@deanwball 🎯
The author of the piece responds with “I am only stating a premise and suggesting what it implies.” My contention is that, no, the premise itself smuggles in the assumption of the conclusion.
Let me try to give you a more concrete example.
Take politics, and take a broad conception of politics. Not just what elected officials do but the art of collective persuasion, coalition-building, and related strategic effort that is embedded in every organization. The higher you rise in many professions, the likelier it is that you do politics of some form or another.
This premise assumes that AI is superior to humans at every single aspect of politics. Not just coming up with political strategies or finding fulcra that might persuade specific individuals or groups, but instead executing those strategies. Actually building coalitions and persuading people itself. Not just writing speeches but delivering them (is this a coherent concept?).
I submit that persuasive acts like this are not unilateral or intrinsic capabilities of the actor. The recipient of the message also has a say in whether the persuasion worked. This is why the same words, delivered by different messengers, can land differently. This is why, for example, many people on this very website who used to read my writing in a favorable way are now inclined to read it unfavorably after I announced I’d be joining OpenAI. Every single aspect of the messenger affects the message itself, or at least it affects how that message is received by others.
To argue that AI would be better at every aspect of politics, then, is to assume a massive degree of institutional transformation. Many such transformations are possible, but the single likeliest one would be that the human role in deciding what organizations and societies do simply does not exist, or does not matter nearly as much.
And if you believe that, it would almost be a necessity that the rule of law in general, and contractual grants of equity in particular, would not be honored, the latter being the actual thesis of the essay in question.
So by saying “AI is better than humans at ALL labor,” you have in fact smuggled in what amounts to the author’s conclusion. And that is what my original tweet was saying. I stand by every aspect of it.
Perhaps you believe this will happen! That’s fine. But as the writer, it’s incumbent upon you to persuade the reader of this from outside the bounds of the tautology. This essay fails in that regard, as does a great deal of other writing on this topic.
