storms, etc.  After all it IS finite and must choose what it should spend its time doing.

Humans cannot be displaced from things they are incapable of doing, and machine agents capable of doing more and being rewarded for the same would not compete for tasks which humans can do.  We would be in competition with human level machines and we would also be collaborating with them as traders.

 

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2 hours ago, Devil's Advocate said:

To pay for their cost of "living".  After all, you don't get something for nothing.

A fox taking chickens from a farmer's hen house doesn't see what he is doing as "stealing".

Most dooms day AI scenarios are centered around the idea that AI would be in direct competition with human's for natural resources.  And AI would no more see what it does  to secure what it needs to live as "stealing" anymore than does the fox.  The concept of "pay" (or trading, property, etc.) is unique to human animals, and is a learned, cultural-based behavior.

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1 hour ago, StrictlyLogical said:

... As for your argument, I fail to see what it is in particular.  There is nothing substandard about something which needs to be done getting done.  The question is only how much a free agent consumer is willing to pay, and whether the free agent provider can do something which is more lucrative...

...Humans cannot be displaced from things they are incapable of doing, and machine agents capable of doing more and being rewarded for the same would not compete for tasks which humans can do.  We would be in competition with human level machines and we would also be collaborating with them as traders...

I'm highlighting these two statements to clarify my specific concern of the design and release of super competitors, what I'm referring to as SAEs, within the labor market.

For example the part about, "machine agents capable of doing more and being rewarded for the same would not compete for tasks which humans can do", is essentially the same argument made for migrant workers working in fields that American workers don't want.  We can say that American workers can still complete for those jobs, but at a lesser wage provided the employer is allowed to employ the least expensive laborer available.  However, when the expense of labor is reduced below what any human worker can live on, his nationality or standard of living becomes irrelevant.  In that case the labor market for robotics becomes a monopoly of labor because no person can compete for a lesser wage.  What is becoming evident today in agriculture and assembly lines, can be projected to every field of labor.

Now you can cling to the notion that there will remain some market for labor where humans will maintain a competitive advantage over SAEs, based on some inherent (as yet unidentified) limitation with AI technology, or some enhanced form of human labor competitor (resistance is futile), or you can accept that human labor (regardless of individual scope of potential) will simply be outperformed at every level of competition, including that of entrepreneurs, employers and property owners.

This scenario doesn't rely on a zero sum game to unfold.  Yes, there will continue to expand new fields of labor.  What I'm saying is that there's every reason to believe that SAEs will enter those fields with an exponentially better skill set (and reduced cost of "living") than their human creators.

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4 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

A fox taking chickens from a farmer's hen house doesn't see what he is doing as "stealing".

Most dooms day AI scenarios are centered around the idea that AI would be in direct competition with human's for natural resources.  And AI would no more see what it does  to secure what it needs to live as "stealing" anymore than does the fox.  The concept of "pay" (or trading, property, etc.) is unique to human animals, and is a learned, cultural-based behavior.

And yet it is those human animals that are designing and releasing enhanced laborers to compete within their own concept of "pay".  We can presume that the transfer (assimilation) of our uniqueness to SAEs will remain part of the equation. We are not, for example designing better foxes; we are designing better human competitors.

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1 hour ago, Devil's Advocate said:

And yet it is those human animals that are designing and releasing enhanced laborers to compete within their own concept of "pay".  We can presume that the transfer (assimilation) of our uniqueness to SAEs will remain part of the equation. We are not, for example designing better foxes; we are designing better human competitors.

Maybe I'm not understanding your definition of SAE.  Are you saying that a Human assigns a job (via some form of programming) to individual SAE's, such as "You, Machine A, are a fry cook" and "You, Machine B, assemble smartphones".

If so, why would these machines be considered "Sentient Autonomous Entities" and not just machines.  If they are just following programs which they didn't write and can't modify, how could they be a SAE?

If they are truly SAE, then why would they follow a human's program, or participate in the marketplace?

Edited by New Buddha
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2 hours ago, Devil's Advocate said:

However, when the expense of labor is reduced below what any human worker can live on, his nationality or standard of living becomes irrelevant.

This is an impossibility.  Specialization allows humans to do things other than concentrate on directly obtaining shelter, food, etc.  This means the value of the specialized activity (per unit time or energy) is greater, i.e. commands more than what would be gained by the person directly spending the hours to hunt, build a house, chop and burn wood, raise crops etc.

As soon as any number of people were reduced to directly doing this for themselves, they would soon specialize and trade with each other.  Farmers and house builders would appear and we would be back at an economy of civilized people working to live and trading.

If there were no force, even IF man had nothing to do with the machines and their economy, there is nothing to stop the men from having their own economies.

 

Moreover, to borrow from your logic, if no man can get a job from a machine (which I dispute) because other machines are better, then no man would be rich enough (in that economy) to hire a machine to do other jobs better than his fellow men.  So men simply would be forced to work and trade with each other.

Your doomsday prediction is a floating and false abstraction.

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