So, Sam Altman recently said something which seems reasonable, but isn’t:
using technology to create abundance–intelligence, energy, longevity, whatever–will not solve all problems and will not magically make everyone happy. but it is an unequivocally great thing to do, and expands our option space. to me, it feels like a moral imperative...
most surprising takeaway from recent college visits: this is a surprisingly controversial opinion with certain demographics.
(lack of capitalization from original.)
Back in the original Greek writings on rhetoric and argument, one of the three steps was Ethos: this is the rhetorician’s qualifications, including his ethical qualifications. The “why should we listen to you?” part. If you’re talking about courage, are you brave? If charity, are you charitable?
If technology, do you use it for the good of others?
What most people can’t explicate about their objection to Altman’s thesis that using technology to create abundance is a good thing is that they don’t trust Altman. OpenAI was originally a non-profit, meant to create AI in a way which would benefit everyone. Altman turned it into a for profit, and no one except billionaires and sycophants think that companies are out to be beneficial to the majority of people: we work in them, we know it’s bullshit.
And how did Altman create his AIs? By training them on other people’s work, without permission or payment. Further, the AIs compete with the people whose data they trained on: you can ask for a picture in the style of a particular artist, for example, and they compete with artists, writers and other professionals in general.
So, the people whose actual work made AIs (they aren’t really AIs but I use the term for convenience) possible, are the ones harmed by them AND they didn’t give their permission or get paid.
Why they hell would anyone other than a shareholder or a well paid employee “trust” Sam Altman?
Now let’s move on to the Altman’s actual argument (his logos and pathos)
using technology to create abundance–intelligence, energy, longevity, whatever–will not solve all problems and will not magically make everyone happy. but it is an unequivocally great thing to do, and expands our option space. to me, it feels like a moral imperative...
Now, this is a case where the logos is almost entirely true.
But what’s the actual track record of using technology to create abundance?
We’re losing our topsoil. Nutrition in food is less than it used to be. We’ve created climate change, which appears to now be past key tipping points and will kill and impoverish billions. Most of the American population is fat, they weren’t fifty years ago, so it’s not “individual choices.” We have widespread ecological collapse, including the loss of most large mammals and so few insects compared to even fifty years ago that there is no longer “bug splat” on windshields. The oceans are full of plastic, and the coral reefs are dying, while fish stocks collapse.
None of this is to say that technology hasn’t had vast benefits, but we’re using it also to reduce our option space: to damage the carrying capacity of the Earth in ways which will take tens of thousand of years to recover from, as a best case estimate (millions for some of the issues.) The last 40 years, when people like Altman have had the most influence, have seen a vast rise in inequality, and a huge number of homeless. Altman and co. blame left wingers, but who are the billionaires? Who actually has the power?
Altman’s making an argument which is true on its face, but he belong to a class of people whose actions do a great deal of harm. Most people can’t clearly articulate this, but they know he and his class can’t be trusted, so they instinctively disagree with him, but since they can’t quite say why, they sound incoherent.
But they’re right to distrust Altman. Technology could be used to benefit everyone, even in the long term, but Altman isn’t trying to do that: he’s trying to get rich, and if that hurts a lot of people along the way, he’s OK with it.
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