Ted Chiang: Fears of Technology Are Fears of Capitalism | Hacker News Reader

Ted Chiang: Fears of Technology Are Fears of Capitalism

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"How much would we fear any technology, whether A.I. or some other technology, how much would you fear it if we lived in a world that was a lot like Denmark or if the entire world was run sort of on the principles of one of the Scandinavian countries?"

Would be interesting to hear what HN thinks those principles are. I often find the Scandies are seen in a idealized light, everyone just thinks everything is great there. In many ways, it IS great there.

But consider:

- Margrethe Vestager, that EU lady who talks a lot about the power of tech, is Danish.

- Danes are not entirely convinced that there's a lot if social mobility there. They talk about social inheritance, where it turns out you'll probably do better if your parents did well in terms of getting educated.

- There's no minimum wage law, though de facto there's a sort of social contract between unions and business.

- It's easy to fire people, in contrast to many European countries.

They also tend to overlook the fact that most Scandinavian countries are incredibly homogenous, which helps with adoption of socialist practices.

How exactly does homogeneity relate to adoption of any policy? Fuck off with that racist rhetoric.

Also welfare programs =/= socialism.

It obviously does. In countries like America you have to target and pander to multiple communities with different priorities at the same time to get their vote. A homogeneous society makes everything much easier. I live in one and people are complaining about elderly being a voting block anyways. Multiracial society would divide it even further.

> In countries like America you have to target and pander to multiple communities with different priorities at the same time to get their vote.

Exactly the same as in any other country. Implying that a community is homogeneous just because they have the same skin color is pretty racist.

> Exactly the same as in any other country.

Sure, so let me repeat:

> I live in one and people are complaining about elderly being a voting block anyways. Multiracial society would divide it even further.

No group is truly homogeneous. We're talking about racial homogeneity.

If you don't like that some racial groups are acting as voting blocks then go complain to politicians or those groups, not me.

> No group is truly homogeneous. We're talking about racial homogeneity.

So you do agree that saying that a country is "homogeneous" just because it is racially homogeneous does not make sense?

No, I don't. Since we can't take it literally, it's an acceptable abbreviation to "racial homogeneity". And you all obviously knew what it meant, there wasn't any confusion of what was actually being said here.

Exactly, we all knew what it meant, that's why I said it's racist. Thinking that people of the same race will vote the same policies in different countries, or that the only division that makes implementing policies harder is the one of race, or that race must be a dividing block, is just a racist way of thinking.

> or that the only division that makes implementing policies harder is the one of race, or that race must be a dividing block, is just a racist way of thinking.

But politicians do often try to engineer these splits down racial lines, so it often ends up that way in practice.

For example, racial minorities being scapegoated for inequalities in society, to try to capture the votes of the racial majority.

Dividing people who would otherwise have shared class interests, on issues of race and similar, is a political strategy with a long and sordid history, sadly.

I never said that the same race will vote in the same way in different countries and I never said that it must be anything. And I explicitly stated that it's not the only division.

It's basically marketing, you target different audiences. You might call it racist or whatever you want, but the reality is that it works. Just ask capitalists who mastered the craft. If you're by any chance suggesting that demographics simply don't matter in marketing or politics then that'd actually be the most outrageous statement made in this entire thread.

We're going in a loop. GP comment said that it was easier to implement certain policies in an homogeneous country (and we all understand that the poster means "racially homogeneous"). My point is that racially homogeneous or not, there will be different voting blocs aligned on whatever and implement policies will be different. That's it. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm saying that you can't just say "oh they're all the same race so it's easier" because it isn't necessarily true at all. You can find racially homogeneous countries with non-racial divisions similar or larger than US's racial divisions.

That's it, that's the point. Talking just about "racial homogeneity" when discussing implementing certain policies does not make sense at all because then you're ignoring all other possible divisions.

I can say that and I did. Those divisions might change over time and it's one less thing to be concerned about. The other divisions are usually gender, age and class. You can't do anything about gender and age. You somewhat can about class. Unless you're like America already, it's very easy with race - just control the immigration.

Language, physical location, type of work, religion... so many possible divisions that just focusing on race does not make sense. In some countries race might not be as dividing. You are thinking as if the US framework was the same as in the rest of the world, and it isn’t. I’ll put you an example: in a few months we will have elections in my region, Madrid. We have quite a lot of immigrants (15-20% IIRC) and yet it’s not an axis of division between groups. District and wealth matters much, much more.

It's not a racist way of thinking. It's a fact. Race and heritage play a massive role in the wants and needs of people. Just look at voting records in the US (or any country) and you'll find that racial blocs often vote together.

Re-read my comment, please. I'm not saying that race doesn't play a role, I'm saying it's not the only thing, and not always.

Who said race was always the only thing? Can you link me to that comment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768793

The word "race" is literally not mentioned once in that comment. I still don't understand what you're responding to.

There are fifteen different political parties represented in the Danish parliament (plus some independent candidates) the largest of which (Social Democrats) holds 49 of 179 seats (27%). To get a majority for their government, they formed a coalition with six other parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folketing

Evidently, Denmark is incredibly heterogeneous politically.

Meanwhile, the US has only two political parties represented in the national legislature, so much more homogeneous. And yet the US doesn't have a reputation of adopting socialist practices.

