But… that’s exactly the substance of this argument. I’m not sold on the full extent of the metaphor and I’m definitely not out here cheerleading AI, but the central argument of this article is this analogy: when you say “but humans work to eat” you’re echoing exactly the concerns during the Industrial Revolution (slash advent of capitalism, depending how you and the article want to look at it).

Will that analogy hold? Who knows. But it’s more than a facile AI bro saying AI is bringing us a utopia. The article even raises a key part of the analogy: the transition to industry and capitalism (and the resulting freed up labor) led to an unprecedented wave of revolutions and death.