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Techno-feudalism and the rise of AGI: A future without economic rights?

(arxiv.org)
211 points lexandstuff | 4 comments | 05 Jul 25 21:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jandrewrogers ◴[06 Jul 25 03:08 UTC] No.44477503[source]▶
A critical flaw in arguments like this is the embedded assumption that the creation of democratic policy is outside the system in some sense. The existence of AGI has the implication that it can effectively turn most people into sock puppets at scale without them realizing they are sock puppets.

Do you think, in this hypothesized environment, that “democratic policy” will be the organic will of the people? It assumes much more agency on the part of people than will actually exist, and possibly more than even exists now.

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jongjong ◴[06 Jul 25 10:05 UTC] No.44479345[source]▶
The Greeks already figured out thousands of years ago that the best way to implement democracy was via random selection. Yet here we are, everyone believes that 'democracy' necessitates 'voting'; totally ignoring all the issues which come with voting.

The concept of voting, in a nation of hundreds of millions of people, is just dumb. Nobody knows anything about any of the candidates; everything people think they know was told to them by the corporate-controlled media and they only hear about candidates which were covered by the media; basically only candidates chosen by the establishment. It's a joke. People get the privilege of voting for which party will oppress them.

Current democracy is akin to the media making up a story like 'The Wizard of OZ' and then they offer you to vote for either the Lion, the Robot or the Scarecrow. You have no idea who any of these candidates are, you can't even be sure if they actually exist. Everything you know about them could literally have been made up by whoever told the story; and yet, when asked to vote, people are sure they understand what they're doing. They're so sure it's all legit, they'll viciously argue their candidate's position as if they were a family member they knew personally.

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1. PicassoCTs ◴[06 Jul 25 10:21 UTC] No.44479425[source]▶
It would make more sense, to vote on policy by giving priorities and preventing impossible votes (cant have tax reduced while demanding more for services)- and then the policy votes get mapped to the corresponding candidates.
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2. jongjong ◴[06 Jul 25 10:49 UTC] No.44479553[source]▶
This is inferior to random selection because this still has the issue that the candidate could claim to hold certain positions, but once voted in, they may not follow through on any of them. The reality of our current democracy is that anyone who manages to even step onto the arena is likely already bought and paid for. There's a candidate with a prepared narrative to appeal to every kind of fool under the sun. With random selection, you'll get average people, their stated positions hardly matter because once all seats of congress and the senate have been filled with random people, their values will almost certainly reflect the true values of average citizens. That's how probability works.

With the current approach to voting; all the candidates you get to choose from have already been pre-screened for: 1. Thirst for power and 2. Alignment with the interests of big capital holders (who paid for their campaigns in order to get to this stage).

This is a horrible pre-screening process.

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3. Udo ◴[06 Jul 25 11:08 UTC] No.44479657[source]▶
I think what GP meant was voting on policies directly instead of voting in delegates that promise to implement policies.
4. vanviegen ◴[06 Jul 25 13:18 UTC] No.44480580[source]▶
People in general don't have the time or inclination to properly study the important details of each an every issue, before voting on them.

That's why it makes sense to outsource the decision making to a group of people that are being paid to study these issues full-time.

Given some balanced (yes, there's a problem) expert advice, I think rando's might make better choices than career politicians focussed on extending their power. The rando's would just return to their old careers afterwards.