I think your theory needs some work.

Check out this video, it helps explain why diversity of thought has little to do with the number of political parties that form in a system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Dem/Rep are just two big coalitions in the US, and with first past the post voting, it's nearly impossible to have more than two parties in the long term.

I do get the impression, looking in from the outside, that a lot of US media coverage of other countries is basically just propaganda for domestic consumption. Sure, there's usually a few carefully-selected actual facts slipped in when they help the narrative, but the overall impression given has less to do with actual reality than it does with helping to win local political arguments.

Free speech in US means that anyone can say anything, not that the things they’re saying are true.

>Free speech in US means that anyone can say anything

It doesn't mean that and never has. There have always been laws against certain forms of speech in the US[0], many against false and fraudulent speech.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

This comment was a test to see if someone would inevitably point out the restrictions.

Congratulations, you passed.

Neato.

How about you consume your international news from outlets that actually specialize on reporting global news. Such as the BBC world service.

Back in the 1980s (perhaps even earlier than that; I was not at the age yet where I was looking at copyrights), a publisher whose name I could not remember had this wonderful series where they would put out two Russian sci-fi novels samizdated overseas in a single book. They were always such a treat, and I sometimes think I should figure out what publisher it was and collect those packaged novels to re-read and enjoy.

I say this because I feel like a guy like Chiang had to know of the authors whose books about how a Soviet sci-fi future might have played out .. had an armful of important literature for the history of science fiction. There's simply too many to pretend to have overlooked them. And I'm thinking that it wasn't a kind land of Soviet futurism, either.

The Soviets were decades ahead of the U.S. The existential dread that's reflected in late Soviet art directly mirrors what Americans are currently experiencing, at the end stages of its imperial reign.

FYI, there's a recent English translation of "The Doomed City" by the Strugatsky brothers, if you're into Soviet Sci-fi beyond Stanisław Lem, or if you want to see what dystopian fiction written by citizens of an actual dystopia looks like.

I realize the pandemic has led to many people having limited social interaction with the outside world, but I would encourage you all to dig deep and recall the imprecision of casual, spoken language before reaching for a counter example and declaring checkmate.

Is this just a very roundabout way to diss America without getting Americans angry?

I mean, Denmark is a capitalist country. Chiang puts it down as some sort of socialist utopia, which it isn't. Sure, there's a functioning social welfare state and the government is not that corrupt, and that's great. But the tax cuts for Maersk are the same kind of capitalist regulatory capture / lobby driven corruption you see elsewhere.

Also, my impression of the average Dane is that they're super conservative and will vote against any idea that deviates from the status quo (source: Danish in-laws). Mind you, that's a pretty sensible position given that the status quo ain't half bad. But I wouldn't be surprised if Danes are just as afraid/skeptical of tech and AI as the average American.

(Note: "conservative" on English language forums is sometimes translated to "loves guns and Jesus, hates abortion and gays". That's not the kind i mean, i mean afraid of change. This does include fear of immigrants in the Danish case though)

Americans don't hear that much from continental Europe because (a) they don't speak our languages and (b) each country in continental Europe is a lot smaller than Anglo-sphere.

So Chinese citizens have nothing to fear from an AI surveillance state then?

Capitalism can piggy-back on top of any governance system I think. It might even do that better in China, giving incentives elsewhere in the world to move further away from free and democratic models. In the end, if democracy can no longer satisfy capitalist greed, then it threatens to be marginalized I am afraid.

It always interests me when people personify capitalism, as if it has human emotions. Capitalism doesn't require greed any more than it requires anything else. Capital is agnostic as to which behavior it parasitizes. If every business internally came to believe that it was saving the world from climate change for some heroic motive, that would work just as well.

Capitalism is not an impersonal, innate system either. It is spun up by the people that participate in it. As such it doesn't require greed, but it incentivizes it. It is a system - at least in the form it is evolving to - that cannot, should not act on its own or be left to its own devices. Because its mechanism is "winner takes all, survival of the fittest". It needs regulation to keep it in check, counterbalances. Or else the greediest, those willing to bend the rules or cross them even, will ultimately be the only winners. They'll be the elites, and they exist already.

That's what i'm arguing. It is an impersonal system with its own internal logic. There isn't some cabal of cigar-chomping elites who are puppeteering Capital in accordance with their greed. It's the other way around. It's their greed that's being puppeteered by the logic of Capital.

I think personifying economic systems as having agency is no worse than person personifying chemical processes as being the result of the reagents "wanting" to be in a lower energy/higher entropy state. Not strictly correct, but useful for discussing among humans whose brains are hardcoded for pareidoliac personification.

Also, I find the act of getting hung up over the phrasing of inanimate objects "wanting" to follow the laws of physics just derails the conversation for no good purpose.

You chose an example that's maybe the hardest possible subject to mystify, and still science educators find it important to make that distinction about teleology. The fact that human brains are "hardcoded" to overfit metaphors is the entire reason why it's important to point it out.

China claims to be socialist in the same way that North Korea claims to be democratic. The danger of capitalism in regards to technology is how it grants large amounts of power to a small group who own said technology. In the same way, in China there is an elite who have all the control.

I wonder, what's your standard for socialism? Can you give any example of a socialist society?

