People should direct their anger towards capitalism, rather than being upset with artificial intelligence

In the whirlwind of technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) often becomes the scapegoat for broader societal issues. It’s an easy target, a non-human entity that we can blame for job displacement, privacy concerns, and even ethical dilemmas. However, this perspective is not only simplistic but also misdirected.

The crux of the matter isn’t AI itself, but the economic system under which it operates - capitalism. It’s capitalism that dictates the motives behind AI development and deployment. Under this system, AI is primarily used to maximize profits, often at the expense of the workforce and ethical considerations. This profit-driven motive can lead to job losses as companies seek to cut costs, and it can prioritize corporate interests over privacy and fairness.

So, why should we shift our anger from AI to capitalism? Because AI, as a tool, has immense potential to improve lives, solve complex problems, and create new opportunities. It’s the framework of capitalism, with its inherent drive for profit over people, that often warps these potentials into societal challenges.

By focusing our frustrations on capitalism, we advocate for a change in the system that governs AI’s application. We open up a dialogue about how we can harness AI ethically and equitably, ensuring that its benefits are widely distributed rather than concentrated in the hands of a few. We can push for regulations that protect workers, maintain privacy, and ensure AI is used for the public good.

In conclusion, AI is not the enemy; unchecked capitalism is. It’s time we recognize that our anger should not be at the technology that could pave the way for a better future, but at the economic system that shapes how this technology is used.

56 comments

Capitalism = runaway immoral human greed
This is actually an unpopular opinion sadly, on Lemmy as well in the outside world. A rare case of a post on this community where I ca upvote both because it's unpopular and I agree with it.
- Depends on where you live I suppose. Irrational AI hate is something I only really encounter online. Then again my country has pretty good worker protections, so there's less reason to be afraid of AI.
- I don’t know, there’s plenty of anti-billionaire sentiment, fuck_cars is basically anti-capitalist, and most of the environmentalists get to the same conclusion pretty quickly too.
  
  The realists (and cynics in some cases) just know that it’s going to take a huge process to shift us away. I’m a realist and am opting for a progressive takeover that leads to taxing billionaires, carbon/pollution, and dangerous vehicles (among other clear hazards) out of existence.
  
  But when I’m feeling cynical, I get worried that it’s going to take a war to happen, and I hope for my son’s sake that doesn’t happen.
Why not both?
- If used correctly newer generation AIs could be an absolute game changer In fields like medicine, finances, computing, public transport, customer services etc.
  
  But what they'll actually be used for is to make more money.
  
  If you take capitalism out of the equation they could be an amazing force for good. But under our current system they won't.
  
  They're also used to make less money -- by the people whose jobs will be replaced so that those up top can make more money.
  
  AI at this point exacerbates the wealth gap.
- because AI is just a tool.
  
  it could be used for good.
- Because when greed and money aren't in the equation, AI is pretty useful and for most people it isn't costing them anything.
It’s pretty evident that AI is incompatible with capitalism, but most people direct their anger at AI. Late-stage capitalism is the problem, not automation. I upvoted because I think this is actually an unpopular opinion factoring in the world population rather than just Lemmy.
This post is written by an AI. Lmao

"Are you scared of an AI world? You're already in it."
¿Por que no los dos?
AI outside of capitalism is still incredibly dangerous. It's all the baises that create the world we have today but on steroids. Take all the injustices against minority peoples today and scale it up to however much compute you have.

It's completely naive to think that AI will solve the world's problems if that pesky capitalism would get out of the way. But this website is full of tech bros, so it's impossible to get past that.

Also, being angry at capitalism doesn't pay the rent. I can't boycott capitalism. I can use my small power under capitalism to boycot your shitty ai.
- Mhmm. Here's the uncensored anti-woke AI Elon tried to create answering Twitter blue subscribers questions:
  
  Or
  
  Or
  
  Yeah, so horribly biased and terrible...
- it’s completely naive to think that AI will solve the world problems
  
  It’s also a complete strawman to exaggerate what most proponents think of AI just because you saw some crypto bro Elon dickrider spouting off propaganda on reddit somewhere
  
  The only people who want to use “AI” to “change the world” are the billionaires who think that they can use it to shrink or eliminate their workforce while gaining efficiency and control. That’s it. the capitalists are the problem, and you don’t have any power under them. None.
  
  Heh. I like you. 🤘🏽
As much as I hate AI run by megacorporations, I don’t think AI run by a communist government would be any better.
- Yes, the only two genders: capitalist economy and communist government.
Maybe work on proving "AI" is actually a technological advancement instead of an overhyped plagiarism machine first.
- LLMs real power isn't generating fresh content it's their ability to understand language.
  
  Using one to summarise articles gives incredibly good results.
  
  I use Bing enterprise everyday at work as a programmer. It makes information gathering and learning so much easier.
  
  It's decent at writing code but that's not the main selling point in my opinion.
  
  Plus they are general models to show the capabilities. Once the tech is more advanced you can train models for specific purposes.
  
  It seems obvious an AI that can do creative writing and coding wouldn't be as good at either.
  
  These are generation 0. There'll be a lot of advances coming.
  
  Also LLMs are a very specific type of machine learning and any advances will help the rest of the field. AI is already widely used in many fields.
  
  LLMs don't "understand" anything. They're just very good at making it look like they sort of do
  
  They also tend to have difficulty giving the answer "I don't know" and will confidently assert something completely incorrect
  
  And this is not generation 0. The field of AI has been around for a long time. It's just now becoming widespread and used where the avg person can see it
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/12/231205144405.htm
- Can you prove that human intelligence isn't an overhyped plagiarism machine?
  
