I agree with the taladar@sh.itjust.works elsewhere in this thread. Corporations are the dangerous artficial intelligence, and “line go up” is the paperclip problem. We’re already facing it.
Well except that corporations ultimately profit off of consumer behavior. Keeping consumers alive as a class is indirectly encouraged in capitalism. AI has no such necessary desire.
But AI also has no innate desires at all, except what we program it to have. So profit and war are almost certainly the goals it will have.
It very well might this quarter for insurance companies. It certainly did last year.
Climate change has clear economic impact now, not speculative future impact, and we can already see the finance world reacting to that in heavy handed ways.
Keeping consumers alive as a class is indirectly encouraged in capitalism.
All they want is money, which has nothing to do with consumers whatsoever. Corporations could extract money by devouring each other, or by taking over a nation state, or by hijacking a treasury department, or by issuing their own money a la crypto.
Have you seen the behavior of parties captured by the capitalist end of the political spectrum? They very much are not the rational actors trying to preserve their own income by keeping consumers alive. If they were they would try to optimize consumer health and spending money instead of aiming for highscore-like accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few that can’t spend it on anything meaningful any more anyway because they can already afford everything that could meaningfully improve their life a million times over.
I’m not saying capitalists as individuals do this. I am saying that capitalism as a system will ultimately do this. Capitalism survives is kinda its claim to fame. It was never going to take a long termist view and do what’s best for everyone, but it will protect itself. Whether that means government acts on its behalf, in the form of it acting on behalf of the insurance companies, or by shifting consumerism towards consuming solar panels and electric cars, it will ultimately find a way to exist. Literally no one on earth benefits from human extinction, corporate or otherwise, and eventually human decline WILL hurt sales. That’s when all the nations and corporations of the world will act. It’s bleak but true.
ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I agree with the taladar@sh.itjust.works elsewhere in this thread. Corporations are the dangerous artficial intelligence, and “line go up” is the paperclip problem. We’re already facing it.
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
Well except that corporations ultimately profit off of consumer behavior. Keeping consumers alive as a class is indirectly encouraged in capitalism. AI has no such necessary desire.
But AI also has no innate desires at all, except what we program it to have. So profit and war are almost certainly the goals it will have.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
but that won’t show in results for next quarter, si they don’t care
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
It very well might this quarter for insurance companies. It certainly did last year.
Climate change has clear economic impact now, not speculative future impact, and we can already see the finance world reacting to that in heavy handed ways.
yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 1 week ago
All they want is money, which has nothing to do with consumers whatsoever. Corporations could extract money by devouring each other, or by taking over a nation state, or by hijacking a treasury department, or by issuing their own money a la crypto.
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
Money is labor hours exchanged for equivalent goods and services. It’s a loop. If there’s no one to labor, and no one to buy, money isn’t anything.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Have you seen the behavior of parties captured by the capitalist end of the political spectrum? They very much are not the rational actors trying to preserve their own income by keeping consumers alive. If they were they would try to optimize consumer health and spending money instead of aiming for highscore-like accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few that can’t spend it on anything meaningful any more anyway because they can already afford everything that could meaningfully improve their life a million times over.
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
I’m not saying capitalists as individuals do this. I am saying that capitalism as a system will ultimately do this. Capitalism survives is kinda its claim to fame. It was never going to take a long termist view and do what’s best for everyone, but it will protect itself. Whether that means government acts on its behalf, in the form of it acting on behalf of the insurance companies, or by shifting consumerism towards consuming solar panels and electric cars, it will ultimately find a way to exist. Literally no one on earth benefits from human extinction, corporate or otherwise, and eventually human decline WILL hurt sales. That’s when all the nations and corporations of the world will act. It’s bleak but true.