I'm not the parent, but: that the workers control the stuff they use to produce things with.

It only exists in patches today, as worker coops. To make it work in a market economy, it turns out you need a bunch of supporting infrastructure (popular banks and so on) because workers are individually poor. (Greg Dow has done some work on how these structures may be organized, and what the primary problems of worker coops are.<1>)

So by this standard, the closest to socialism that stuck around for a while would've been Yugoslavia. However, the political side of that country left quite a lot to be desired, given how it tore itself apart after Tito died. That the workers leased all their equipment from the state also led to some serious soft budget constraint problems, to my knowledge.

And by this standard, neither the USSR nor China was or is appreciably socialist. The state substituted itself for the will of the workers and then claimed that since it owns everything, as a representative of all the workers, the workers own everything. It doesn't quite hold water, IMHO.

<1> One funny corollary is that it's easier to set up a worker coop the more the costs are variable instead of huge up-front costs: so it would be easier to arrange a software company that way than an industrial refinery, since computers are comparatively cheap. Though maybe not if it's into ML.

And libertarians say that what we have now isn't real capitalism because of social programs, taxes or because society isn't organized around NAP or whatever. Who am I supposed to believe here?

In my opinion it seems just like when some people are quick to call everything communism, but get defensive when you make the slightest critique of capitalism. Just in the opposite direction. I wouldn't even care what terms are we using to describe what, if it wasn't that we're generally operating on this false dichotomy of capitalism vs communism, with nothing in between.

It's clear we live under capitalism. Private entities own the means of production and employ (largely) non-owners to engage in wage labor using those means. The profits accrue to shareholders who often do no actual labor in the enterprise. There is very little economic nationalization, relative to what is possible, in the United States and in the west in general. A couple of examples of minimal nationalization are the Norway and Alaskan oil funds. There is also very little in the way of worker control or profit sharing except at the very top of the economic ladder, for example certain tech companies/startups and wall street workers.

Libertarian purists eschew the idea of a state putting any limits on markets or enterprises for reasons (there are actual reasons, as you can read in their literature, I just don't wish to expound on them), but to argue that any limit on an enterprise somehow makes the system not capitalist is an absurdism.

That's not my point, my issue is the boundary between socialism and capitalism. Depending on who you're going to ask, they will give you an unreasonably high standard for one and say that everything short of that is the other. The other commenter said that the Soviet Union was not socialism. Then what was it? Because I assure you, it wasn't even close to capitalism as you know it today. If we'd to stick to the original definition of capitalism as it was coined by Marx, probably everything would fall under it and it'd render both of these terms completely useless for any discussion other than autistic political philosophy that most likely won't have much to do with the real world.

The mechanism that drives China now is capitalism under the guise of communism. The same hardships and suffering occurring under capitalism in the West also now occurs in China thanks in part to the GOP of the 90s thinking that it could control China and "convert" it once China got a taste of capitalism. Except China's capitalism now is more efficient and ruthless than the West's: More workers to nub down and only one entity running the government.

> So Chinese citizens have nothing to fear

No, they will have different fears.

Or if they turn out to have much the same fears, then maybe the political system that they live under is similar too. Point is, the fear says more about that political system than it does about a technology in itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

Socialism and communism aren’t the same thing. You can be a socialist and not a communist. These things are all on a spectrum, or several spectra.

Denmark spending an extra 5% of its GDP on the state sector over the US doesn’t necessarily make it more like China in any practical way. In fact the Laissez fair commercial environment in China probably has more in common with that in the US than Denmark. Chinese health care is almost entirely commercial from a practical point of view. Chinese market regulation such as of advertising is very light, much more like the US than Europe. None of that directly follows from political system.

I've been trying to find this article I read on HN a while ago on "The Germany technology effect". German researcher invents technology, Germans are suspicious of it and refuse to use it, another country picks it up and delivers a lot of value to the world with their name on the tech. Germany, like Scandinavians, has huge safety nets, free Healthcare, education and social housing. I'd say the more comfortable a country is the more reticence they have to adopt new technologies as it can disrupt the balance they stand on.

Fear of technology is not fear of capitalism. That's an immediate American perspective. Liberalism is their current enemy because it's corroding their society. What they fear is new tools for their oppressors to push the imbalance further. Socialist China and USSR had no qualms about using technology against their people and I imagine it scared the hell out of their citizens. This is the difference between many Cyberpunk's and Star Trek's vision of a post scarcity future. In the ones where we understand technology as a social sickness, the balance is tipped inequvocally towards one side and oppressing the masses.

> Socialist China and USSR had no qualms about using technology against their people and I imagine it scared the hell out of their citizens.

USSR was a rather techno-optimist place, and to this day Russia and other post soviet countries have more positive attitude towards technology than most of the Europe. Experience of socialism have produced distrust only to social and political systems, not sciense and technology.

As someone coming from a currently socialist country and married to a post soviet citizen, I somewhat disagree. It's true there was optimism towards infrastructural technology but there is sever distrust to communication technology. As the main form of oppression is misuse of surveillance, people are very uncomfortable with these new technologies.

Programmers have, for the most part, been immune to the negative effects of the way capitalism applies technology. Indeed, we're responsible at times as enablers.

