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"Note that you cannot simply say that you will build A.I. that only offers pro-social solutions to the problems you ask it to solve. That’s the equivalent of saying that you can defuse the threat of McKinsey by starting a consulting firm that only offers such solutions." get their asses Ted newyorker.com/science/annals-o

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I do not love that in 2023 a totally smart writer still has to include a disclaimer that "whenever I criticize capitalism, I’m not criticizing the idea of selling things" in the goddamn New Yorker

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Honestly my only disagreement here is when Chiang writes that "it’s not the job of A.I. to strengthen capitalism...yet that is what it currently does." I think by the time of the Dartmouth conference John McCarthy had pretty explicitly renounced the Communist beliefs his organizer parents raised him on and IMO McCarthy's (and Minsky's, and the other guys)' political beliefs are part of the story of AI's intellectual history

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@Wolven I think he's trying to win people over who might not be prepared to say "capitalism not so good" (hence the "when I criticize capitalism" stuff), so I get it, and for the purposes of his goal the entire history of AI as a project is probably a bit of a diversion

@ingrid Yeah, I get that, too, but I think also if the goal is to fully vivisect the values that drive the current "A.I." spring, then that at least is worth a mention

@Wolven @ingrid I often have to remind people that the exchange of money for time or goods is not what defines capitalism. It needs to be repeated over and over.

@thorncoyle @Wolven @ingrid

I use "Finance capitalism" for the system that plays with us, versus "market capitalism", the formal system of exchange we play in.

@ingrid really reminds me of biotech and gmos. ostensibly they were a clean technology free of political ideology, but lo and behold even their most altruistic uses (feeding the hungry in the third world!) enriched major corporations

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