~~all~~ ^only
Also; the reason why it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism is that ending the world actually is easier than ending capitalism.
I really disagree with this meme. For just one example, capitalism isnt why people are using ai to generate nudes of unwilling people and children. Without capitalism I do very much doubt AI would be where it is right now, but the cats out of the bag and it isnt going away if we didnt have capitalism.
That is unfortunately just human nature. The tool here is not to blame, but the person using it. People were making drawings of people unconsentually well before ai, then with the addition of photoshop the issue became even worse. Now AI is just the next step in allowing humans to follow their darker interests.
But the tool is so much more valuable than that.
If people think the big risk of AI is fake nudes... man, I wish that was the worst that could happen.
People generating porn, no matter how abhorrent, is one of the LEAST problems with AI, but the fact that you are stuck on it is very telling
edit: you have no idea how bad AI is already fucking up your life and it has nothing to do with prompt art
"stuck on it" is an egregious hyperbole, they just gave it as an example.
Yeah lol, I just gave one quick example of something I felt was indisputably not tied to capitalism. But apparently I'm stuck on it and the only problem I have is with it generating porn? Wild way to read my post, and entirely untrue.
It doesn't solve the energy and emissions crisis we are facing but sure.
Nor does it resolve the inherent biases introduced by humans working on it
(the energy and emissions crisis are also byproducts of capitalism)
The Aral Sea is essentially gone and it was killed by poor Soviet planning. Capitalism was not the driving factor rather ignorance was and ignorance is held equally by all sides.
Capitalism isn’t the only thing driving environmental collapse. It’s industrialization
Okay Tyler Durden
Central planners in the Soviet Union didn't even have computers and they lacked the level of scientific understanding we have today of the environment, of our resources, and of the limits to growth. We've all heard about Mao killing the sparrows in China.
This isn't a reason to never try central planning again.
They don't disappear if capitalism disappears. I agree with you capitalism needs to end in order to deal with them but there are hard issues that we have to deal with even with capitalism gone.
Even if the causes ceased we would still be left with residual emissions and degraded natural systems to try and deal with and a lower EROI society to do it.
They're "hard issues" because we don't have a centrally planned economy, we have to rely on the market to provide solutions.
Through a combination of marshaling the forces of production to build a renewable infrastructure and strict fossil fuel rationing during the build-up phase I think we could get the crisis under control within 5 years.
... I'll admit that's just vibes, though.
I get the sentiment and I wish it were true.
Some of the issues stem from material and energy limitations regardless of human organisation structures. Fossil Fuels are stored sunlight over a long period of time that means that burning them has a high yield and that's given us a very high EROI society (one where there's an abundance of energy for purposes that aren't basic functioning).
I recommend reading The Collapse of Complex Societies by Tainter who discussing the energy limitations of society. Its before our understanding of energy limitations of technology and he's by no means a leftist but it is still a good introductory text to it.
They’re “hard issues” because we don’t have a centrally planned economy, we have to rely on the market to provide solutions
As humans are very bad a predicting the future, centrally planned economies come with so many added problems that market based solutions are frequently more realistic.
Every corporation is centrally planned.
I recommend reading The People's Republic of Walmart. Businesses have figured out central planning, there's no reason it can't be done for nations.
No, they are not and how a business functions amd how a national economy function are incredibly different.
Walmart isn't a federation, it's very centrally planned. It's also larger than a lot of nations.
The only thing missing is a military.
Are you really this poorly educated in economics that you do not get that for profit businesses and nation states function under completely different realities?
This is a strawman. Centrally planned does not mean immutable, and markets are no more able to predict the future than anyone else. What it does allow is the disregard of the only quantity markets are capable of maximizing, profit.
This is not a strawman. Im not constructing a false point to argue against while ignoring their claims. Im in fact discussing them directly.
Markets don’t need to predict the future as the market responds naturally more quickly than central planning can adjust for errors or unexpected aspects of the plan. one of the major points of failure for central planned economies is the lack of responsiveness. A centally planned economy would not avoid environmental catastrophe as the Soviets were responsible for several with profit motives.
Completely untrue.
The environmental impact would still be as bad, it would still spout out misinformation, it would still scrape for art against people's will, the images would still be shit and not art anyway, and would still make an intellectual sinkhole.
Problem is that AI is going to be used to make it harder to overthrow capitalism. It’d be interesting to see the uses of AI in a world where it wasn’t being used to chip away at some of the last occupations where talent and skill mean anything.
Machine Learning is especially useful for many different kinds of research as an advanced mode of statistical analysis.
Text and image generation is not especially useful in any field other than to cut corners on paying human artists and writers and programmers to do the job properly.
Text and image generation are the ones that upset me. C-suite types (and their pettier, aspirational counterparts) don’t care about “art” - why publish a few good novels that you have to pay royalties on, when you can generate thousands? Even if they’re shit, there was zero effort on your part.
If you lack aesthetic appreciation - why would you bother hiring an artist for anything?
The wealthy of this era don’t seem to value art. Midjourney can make Kinkade knock offs faster than even Kinkade himself could. There’s not room in their world for Twombly’s and Motherwell’s - except perhaps as investment schemes.
It's also going to be used to eliminate positions where "talent" and "skill" aren't required, which is where a gigantic portion of a lot of countries populations work.
When ownership decides "I own the AI that run the factory and the AI inside the Robots that perform all the physical tasks in the factory, so why the fuck should any of my profit go to pay parasites on society?" that's when we get into the "let them all starve" portion of capitalism...
It is not just Capitalism…is is centralization in all its forms. Too much power in the hands of the few always leads to poor outcomes for the many. This is bigger than Capitalism.
What market structure is a good model for decentralization? Socialism generally involves a central authority deciding on resource allocation, and most other approaches also have an emphasis on centralization.
There is nothing in socialism that requires central planning. There are specific branches that do, but market socialism would, if anything, use it less than the current system.
I think you have to pick the low hanging fruit and go from there. For instance, we are here and already have made a small, but measurable dent to Reddit traffic. Imagine if everyone came over here, Reddit would no longer be viable as a profit company. Google would collapse if we all supported Peer Tube. Of course these are not going to change the world, but I am convinced if/when decentralization gets traction, we will find ways to implement it everywhere it makes sense. It is about balance as there are benefits to centralization and I am not suggesting everyone is decentralized, but right now the scales are out of balance and we have some tools to start to rebalance. We just have to want it. Well maybe need it which seems to be coming.
Unironically any good argument against AI boils down to an argument against capitalism. Every other one is horribly misinformed.
Crazy how my socialist world view gets proven right time after time. Reality really does have a left wing bias, huh?
Companies are the original AI. They turn humans into a machine that does whatever the owner wants. Kind of like the dreaming humans in the Matrix movie.
I remember sitting in an art class where the teacher proclaimed using premixed black paint was improper: a true artist must mix their own black paint. I thought a lot about that when I first started using Photoshop and viewing digital art. I think about it now with AI.
Right now AI is a tool of MBAs who see it as a way to extract money from budgets by cutting costs on artists and writers. AI's only proper use is as a tool by artists and writers.
I disagreed with that teacher then, and still kinda do, but I understand them completely: they were focused on fostering the artistic drive of the creator and eschewing shortcuts. I just think the artistic drive includes so called shortcuts as there is no predefined or 'true' path to being an artist.
sure lets just get rid of capitalism as a whole, lets see where that lands us
I agree. Most of the problems with AI are the people controlling it, and the need to profit. Give it to the public to control, and eliminate the profit incentive by eliminating capitalism.
Or we could just give total control and benefit of this new tool to a small group of psychopaths. What could go wrong?
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