If I do an exercise where I pretend that one of the FANG has managed to create an AI that can program, it's easier to feel the way other people feel about technology.

Would the FANG use the AI to replace programmers? Absolutely.

And what then? I can't possibly compete with a software program. One that can work 24hrs a day. One where adding more resources to a project is spinning up another instance.

We need to stop pretending that everyone is going to be able to work themselves to success and stop making villains out of people who are on welfare.

Disclaimer: I'm not from the US. I'm already a citizen of a country with a stronger safety net (Australia). Even here though, we have a concept of "dole bludger". It really has to go.

What is needed for the person being displaced by technology, is to have an ownership stake in assets, such that they no longer need to earn a wage to survive. That is the ultimate solution, if there is no way a human can provide value.

And this ownership stake needs to be acquired while the human still has value to exchange for that ownership stake.

Expecting society to carry people who no longer can provide economic value to others is not going to be sustainable.

Lets run a mental experiment - tens of millions of people are going to be out of jobs when driverless cars arrive. Are they meant to get ownership stake in the conpany to replace them, lets say Uber and Waymo? Is that realistically possible?

Lets imagine it happens - how is having 30 million rent -seekers sustainable? If all the actual work is done by machines, whats the point of their owners, what do they contribute?

> what's the point of their owners, what do they contribute?

Same applies to the existing owners of Uber and Waymo. If self-driving cars do take over the world, it makes no sense for this technology to be controlled by a handful of wealthy investment corporations, simply because they had the cash available to fund some of it at the start.

Thats a fair point, in an automation utopia current economic model makes no sence

> whats the point of their owners, what do they contribute?

they contribute to the creation of the asset via supplying capital in the first place. And for taking on the risk of this contribution, they get to own their portion of the future output of said asset.

Thats a geneeric argument, you cant just apply it to any debate without scruitiny.

It does not work for many assets: land, mineral rights, etc. are risk free themselves and weren't crated.

Someone who is relying on the government to fund their lifestyle is going to have lower status than someone who is contributing to the maintenance of their country. I don't know of a way to justify an alternative to that.

Someone choosing to be on welfare when they can handle themselves should be ashamed.

> relying on the government to fund their lifestyle

This sort of rhetoric needs to stop as well. Public funding of someone's basic needs of food and shelter isn't a lifestyle.

And anyway, a person receiving such funds probably paid for it already in taxes - usually, they're just taking out a bit from what they've already contributed to.

People raising 5 kids on gov support in Switzerland getting CHF 6500 a month for unemployment. Playing video games all day, smoking weed and nothing to return back to the society.

I’ve stayed in one of these low income housing communities in the outskirts of Zurich. These were Italian immigrants that had trouble finding a job. The wife couldn’t speak German and had no education. Decided to fuck it and go along with raising kids anyways.

If this is not lifestyle, I don’t know what is.

Raising kids is a significant contribution to society.

Though sadly, as your comment demonstrates, it's a form of labour that is very often undervalued.

You’re not wrong. I wonder what their future would be if the society squanders their productivity. Switzerland would turn into Somalia eventually.

I'm not really sure what you mean by the comparison to Somalia?

Seems like a very different situation, as Somalia is still recovering from civil war and genocide, and due to this, much of the economic support for its people is being provided by Somali diaspora around the world who send funds back home. Productivity potentially being squandered is the least of their problems really.

> Public funding of someone's basic needs of food and shelter isn't a lifestyle.

It sounds like a big chunk of a lifestyle, something like 30% of my lifestyle is food and shelter. What do you want to call it?

And that isn't really germane to the debate. If someone is relying on the government for basic food and shelter they aren't going to be able to hold a candle to someone who is economically independent. One of those two is just more important and respectable than the other.

> usually, they're just taking out a bit from what they've already contributed to

If you see taxes as some sort of savings program then fair enough, but then would you have objections if people like me opt out of paying into that part? Because I reckon I could set up an insurance program that would cost a fraction as much. Pretty sure I'm paying for a lot of people who haven't contributed as much as they are taking out (and I'm pretty sure most people think that is the point).

>If someone is relying on the government for basic food and shelter they aren't going to be able to hold a candle to someone who is economically independent.

Relying on an employer for food and shelter makes one no more economically independent than reliance on a government. Unless you're wealthy, you're left begging to one system or another.

My point is that when someone is currently relying on a state welfare programme to meet their basic needs, it doesn't imply a lack of contribution to society - as is too often the connotation.

I think it's easy to take that view, and I used to think that way too.

But on closer examination, there seem to be plenty of people who rely on the government for their lifestyle, have higher status than most people, yet do not contribute. There's a huge number of boondoggles that "employ" hordes of people who pretend to do useful things.

To me this is a bigger problem than your usual chronically unemployed person, because mom and pop have already spent plenty of time warning the kids against this situation. People who end up there are probably not there voluntarily, and it doesn't offend my notion of fairness as much as the above group.

> Someone who is relying on the government to fund their lifestyle is going to have lower status than someone who is contributing to the maintenance of their country.

The people who don't contribute to the country and have a lifestyle to speak of have, in fact, a higher status because they're rich as hell and often pay less taxes than the average person.

You don't want people living on welfare? Give them better alternatives. And no, minimum wage that effectively pays less than being unemployed is not what I mean.