  This is like asking someone to prove God doesn't exist. The burden of proof is on you to show how humans are effectively over hyped plagiarists. You're the one making the claim.
  
  Yes
- Furthermore, simple probability calculations indicate that GPT-4's reasonable performance on k=5 is suggestive of going beyond "stochastic parrot" behavior (Bender et al., 2021), i.e., it combines skills in ways that it had not seen during training.
  
  https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.17567
  
  Do these networks just memorize a collection of surface statistics, or do they rely on internal representations of the process that generates the sequences they see? We investigate this question by applying a variant of the GPT model to the task of predicting legal moves in a simple board game, Othello. Although the network has no a priori knowledge of the game or its rules, we uncover evidence of an emergent nonlinear internal representation of the board state.
  
  https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.13382 (replicated here and here (with chess))
  
  So you already have research showing that GPT LLMs are capable of modeling aspects of training data at much deeper levels of abstraction than simply surface statistics of words and research showing that the most advanced models are already generating novel and new outputs distinct from anything that would be in the training data by virtue of the complexity of the number of different abstract concepts it combines from what was learned in the training data.
  
  Like - have you actually read any of the ongoing actual research on the field at all? Or just articles written by embittered people who are generally misunderstanding the technology (for example, if you ever see someone refer to them as Markov chains, that person has no idea what they are talking about given the key factor of the transformer model is the self-attention mechanism which negates the Markov property characterizing Markov chains in the first place).
- instead of an overhyped plagiarism machine first.
  
  If I paint an Eiffel Tower from memory, am I plagiarizing?
  
  If it's not plagiarism when humans do it, it's not plagiarism when a machine does it.
  
  Of course it is. A machine is not a human.
  
  If you want to make this argument, then AI companies should be required to treat their AI models like employees. Paid for 40 hours a week of work, extra for overtime.
  
  If it's human to have "memory" that isn't subject to plagiarism, then it's human enough to be paid hourly.
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- We laughed at crypto bros because it was a blatantly bad investment, built on technology that was over-hyped in terms of feasibility to use it as currency.
  
  AI actually has practical uses, and the vast majority of us are getting all of the benefits for no cost.
  
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- If you tire out an argument or discussion by bullying, using fallacies, you can never be sure you were right.
  
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  That's a very good point
- It wasn't laughing and name-calling that made crypto into the joke it always was. It was the grift finally collapsing on top of them. Same cycle will run with LLM AI.
Why not instead, the people responsible?
this post reads like chatgpt output 🐟
Feels like a bit of a straw man argument. I don't meet people who accuse the actual AI itself of malice. That would be like getting mad with an actor who portrays a villain. I know these people exist and they are stupid but most people understand that that the A in AI stands for artificial and that means scientists and engineers make these things and capitalists provide the funding and own them.

The interesting thing about AI is that once it becomes self aware, we can legitimately insert agency into its actions in the way we do with people. We can criminalise it and punish it for decisions that it has made. We could use artificial lawyers to prosecute artificial doctors that perform botched surgeries on artificial warehouse workers.
It's pretty evident to most informed people paying attention that AI is incompatible with capitalism. Most would agree. Late-stage capitalism is the problem, not automation. I upvoted because I think this is actually an unpopular opinion factoring in the world population rather than just Lemmy.
Please explain how in a non-capitalist world, AI would never be used for the sorts of things you dislike AI being used for such as job elimination. You think nobody will realize that it can be used to produce lots of art, for example?

In this non-capitalist world you're thinking of, would we have any automation? Like do we have harvester combines, or is it still 35 people breaking their backs to cut and thresh an acre of wheat?
- If the means of production are collectively owned, and thus directed towards the good of society, job elimination isn't as much of a problem.
  
  Socialists are huge proponents of automation, because instead of being used to cut jobs for profit, dirty and hard jobs can be eliminated.
  
  Then why are we angry at AI in this discussion?
- Job elimination is a problem in capitalism because workers need jobs to survive. In a socialist society, job elimination can be a good thing, as it allows us to either increase access to resources or reduce how much time people need to work without dispossessing the people whose jobs were eliminated.
  
  The difference is that, in capitalism, workers only survive by proving their usefulness to capitalists making money. Automation is thus a threat to worker bargaining power. If the means of production were socially owned (through for example government run utilities or worker coops), worker bargaining power is then through a vote or through ownership. It is possible to by default distribute the spoils of automation rather than concentrate them in the hands of capitalists.
¿Por qué no los dos?
- Because AI is amazing.
  
  My friend wanted a scorecard to rate Rick and Morty episodes to determine if it's falling off - I could spend a few hours and maybe come up with something, but I wouldn't. My little assistant did it in a few seconds, with results good enough to motivate me and more of my friend group to join in
  
  I was about to go back to my boss to tell him my task was impossible and could have killed the entire idea, but then I expressed my frustrations just to vent. To my surprise, it offered a very specific and relevant solution, despite having no access to anything beyond our chat logs - it wasn't quite right, but it got me on the right track, and 5 minutes later I found a solution
  
  This shit is miracle technology. I'm running a very simple system I built myself, and it's still good enough to make my life measurably better. This needs to be in the hands of everyone asap, not through some service, but running under their own control
This makes sense. Sadly gonna have to dislike/downvote tho lol
just what the robot wants you to do. AI whore.
- Seethe, AI hysteric

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