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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I'm sure others have seen this, but AutoGPT is here, a framework that lets instances of GPT call other instances of GPT to create complex task chains with no human input. In other words, it lets GPT instances prompt other instances to complete projects. Only about a week after being released, the examples are staggering.

This is an example of BabyAGI automating a sales prospecting pipeline, something I can say from experience normally takes a typical sales rep at least half a day to do. We can already automate it, and pretty well. This type of thing wasn't possible a week ago.

There are all sorts of other examples, and it's clear that massive automation is happening. I'm willing to bet we'll reach 30% unemployment in five years. If not sooner. The question becomes - what do we do about it?

The standard liberal answer is Universal Basic Income, and many on the left seem to think it will just magically appear once the government realizes the economic power of AGI. Problem is even if we get the buy-in from the political class, the implementation of UBI is not a simple undertaking! The funding, distribution, and potential impact on inflation alone are going to cause monstrous headaches and take years to work through. Plus even if we do have UBI, the potential of widening income inequality is insane, as those who own and control AGI technology stand to reap substantial profits, further concentrating extreme amounts wealth in their hands.

Another solution, favored by some conservatives, is to focus on retraining and upskilling the workforce. While I get the general direction here, I highly doubt a retraining program could possibly be enough to counter the rapid pace of automation. Furthermore, not everyone will have the aptitude or desire to transition into highly technical or specialized fields, which may leave a significant portion of the population without viable employment options. "Learn to code" just doesn't hit the same when software devs are going to be replaced as well.

Even if we get lucky enough to have both UBI and massive retraining, it may not be enough!

Why not get the government to throw some cash at massive infrastructure and public works projects? We could take a page out of the 1930s New Deal playbook and create a boatload of jobs in all sorts of industries. I've rarely seen anyone discuss this, but it may be necessary as it was during the Great Depression. Plus, it'd boost the economy, help repair our public infrastructure, and maybe even help tackle climate change if we invest in green tech. We could even turn this impetus towards space...

Last but not least we've got the potential impact of automation on mental health and societal well-being. We're already in the middle of a Meaning Crisis. As we increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to perform jobs and soon everyday tasks, we've got to ensure that people are still able to find purpose and meaning in their lives. This probably won't be what we've traditionally looked to, such as the arts or writing, since AI is already making that irrelevant.

Perhaps we will finally realize the importance of community in our lives and to our happiness, and start adding economic numbers and frameworks to those who create social goods. Have the government fund people to run local meetup groups, or help their neighbors with tasks, volunteer at old folks' homes, etc. It's a bit of a bludgeon solution right now, but we could refine things over time.

At the end of the day we all know the rise of AGI is going to be a shitshow for a number of reasons. I've outlined some potential solutions or stopgap measures to prevent the breakdown of society, but how does the Motte think we can navigate this change?

Living standards ... (all the way down to Call of Duty, Starbucks, and your local nail salon) .. sustained at total employment rate of 20%

I think this is overstated, looking over broad employment statistics. Even if we assume all of management, business, sales, education, healthcare, office and administration, and community service are gone (that's most of the big ones), and halve food service, what remains is 67M and 20% of 330M is (lazily fudging the difference between FTE and employment) ... also ... 67M. However, american 'living standards are a lot more than that. According to a graph I didn't look into, 55% of american healthcare spending is on the under 65 - and few want to give up good healthcare at 78. For every competent male doctor there might be several less-skilled female assistants, but they do load-bearing work. A lot of management is wasteful, but at least half is probably isefi;. Same for business, and to a much lesser extent administration and sales. Even sales plays a role in living standards - a medical device or industrial salesperson play roles in getting people their final goods. I'm ignoring the second-order effects you mention, but I don't think they're particularly strong. All the now unemployed people will still demand the living standards and products they did before, which will still require construction, transportation, lawn care, healthcare workers, etc. I'm also including 'continued improvement in technology and consumer goods' as a part of living standards, which seems reasonable, as few would want to give them up. Reintroducing half of what was cut brings us to 30%. I'm not confident in this though. I don't see room for easy efficiency improvements in gardening or repair, but construction's famous cost overruns and delays suggests room for cuts.

Now, that's if you fix living standards. Acknowledging that much of that is an empty simulacra - wow, neatly manicured greens! personal food service! plastic trinkets, from factory to your doorstep! therapeutic shopping for cute clothing! Vacations to tourist traps that could just as well be ten miles away! endless flavorings and combinations of the same foods, heroic healthcare efforts to let obese 78yos watch a few more years of TV, that's a stronger point. Cut a lot of that and you're at <12% easily.

Economics suggessts living standards might, so long as labor is still mostly human-driven, expand to use much of available labor. Economics is "neutral to the utility functions of agents", so it doesn't prove that - there are separate reasons people want grounds well kept or elderly preserved while slowly decaying. But they do. And 'the market' doesn't value man-hours equally, it values spending power, so even if Jose would enjoy watching TV more than Mike wants his bushes trimmed, Mike has money and Jose needs money.