I want people who work in fast food restaurants to be paid well enough so that their kids don't live miserable lives.

I also want interstellar travel to be practicable as soon as possible. I would want assistive technology and robotics to make the lives of the elderly easier.

Technology does not equate with winner-take-all, in my view.

> Technology does not equate with winner-take-all, in my view

It does not, or you do not want it to? I agree with the latter, but it would seem the former is not supported by facts. The FAANG companies certainly seem to show that any newcomer is (a) bought and absorbed or (b) copied and economically undermined. The profits are just so high in technology that the winner will go to great lengths to protect them and have the resources to do so.

May I ask you why you want interstellar travel? What benefit does it give to humanity?

The fear of technology is the fear of man's capability to misuse it. It's got nothing to do with economic or political preference and all to do with the fact that Machiavellian people exist in all societies.

I think this is naive. I really wish that all bad in the world came from machiavellian people and no one else. But there is a lot of good people (or at least not outright evil people) doing bad things, either through incompetence, ignorance, mistakes, etc. I think questioning the direction technology takes with capitalist incentives (profits over people) is really important. You can't dismiss those concerns by saying "technology is only bad when people are bad".

Bad in and of itself isn't a universal constant or pillar, morality is relative.

Not sure if you've read The Prince, but Machiavelli never suggested "evil" intent, just that as a good ruler you must embrace all strategies to achieve your goal, the ruler may not think of themselves as "bad", but should accept doing questionable things to advance whatever agenda they feel is "right". And what is "right" all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

There's no moral absolutes, just majorities that ascribe to a similar set of red lines.

Capitalism creates machines that put profit and shareholder value above all else and creates some pretty twisted motivations of what is "right".

Historical Communism puts the will and power of the state over the welfare of the people as what is "right". We all know how well that turned out.

I'd rather say it's potentially naive to think that ideas such as "good" and "bad" are absolutes.

I'll rephrase my point so we can steer clear of the pedantic discussion about machiavellianism and "good" or "bad":

There's a lot of people doing things they consider bad without actually wanting to do them. Thinking that all consequences of technology are intended is missing half the picture, as it dismisses the fact that there will be unintended and unwanted consequences. It is a naive take that does not allow space for discussing how to predict, detect and avoid those unintended consequences.

> It is a naive take that does not allow space for discussing how to predict, detect and avoid those unintended consequences.

(I think you might want to reconsider using "naive", it's belittling and RealStorm of r/iamverysmart.)

Its not about the misuse of technology, it gets created without a Hobbesian leviathan, there is no universal overseer that knows when something is invented and can therefore pull the breaks on whether progress should be stopped. Nor can the invention of said technologies' uses be predicted, especially when it comes to fundamental research.

An example: Maxwell created his famous equations in 1860, they would become foundational in enabling radio broadcasting in 1890. Radio in and of itself has enabled all kinds of amazing communications breakthroughs to make humanity richer. But it also enabled true modern warfare as it expanded the capability of nations to orchestrate massive military engagements across multiple theatres.

Should we have stopped Hertz and Marconi? Where would this debate be held? Who enforces the outcomes of these debates in the modern geopolitical space we live in today? There's a simple practical problem with the whole situation.

Once the genie is out, it's unstoppable - see nukes, once the US used one, the race was on to invent it independently.

Perhaps your issue is down to me using "misuse" as that implies a correct one exists. Let's just say that a "correct" one (or many) exists in the eyes of the original inventor or creator. It takes the imagination and motivations of others to re-apply that knowledge.

One could go so far to say that all technology in and of itself is dangerous.

You started this thread by saying that the fear of technology does not have to do with the political and economic system but with Machiavellian people, and now that “incorrect” uses are the problems of other people. But I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about someone using radio for warfare or nuclear energy for destruction. Those are included when I said “I wish all bad things happened because of bad people”: those are things that I consider bad and have been done on purpose. Consequences of using the atomic bomb were clear, intended and understood.

The problem comes when someone uses technology for some purpose but some unintended consequences happen. For example, judicial systems using AI to predict recidivism and adjust sentences. It’s a system created to improve the situation (people with low chance of recidivism receive lighter sentences as the goal of rehabilitation is accomplished earlier) but, if the system picks up certain biases or incorrect proxy measures, can make mistakes and put certain people way too long in prison, which decreases their opportunities to redo their lives after prison. An unintended consequence of the system is that it might actually increase recidivism or discriminate and condemn people. It’s not “misuse” of AI, it’s unwanted consequences.

And in that context it is warranted to ask what are the incentives of the economic system and how will they affect technology. In a capitalist society, the incentives make people focus on profits, and people wellbeing is not necessarily important in that context. In a non-capitalist society you wouldn’t have to worry about, for example, insurance companies using AI to predict car crash probabilities and stopping people (sometimes wrongly) from getting insurance and being able to drive a car.

That’s what I mean when I say that reducing bad outcomes (however you want to define “bad”) to people wanting to have those outcomes does not help at all. Because then you stop worrying about all the people with good intentions that do something with unwanted consequences. For example, if you don’t talk about the unwanted effects of AI and how to avoid them, you will have data scientists creating models and not worrying about indirect effects. Most of the time you won’t need to “stop progress” but just be mindful of a bunch of extra things.

