"If X is here to stay, as a thing that permanently increases productivity" - matches a lot of different X. Maintaining persons health increases productivity. Good education increases productivity. What is playing out now is completely different - it is both irresistible lust for omniscient power provided by this technology ("mirror mirror on the wall, who has recently thought bad things about me?"), and the dread of someone else wielding it.

Plus, it makes natural moat against masses of normal (i.e. poor) people, because requires a spaceship to run. Finally intelligence can also be controlled by capital the way it was meant to, joining information, creativity, means of production, communication and such things

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mattgreenrocks 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Plus, it makes natural moat against masses of normal (i.e. poor) people, because requires a spaceship to run. Finally intelligence can also be controlled by capital the way it was meant to, joining information, creativity, means of production, communication and such things

I'd put intelligence in quotes there, but it doesn't detract from the point.

It is astounding to me how willfully ignorant people are being about the massive aggregation of power that's going on here. In retrospect, I don't think they're ignorant, they just haven't had to think about it much in the past. But this is a real problem with very real consequences. Sovereignty must be occasionally be asserted, or someone will infringe upon it.

That's exactly what's happening here.

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fennecbutt 5 hours ago | parent [-]

>massive aggregation of power that's going on here

Which has been happening since what at least the bad old IBM days and nobody's done a thing about it?

I've given up tbh. It's like the apathetic masses want the billionaires to become trillionaires as long as they get their tiktok fix.

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luqtas 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's like the apathetic masses want the billionaires to become trillionaires as long as they get their tiktok fix.

it's much worse. a great demographic of hacker news love gen. AI.. these are usually highly educated people showing their true faces on the plethora of problems this technology violates and generates

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zenmac 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>I've given up tbh. It's like the apathetic masses want the billionaires to become trillionaires as long as they get their tiktok fix.

Especially at cost of diverting power and water for farmers and humans who need them. And the benefit of the AI seems quite limited from recent Signal post here on HN.

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pixl97 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Water for farmers is its own pile of bullshit. Beef uses a stupid amount of water. Same with almonds. If you're actually worried about feeding people and not just producing an expensive economic product you're not going to make them.

Same goes for people living in deserts where we have to ship water thousands of miles.

Give me a break.

	▲	datsci_est_2015 37 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And one of my favorites, alfalfa in Arizona for Saudi Arabian horses. Water usage must be taxed according to its use, unfortunately.
	▲	tormeh 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Very important. There is more than just 1 bullshit line of business.

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strken 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The difference is that we've more or less hit a stable Pareto front in education and healthcare. Gains are small and incremental; if you pour more money into one place and less into another, you generally don't end up much better off, although you can make small but meaningful improvements in select areas. You can push the front forward slightly with new research and innovation, but not very fast or far.

The current generation of AI is an opportunity for quick gains that go beyond just a few months longer lifespan or a 2% higher average grade. It is an unrealised and maybe unrealistic opportunity, but it's not just greed and lust for power that pushes people to invest, it's hope that this time the next big thing will make a real difference. It's not the same as investing more in schools because it's far less certain but also has a far higher alleged upside.

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ZoomZoomZoom 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The difference is that we've more or less hit a stable Pareto front in education and healthcare.

Not even close. So many parts of the world need to be pumped with target fund infusions ASAP. Only forcing higher levels of education and healthcare at the places where it lags is a viable step towards securing peaceful and prosperous nearest future.

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pixl97 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Then why didn't that happen before GenAI was a thing?

I think some people may have to face the fact that money was never going to go there under any circumstances.

	▲	mattnewton 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Then why didn't that happen before GenAI was a thing? Because there was no easy way for the people directing capital to those endeavors to make themselves richer.

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lazyasciiart 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pareto is irrelevant, because they are talking about how to use all of this money not currently used in healthcare or education.

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KellyCriterion 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> if you pour more money into one place and less into another, you generally don't end up much better off, although you can make small but meaningful improvements in select areas

"Marginal cost barrier" hit, then?

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112233 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The difference is that we've more or less hit a stable Pareto front in education and healthcare. Gains are small and incremental;

You probably mean gains between someone receiving healtcare and education now, as compared to 10 years ago, or maybe you mean year to year average across every man alive.

You certainly do not mean that person receiving appropriate healthcare is only 2% better off than one not receiving it, or educated person is noly 2% better of than an uneducated one?

Because I find such notion highly unlikely. So, here you have vast amounts of people you can mine for productivity increase, simply by providing things that exist already and are available in unlimited supply to anyone who can produce money at will. Instead, let's build warehouses and fill them with obsolete tech, power it all up using tiny Sun and .. what exactly?

This seems like a thinly disguised act of an obsessed person that will stop at nothing to satisfy their fantasies.

	▲	an hour ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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gom_jabbar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Finally intelligence can also be controlled by capital

The relationship between capital and AI is a fascinating topic. The contemporary philosopher who has thought most intensely about this is probably Nick Land (who is heavily inspired by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich Hayek). For Land, intelligence has always been immanent in capitalism and capitalism is actively producing it. As we get closer to the realization of capitalism's telos/attractor (technological singularity), this becomes more and more obvious (intelligible).