Americans Recognize AI as a Wealth Inequality Machine, Polls Find | Hacker News Reader

Americans Recognize AI as a Wealth Inequality Machine, Polls Find

gizmodo.com

> When asked to choose between whether the federal government should provide “help for American workers who lose their jobs to AI” or create “incentives for American tech companies to keep innovating so that America outcompetes the rest of the world in developing AI, even if it allows tech companies to profit while eliminating jobs in the US,” the public overwhelmingly favored workers.

This is one of the most loaded poll questions I've ever seen. Even if you're very pro worker and anti-AI, I can't see how his poll result is useful outside of generating clickbait headlines.

Which is more important:

(A) Government programs that redistribute resources to workers displaced by AI, potentially reducing efficiency and slowing innovation, or

(B) Policies that enable American tech companies to rapidly innovate and ensure U.S. leadership in AI.

After the results of that poll, we can write a new article titled:

Americans Recognize AI as a Catalyst for Broad-Based Prosperity and Economic Advancement

"When asked to choose between whether the federal government should provide “help for American workers who lose their jobs to AI” or create “incentives for American tech companies to keep innovating so that America outcompetes the rest of the world in developing AI, even if it allows tech companies to profit while eliminating jobs in the US,” the public overwhelmingly favored workers. Nearly 60% of all respondents"

What kind of biased poll is that? I'm surprised only 60% agreed with that.

A lot of polling is quite terrible, and the questions are designed to get the desired answers. It doesn't mean that polling itself is invalid, but it's often warped to be invalid by idealists.

Poll wording is nearly always biased in some way. What it's useful for is tracking trends, keeping the wording identical.

I thought some of those polling numbers would be higher. Do people really think it serves a purpose for tech companies to hold ALL the wealth? People must have heard a bit about economics in high school and figured there was no need to think critically beyond that.

I'm sure the temporarily not-yet-rich-from-AI will find a way to shrug that off.

After giving this a great deal of thought, it's clear that the American electorate is completely captured. They will always vote to further the interests of corporations. This will not change until the money is removed from politics. The good news is that bad actors at the top (grifters, rent-seekers, etc) will continue to stash their ill-gotten gains into assets like stocks and real estate, so as long as you own some, you'll enjoy the fruits of their labors.

> you'll enjoy the fruits of their labors

That's how putting your savings into the market is sold, and it's true to an extent; you will lose out if you let your money sit around. But also, having a bunch of inattentive and unsavvy investors in the market is super convenient to anyone with a whole lot wealth. It means when the market crashes there's a cushion made up of your retirement savings. Plus, they have the option of buying low and increasing their share of the market. If you put all your money in an ETF for the long haul, you end up with a smaller share of the pie.

That's what really matters, right? Not absolute wealth, but spending power relative to other people around you. If the mechanics of the stock market increase this gap, even when people are bought in, I don't think that "enjoying the fruits of their labors" is the right framing.

You also have the option of buying low and increasing your share of the market

The premise is that you have a bunch of unsavvy people dumping savings into the market. As an individual you can try to play the game, as a system most people will lose.

What is the game? Who has been losing from buying broad-market index funds? Even if the market falls from recent highs all but the most recent investors will be ahead.

Of course this got flagged lmao

“Recognize”. Not perceive, but recognize. Much Journalism.

TIL that the majority of Americans believe that private businesses owe them employment. Imagine being so entitled.

  > A majority of people, 55% of all those surveyed, supported the statement “tech companies should not be able to make unlimited profits from AI and should be held financially responsible for American jobs that AI eliminates.

Your thinking is a dangerous line to start down.

A business does not owe anybody employment.

Businesses, as a whole, as a piece of society, owe members of society employment.

This is a foundational stone of modern civilization, and when government doesn't act to protect it from the complex forces of our developing world, people will kill over it.

[flagged]

We might all find ourselves become “useless”. If we don’t like it, a drone might come to our door to correct our behavior.

What do we do when most can’t trade their labor for money?

Not insane, but pragmatic.

There's an valid debate to be had how everyone/anyone can be employable in the emerging world, but we can talk about it in less callous terms. The HN guidelines start with an appeal to "be kind", and flamebait is explicitly out of line here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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