And, of course, ignoring the system in which technology is developed and used blinds you to a whole class of problems created by the incentives of the system (capitalism or whatever).

How about you just make housing and healthcare cheaper? I don't care if USA turns into kingdom, but right now it is just too expensive.

Nope. Nuclear weapons is the best example of technology we fear. And it doesn't have much to do with capitalism. Some technologies are just dangerous.

Denmark’s state sector is responsible for 49% of GDP. That sounds a lot, but for the US the figure is 44%. Yet apparently the US is capitalist and Denmark somehow isn’t.

Does Denmark not have Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc? I think so. Capitalism is so often invoked as a bogey man like this, but it’s a red herring. Denmark is about 5% less capitalist than the US.

On the other hand we get this from the right in the US too, as though e.g. universal Medicare would turn the US into a socialist state.

As a European (a Brit, and a broadly conservative one) the histrionic railing against capitalism I see from the US left, and against the evils of state socialism on the US right, are just so tiresome. The main problem is it obscures so much behind invective fluff.

So many downvotes in this thread is an evidence of how divisive and unsubstantiated this topic has become.

Everyone is rock solid in their opinions. No way to swing it. They’re subscribed to left mostly on HN but the right is exactly the same.

No one has any sensibility and reason anymore. Echo chambers.

I am flagging this nonsense thread.

I don't agree with the author: technology such as A.I. as a means for exerting illiberal control on citizens is not inherently a feature of capitalism.

>how much would you fear it if we lived in a world that was a lot like Denmark or if the entire world was run sort of on the principles of one of the Scandinavian countries?

Yet they have ANPRs, larger camera networks and digital surveillance too. Not a strong argument against capitalism which in it's libertarian form would not allow for governments to effectively wield these weapons of control.

Those in power will always yield technology to increase their power over the population. We just need the societal and political technology to not allow them.

> technology such as A.I. as a means for exerting illiberal control on citizens is not inherently a feature of capitalism.

It is, though. Say, for example, student loans, where an AI will score how likely is a single person to default on their loans, so that the company can refuse unprofitable people or increase their rates. It's very easy that the AI picks up some proxy metrics, such as zip code, or parental education level, or something like that, and decides to refuse students who would otherwise have paid reasonable-rate loans. However, by refusing them they cut an opportunity to improve themselves and reinforcing the vicious cycle.

In other words, capitalism cares about profits. AI gives capitalism a way to increase profits, sometimes with little accountability ("it's the AI, we are not actively discriminating against you") and without caring for actual persons or overall social good.

> I don't agree with the author: technology such as A.I. as a means for exerting illiberal control on citizens is not inherently a feature of capitalism.

I think you're technically correct here, but, it is a feature of capitalism that only a small number of wealthy elites control this technology, especially given the incredibly large costs involved in training and maintaining AI models.

So we're largely at the mercy of these people and the corporations they control on whether they choose to implement it in an illiberal manner. That is, we're essentially relying on our technological overlords being of the 'benevolent dictator' type, regardless of profit incentives presented to them.

Personally, I don't have much hope in this regard, given what we've seen already.

Narrow and simplistic. As if the political state of a country was independent of power in relation to the citizenry.

A less wrong characterization would be people should be concerned about new ways of having power exerted against them in violation of their interests. That violation can come from authoritarianism, bureaucracy, simple criminality or any entry on a list that goes on a long way for someone who cares to keep looking.

Capitalism may encourage breeding certain kinds of manipulation and exploitation, but it's by no means the one source for such concerns, nor is it likely to be the worst one.

Capitalism is competition.

Technology tends toward Highlander companies that crush competition.

Sure, efficiency. Why would your OS tolerate a second kernel running at privilege 0?

That's fine for tech in a single memory address space.

Not so much for people dispersed across a global postal address space.

Leave the entropy and cacaphony of humanity alone, lest we converge on an AI AutoTuned variation on hell.

I'm confused. Denmark is a free-market capitalist country.

I absolutely agree with the author that the fear of technology is really the fear of capitalist technology.

My favorite article about this is from Wendy Liu: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

“Reclaiming the emancipatory potential of technology will require prying it from the clutches of capital. But that is a worthy fight. If the task of politics is to imagine a different world, then the job of technology is to help us get there. Whether technology is developed for the right ends — for the public good, instead of creating a privatised dystopia — will depend on the outcome of political struggles.”

Back to this article. In the article the author writes:

> How much would we fear any technology, whether A.I. or some other technology, […] if the entire world was run sort of on the principles of one of the Scandinavian countries?

Yet the Nordics are not run on any ‘principles’. Denmark, Sweden and the other Nordic countries are 100% pure capitalist countries.

Social democracies reap the spoils of imperialism and neocolonialism just as much as any other capitalist nation. They source the same coffee, timber, minerals and energy resources from the global south to extract as much value as possible. The only difference is that they also have safety nets for their own citizens; healthcare, strong labor unions, welfare programs and a ‘healthy’ political milieu. The exploitation of the global south comes at the expense of satiating their own citizens needs and desires at the cost of cheap products.

I live in a scandinavian country, and our economy is based on exactly the same features of capitalist mode of production that you can find in the UK and the US. Its not like Apple or Nescafe source the materials in their products differently than elsewhere.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/ky5p1x/how_do...

