I agree with him. This AI is taking away hard work and jobs from writers, artists, and many others. And if you think your job is safe, think Twice. There should be balance. You know the worst part? The CEOs think that AI can replace all workers without understanding anything so that they can show profits.
@nixCraft taking away hard work and jobs is always a net positive, the fetishising of labour needs to stop. If steam machines were invented today y’all would be crying about them taking away hard work from manual laborers.
That’s the point. Work is something that is done because it’s needed, not because it’s wanted. The moment you want to stop automating your work because that would leave you without it you’re no longer a worker that provides needed services, you’re holding the society hostage to still pay you.
You are correct to say "work is done because it's needed, not because it's wanted." (Though some do enjoy work, usually not wage labourers)
What you miss is: "work is done because it is needed... as the only semi-reliable way to stay alive"
Taking these jobs from ppl for "profit" and leaving those people to adapt or die is but one cruelty of capitalism. Until we break this contradiction, automation will not benefit workers. They will just have to find work elsewhere, or die.
@pansocial @nixCraft profit in this case is just net value provided to society. Yes, people whose work is no longer needed will need to switch to other jobs, that’s what always has to happen in cases like this lest you have a system where people do work that is no longer needed just to continue to pull resources from society, effectively transforming from workers to parasites. Avoiding this is one of the reasons capitalism actually works unlike the alternatives.
Helping people switch to other jobs? I’m all for it. Trying to hinder progress that will benefit the whole of society just so the workers that it would replace can continue pretending to be needed? No, thanks. How did it go, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
As for automation not benefiting workers, that’s absolutely not the case. Everyone wins when jobs get automated and their results become cheaper and more widely available. For those who lose jobs because of it it may still be net negative, but they’re a tiny fraction of all workers across the system.
Money (revenue) remaining after paying businesses expenses (wages, maintenance, operations) is what we refer to as "profit". If companies reduce labour cost and keep prices the same, their revenue stays the same but more profit goes to the owning class, not labourers. It works to centralize money in the fewest hands.
How they use this - how it's spent in the economy - is not under social control, it is privately held. They often don't spend at all, instead holding assets.
Living of interest. So, the only way this helps consumers, is if the company chooses to lower prices in line with lower production costs. This does not happen, it contradicts the profit motive.
TL;DR: revenue = price*sales (total money coming in), profit = revenue - cost_of_business, if you reduce an aspect of the "cost of business" (wages), profit increases unless accompanied by an equal decrease in sales or price.
@pansocial @nixCraft the nice thing about a market ecosystem is that the companies compete with each other and so price=supply/demand works. Cheaper production does make them lower prices because that’s how they stay competitive.
And I think you misunderstood what I meant by profit being net value provided to society. Revenue is receiving money proportional to value provided to the payers. Cost is spending money proportional to value taken from the payees. Profit is therefore proportional to the net value provided to society. It doesn’t matter what they spend the money on, they had to provide value to earn it and the monetary profits they receive are only a reward for it.
Supply and demand work reliably under impossible conditions that do not exist.
For example:
Consumers must be able to make an unmanipulated choice among a complete selection of commodities.
One cannot pick the right product if terms are unknown, they are misled, lack access, or lack the ability to withhold demand. Rationing or not having access to insulin kills 4 to 5 people a year. I'm sure each of them, and more would like cheaper insulin, but they can only buy it as cheap
as the market provides. If that means you barely make rent: "fuck you," says the business owner, "you demanded insulin and I provided it at a price the market is buying. Now let me invest in some fine art and stock buybacks."
Consumers demand is manipulated by market knowledge, availability, urgency, etc.
All of these are used against consumers to maintain profit. You get little say in what Walmart stocks. Target didn't drop the queer merch, bud lite lives, etc.
@pansocial @nixCraft “Supply and demand work reliably under impossible conditions that do not exist” is an insane take, just because both supply and demand can be manipulated to some extent doesn’t mean they don’t work lol. They work very well and pathological extremes such as the US’s insulin problem (which only affects the US, which uses regulatory bodies to stifle competition and artificially keep insulin price high) are caused by either monopolies or regulations that make it hard or impossible for healthy competition to occur.
Anyway, I’m not gonna waste any more time arguing over economy on the Internet, if you don’t believe that automating work makes its results cheaper then continue to pay manual computers for doing math for you and buy only hand-crafted goods as surely they should have the same price as mass-produced ones.
@Amikke @nixCraft
Profit is not "net value provided to society", these profits do not belong to society, they belong to business owners. How profit is redistributed into the economy, or not, is up to them. And they hoard a shit ton.
If AI replacing jobs = cheaper prices, you might be correct.
When they fire humans to replace them with AI the cost of labour/production has gone down.prices can remain constant. This means revenue has stayed the same in this case.