TLDR: if the rich succeed in building AI systems that cater fully to their needs through the whole supply chain (i.e. AI can mine and process resources into what they want with no humans needed), then the rich will have no reason to keep anyone else around and can just massacre all the poors.


Recently, the r/singularity subreddit has had several posts which show some class-consciousness, despite they mostly-techbro atmosphere.

The post I’ve linked and reproduced below states a concern I also have with AI:

If we assume that we reach AGI, maybe even super intelligence, then we can expect a lot of human jobs will suddenly become obsolete.

First it could be white collar and tech jobs. Then when robotics catches up, manual labor will soon follow. Pretty soon every conceivable position a human once had can now be taken over by a machine.

Humans are officially obsolete.

What’s really chilling is that, while humans in general will no longer be a necessity to run a government or society, the very few billionaires at the top that helped bring this AI to existence will be the ones who control it - and no longer need anyone else. No military personnel, teachers, doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, engineers, no one.

Why should countries exist filled with people when people are no longer needed to farm crops, serve in the military, build infrastructure, or anything else?

I would like to believe that if all of humanities needs can now always be fulfilled (but controlled by a very, very few), those few would see the benefit in making sure everyone lives a happy and fulfilling life.

The truth is though, the few at the top will likely leave everyone else to fend for themselves the second their walled garden is in place.

As the years pass, eventually AI becomes fully self-sustaining - from sourcing its own raw materials, to maintaining and improving its own systems - even the AI does not need a single human anymore (not that many are left at that point).

Granted, it could take a long while for this scenario to occur (if ever), but the way things are shaking out, it’s looking more and more unlikely that we’ll never get to a utopia where no one works unless they want to and everyone’s needs are met. It’s just not possible if the people in charge are greedy, backstabbing, corporate sociopaths that only play nice because they have to at the moment.

I find their argument quite valid, only lacking in the explicit mention of ‘capitalism’.

Once the rich have full-supply-chain-AI, we wouldn’t be able to revolt even if we wanted to. The robotic police force controlled by the rich can just massacre all the poors.

This puts a hard time limit on when revolution needs to occur. After that I guess we need China’s J-36s to save the American proletariat.

  • 矛⋅盾@lemmygrad.ml
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    5 days ago

    imo that kind of ‘analysis’ is frankly very steeped in neoliberalism-derivative defeatism and doomerism (‘end of history’ and other such trite epistemology): unable to imagine any exits or alterations from The One Inevitability of Capitalism. I’m not familiar with that subreddit but “singularity” does sound like how followers of that camp (and adjacent antiwork types) treat capitalism, like it’s a black hole, an all-powerful force of nature (not dissimilar to how bourgeois society talks about ‘hand of the market’), instead of a system that is built and maintained by humans. A million other things can and probably will become more important factors to the status of humankind before any of that technofuturist (doesnt matter if its ‘good’ or ‘evil’) “prophet”-eering would come to pass.

    Past revolutionaries have succeeded in the face of seemingly impossible odds; current present-day people oppressed by US imperialism have resisted with greater obstacles. Guerillas made sure that even if their enemies render the land toxic, filled with mines, or otherwise impossible to live in, invaders can’t take and hold onto their land, and because supplies aren’t free nor infinite, eventually constant (over)commitment forces them to withdraw. The United States might crow about its military (and clearly its got a track record in special ops in raping, looting, couping, blowing up pipelines etc*) but it has not definitively won a single “war” it involved itself in since WWII. Gaza was the most policed/surveilled place on earth! yet Israel, who markets itself as being cutting edge in the field of surveillance to export its tech to other countries, can’t figure out where al Qassam are based (and supplied), always claiming the next school or hospital is really where their enemies are hiding. On what basis do these techbro&derivative types have to say that ALL subjugated people are doomed? Just because in their immediate surroundings, where the concentrated brunt of oppression is NOT happening, people aren’t resisting much?

    Think of it another way, if capitalist billionaires can get their hands on robot armies, what’s stopping their enemies from doing the same? Why, other than simply monopoly concerns, is the west so freaked out about China’s (or DPRK or Iran or Russia etc etc) technological development, including chips manufacturing and AI?

    *I’m rambling long enough but there’s some argument to be made that coups and related interventionism is more cost effective for empire than direct war.