The Nordic countries have the same bourgeois private property systems which enable the capitalist class to commoditize the means of production and exploit workers by paying them a wage. It’s also important to remember that the goal of communism is a stateless society: nation states are a tool of capitalism. Also this common debate of ‘Government vs. Corporation/Capitalist firm’ is a false dichotomy. Both are part of the capitalist system as a whole. The firm is birthed by the capitalist state. An analysis of our current capitalist system that only looks within the borders of one state, when it is in fact part of a global production system (and therefore ‘forgets’ that capital can travel without limits, unlike the working class), is always an incomplete critique.

To sum up: the Nordics still use the exact same capitalist made products as every other capitalist country and participate in the same globalized capitalist mode of production.

Also important to critique when talking about technology is the current capitalist education system.

Curiosity and stimulating intellectual work is only rewarded (and thus reserved) for those in the working class who either pass the grueling ‘hunger games’-game that is school, or for those in the capitalist class who come from a wealthy family or received access to a big capital inheritance. When these intellectual laborers graduate they have become grandiose, paranoid, ‘punished by rewards’ -social darwinists with a false consciousness (Marxist term). The capitalists now try to keep these intellectual laborers unaware of the effects of the systems they are tasked to build/expand. Systems which are now automating the exploitation of the rest of the working classes. They do this through offering job perks, Google buses, etc.. It's all bribes. Meanwhile the members of the working class, who didn't pass the hunger games, is kept intellectually wounded, so as to be easier to exploit and control by capitalists. If Silicon Valley capitalists really wanted to be as disruptive as they say they are, they would organize to immediately abolish ‘Intellectual Property’ laws. Instead they hide behind American exceptionalism (and behind the American military which enforces the tyrannical global IP regime). SV leaders are complicit in the most deadly ‘copying is illegal’ propaganda campaign, and system, ever invented. We live under a capitalist system that criminalizes sharing and helping others. Knowledge is not zero sum game. The incentives are all wrong and we need to recalibrate society.

“One lethal weapon in the arsenal of the West’s trade war against the Rest is intellectual property. The common heritage of humanity—including medical knowledge and the seeds for food—is turned into property under capitalism, to be bought and sold as ‘IP.’ […] It has been a well-recognized fact throughout written history that knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. A physical commodity that is consumed becomes extinct. I consume an apple and it is no more. But knowledge is metaphysical. It is enriched when it is ‘consumed’ by an ever-expanding circle of consumers.”

[…]

“The notion that without IP protection, innovation would be stifled is an ideological position created and propagated by those that benefit from the privatization of knowledge. I came to a diametrically opposite conclusion over two decades of work with farming communities in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and much of eastern and southern Africa. Ordinary peasants and workers are amazingly innovative and productive, until their resources and knowledge are appropriated and corporatized, and the people enslaved to earn profits for corporations.”

— Professor Yash Tandon, Trade Is War: The West's War Against the World

> "Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us."

> "Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how powerful entities will use technology against us."

FTFY. Totalitarian state != capitalism.

Edit: I think this is being misunderstood. Chiang is arguing that fear of AI is really fear of how Capitalism will make use of it. But it's not just Capitalism; it's any entity powerful enough to leverage it to the detriment of the masses (for example totalitarian states). Capitalist winners are one kind of powerful entity among many.

While Amazon is not a totalitarian state, its use of AI in their delivery vehicles (rightfully) came under strong fire.

Maybe Amazon is a totalitarian country which I'm not aware of?

This is just from top of my head. There are also other examples, like autonomous trucking?

I think the article is wrong.

Fears of Technology are really fear of technology misuse. Sure current system is capitalism, but you could construct a similar argument for any other system.

E.g. in contemporary authoritarian communism with same tech level, you could get automated societal purges.

You might be right. The essense is technology misuse. That's for sure.

However, I'm wondering whether some systems come with authoritarianism bundled, so the use of technology in that way is somewhat expected. I'm not so sure about it though, since I'm not that knowledgeable about politics & systems in that breadth.

At the end of the day, my comment was only to counter my parent comment, which is now edited and clarified.

The book "Weapons of math destruction" contains a myriad of real examples of big data and AI punishing people and making their situation worse, in the US, with no totalitarianism needed. For example, use of AI in credit scores or policing, where the place you live will make the AI score you worse or think you're more likely to be a criminal, therefore making it harder for you to get out of any bad situation and reinforcing the "people from this zone are bad" idea.

Why are people downvoting comments that are pointing this out? If you don't like the discussion that the article provoked then flag down the entire article, not comments.

Anger from people belonging to one of the following 4 fragments:

Up/Down: Classism

Left/Right: Politics

I didn't downvote but I do think that a lot of comments didn't bother with actually trying to read the article and understand the points. The article doesn't talk at all about totalitarianism but about people's livelihoods. Dismissing the actual fears of technology putting people out of work by saying "this just happens in totalitarian societies" does not add too much to the conversation.

I’ve never found Chiang’s stories to be particularly engaging and his comments here illustrate why: he doesn’t seem to understand much about technology or politics. His opinion is basically that if the entire world operated like Denmark, no one would fear technological change.

