AI is a Political Problem | The New Polity Declaration

I guess I

can try to jump in

on that.

It's something that's been frustrating me with the whole discussion surrounding AI that I've seen.

Where the dream or the optimists, the AI optimists, the idea is that AI is going to produce this sort of universal abundance.

And like, what did Elon Musk say recently? Like universal, not basic income, but universal high income.

Sweet.

Right, yeah, yeah.

So we're going to live in a world where there isn't any anxiety, no stress, no sickness, no work, no just like material abundance and freedom and the ability to just sort of do whatever you want and live your life like that, right? And that that's going to be sort of universalized or generalized.

And I just find that to be a very, very strange and naive idea.

I mean, like... regardless of what I think AI will ever be able to do, even if it can do everything that the AI optimists think it'll be able to do, that outcome seems like phenomenally remote.

And the reason why is just because of like basic political theory and political history, right? That like power, is used, like what political power does is use the political power that's wielded by a group, by some in-group that has this power, right? Uses that political power.

This is the ancient world and in the modern world to exploit resources or extract resources from other groups.

This is like what they do.

And sometimes that's negotiation, like through economics, like you want to negotiate good deals.

Other times it's military, other times it's cultural imperialism or whatever.

But you have some in-group that's trying to use the power that it can centralize within itself to extend that power over other groups and concentrate more power to the middle, right? And more resources to the middle.

I mean, that's like what economic history, economic theory, that's what it is.

And we have this idea, I think, that's left over from the 19th century and the creation of the nation state that you have these huge groupings of people like the American people or the French people who have this political entity that is somehow us.

And like we're that inside group and we the nation are the ones who are wielding the political power of the nation state.

And we're doing it in a way to enrich ourselves.

I mean, like if you look at the history of nation states, it doesn't treat that which the populations that are outside of the nation state in the same way as it does those that are inside.

And that's because those who are inside are that ruling group, right? And the reason why that group had to be so big, this is like the story of the 19th century, was because incorporating ever more people into the power, which then meant a share of the spoils, was the way that you maximized the power of the modern world.

So modern armies, modern industrial production, modern cultural production, like you needed the mass, mass society, mass economics, mass culture, that was powerful.

And so the dynamic was incorporating the mass of people in the state into a nation state.

I guess I

can try to jump in

on that.

It's something that's been frustrating me with the whole discussion surrounding AI that I've seen.

Where the dream or the optimists, the AI optimists, the idea is that AI is going to produce this sort of universal abundance.

And like, what did Elon Musk say recently? Like universal, not basic income, but universal high income.

Sweet.

Right, yeah, yeah.

So we're going to live in a world where there isn't any anxiety, no stress, no sickness, no work, no just like material abundance and freedom and the ability to just sort of do whatever you want and live your life like that, right? And that that's going to be sort of universalized or generalized.

And I just find that to be a very, very strange and naive idea.

I mean, like... regardless of what I think AI will ever be able to do, even if it can do everything that the AI optimists think it'll be able to do, that outcome seems like phenomenally remote.

And the reason why is just because of like basic political theory and political history, right? That like power, is used, like what political power does is use the political power that's wielded by a group, by some in-group that has this power, right? Uses that political power.

This is the ancient world and in the modern world to exploit resources or extract resources from other groups.

This is like what they do.

And sometimes that's negotiation, like through economics, like you want to negotiate good deals.

Other times it's military, other times it's cultural imperialism or whatever.

But you have some in-group that's trying to use the power that it can centralize within itself to extend that power over other groups and concentrate more power to the middle, right? And more resources to the middle.

I mean, that's like what economic history, economic theory, that's what it is.

And we have this idea, I think, that's left over from the 19th century and the creation of the nation state that you have these huge groupings of people like the American people or the French people who have this political entity that is somehow us.

And like we're that inside group and we the nation are the ones who are wielding the political power of the nation state.

And we're doing it in a way to enrich ourselves.

I mean, like if you look at the history of nation states, it doesn't treat that which the populations that are outside of the nation state in the same way as it does those that are inside.

And that's because those who are inside are that ruling group, right? And the reason why that group had to be so big, this is like the story of the 19th century, was because incorporating ever more people into the power, which then meant a share of the spoils, was the way that you maximized the power of the modern world.

So modern armies, modern industrial production, modern cultural production, like you needed the mass, mass society, mass economics, mass culture, that was powerful.

And so the dynamic was incorporating the mass of people in the state into a nation state.