No, I’m sorry, but it’s much more complicated than that. “Technology” as a broad entity is responsible for a lot of horrible things that have nothing to do with capitalism; for example, poison gas or nuclear weapons.

Any time someone says [complex problem] would go away if only people adopted [specific political program], you can be certain they don’t understand the complexity of the issue.

When I reached the part about Denmark is where it totally lost me; I am very familiar with Denmark and have a lot of connections to the country.

While it is truly a great place to live in as a person, they do have some civil freedoms touched upon recently with surveillance systems, and I know people greatly concerned about it.

The ironic thing about the “social democratic” left’s admiration of Scandinavian countries is that in actuality, these places are the opposite of the global universality ideal. Denmark is a small, mostly homogeneous country that has immigration but strongly enforces assimilation. Making America like Denmark would require things that these same social democrats are vehemently against.

Could you give an example?

The language requirements for long term residency in Denmark would probably be considered excessive by many Americans.

In 1973, the first policy regarding immigrant language acquisition was enacted. This law required all foreign workers in Denmark to complete 40 hours of language instruction within a month of their arrival in Denmark. The Ministry of Social Affairs expanded this requirement in 1975 from 40 hours to 180 hours of language instruction accompanied by 40 hours of courses to introduce workers to norms of Danish society.[68] Today, all applicants for permanent residency in Denmark must sign a Declaration on Integration and Active Citizenship in Danish Society[69] which includes the following provision:

"I understand and accept that the Danish language and knowledge of the Danish society is the key to a good and active life in Denmark. I will therefore do my best to learn Danish and acquire knowledge about the Danish society as soon as possible. I understand and accept that I can learn Danish by attending Danish classes offered to me by the district council."

While Denmark have problems and many policies I disagree with I do see this one as a good idea but I agree it wouldn't work in the US. I do feel this is a bit sad though as it would be helpful in the US too, likely more so.

Comparing the Deceleration on integration with the US version that is both religious and force you to accept the US above all others I find quite ironic in The Land of The Free Vs. So-called socialist Denmark (I know it isn't but Americans often say it is).

I'm Danish btw. with English and Pakistani first and second generation immigrant family members that come from a poor background (textile factories in England and rural Pakistan) who are now well integrated ranging from university degrees to working industrial jobs.

In countries like Denmark or Norway things like Universal health care are not free, they are paid by high taxes and gas/oil from Greenland/North sea that most countries do not have, and lots of things in Hospitals need a family member to help for caring ill people(and you pay for some services if you can).

I went to "free" public University to study engineering that was not free at all. You needed high grades to enter and to remain there. Every year half the people was ousted. The grading system had little resemblance with engineering in the real work.

No system is perfect, but socialism is one of the worst system the world ever had. In the US young people and almost all teachers are socialists, because they have no idea what socialism really is and care about what the world should be in theory instead of what it is.

I talk about socialism because Capitalism as concept was an invention of Marx to define everything that was not communism. The early phoneticians or Greeks were Capitalist as they were free to make deals and they accumulated capital too.

Go to Poland, go to Hungary, go to Czechia or Slovakia, ask the people what socialism is, look at the buildings before and after socialism. Compare with neighbors that did not experience socialism.

If there is something to fear is authoritarians, could be Hitler, could be Lenin, or could be corporativism, companies that become monopolies or oligopolies or the military complexes. Always remember Lenin or Mao, each one killed tens of millions of people out of pure incompetency, but nobody could expel them, let alone Pol Pot or Stalin that were the seed of Satan.

If there is something to fear is that people in power are not controlled. The military for example should always be controlled, but with AI that lets them not send their children to war and could people like a videogame they are even more dangerous than they were.

> In countries like Denmark or Norway things like Universal health care are not free, they are paid by high taxes

It’s the perfect reason to have “high” taxes.

> and lots of things in Hospitals need a family member to help for caring ill people(and you pay for some services if you can)

I have no idea what you mean by this. It is a hospital, where in exchange for your taxes you get a given service (in many European countries quite high level one, and you don’t have to argue about whether a bear attack was a preexisting condition).

> I went to "free" public University to study engineering that was not free at all. You needed high grades to enter and to remain there.

I don’t know which country you are talking about but engineering is usually hard. It would be laughable if just because you pay for it, you get a diploma. But also, in most European countries you do have an option to pay for your studies as well, in which case you can go on as long as you have money left. I don’t see why allowing poor but talented students to study onward would be bad. And I really don’t get your point on the grading system. As far as I know there is little difference between “paid” and “free” universities.

> Go to Poland, go to Hungary, go to Czechia or Slovakia, ask the people what socialism is, look at the buildings before and after socialism

What’s up with buildings? Yeah Soviet brutalism (as an architectural design) is not the most beautiful (though if we are not talking about the block houses, there are some really interesting ones like museums), but people had a home, there weren’t really homeless people. I think it was a much better system than the current insanely priced housing market, where most people instead of paying for their home, instead use one as a service, disallowing many from ever buying a home.

Also, the problem with Hungary at least (not sure about the other countries) was the change from socialism to capitalism, where expensive industries /factories were sold for pennies and went to foreign hands.

So what we mean by socialism is quite variable, but socialism policies (health care, free university) are a definitive win for society, and not having them is barbaric. As for your last-1 paragraph, I do agree, uncontrolled power is the problem.

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