This is great news. Honestly, I hope to see more nationalization of widely used services (or whatever the equivalent word for nationalization is at state or municipal levels.)
Municipal broadband, power, roads, schools, post, housing, and healthcare? It's long overdue, and with an appropriate amount of funding has been shown to be effective at controlling costs and delivering moderately good quality in most cases.
A lot of things get so warped by profit motive. And there are places I want a profit motive, but insulin (and healthcare generally) isn't one.
Honestly though some industry's products/services verifiably don't improve end user/customer experiences from maximizing profits. It's hard not to see it at this point
It makes sense that to improve end user experience you need competition. Works great in restaurants. Anywhere with network effects (utilities) or legal barriers to entry (healthcare) doesn't tend to compete away poor results.
You say that as if healthcare isn't extremely regulated already and as if the regulation weren't a big factor in allowing these companies to monopolize the production of insulin. (Or, my favorite example back when I needed the stuff, colchisine.)
In the case of municipal broadband it mostly comes from communities that suffer form poor/no investment from the big players and is the only recourse for decent internet. It usually is faster and cheaper than existing solutions. There's clearly market failure here and players abusing their local monopolies to refrain from investing / provide decent service.
The state of telco in the US is pretty shocking, even in places like NY state.
> Municipal broadband, power, roads, schools, post, housing, and healthcare? It's long overdue, and with an appropriate amount of funding has been shown to be effective at controlling costs and delivering moderately good quality in most cases.
Where? The US has among the highest percentage of kids going to government owned and operated schools. We have plenty of government housing as well (projects). Nearly all of our roads and transit systems are publicly owned and operated too.
Almost uniformly, those government operated systems aren’t very good—in America. And it doesn’t have to do with “funding.” If you compare with Europe, we spend more money per student, per transit rider, and per public housing resident, etc.
Its easy to point at what doesn't work well, there's tons and tons of things that work great that nobody talks about.
Municipal broadband: the best broadband in the entire United States is provided by the municipality of Chattanooga. [1]
Post: The USPS is the most trusted brand in the United States, above FedEx and UPS. [2]
Transit: The New York City Subway is the 3rd largest metro rail system on earth after London and Guangzhou. Ok fine, it's expensive to build - but it moved 1,300,000,000 people in 2021.
> Transit: The New York City Subway is the 3rd largest metro rail system on earth after London and Guangzhou
It’s also the worst large metro system, by timeliness and reliability, in the world, despite being very well funded.
People in the rest of the country aren’t exactly unaware of New York. But its transit, housing, and public school systems are a poster child for how government-run services are terrible, even when well funded. There’s a reason why New York has suffered net domestic outmigration for many years.
Look, if Stockholm was in America the American public would have a very different idea of what government-run services could be like. But we don’t have Swedes running our government services, we have Americans. It is what it is.
> It’s also the worst large metro system, by timeliness and reliability, in the world, despite being very well funded.
You forgot to mention cleanliness, comfort, and safety, where it also is just atrocious compared to other metro systems outside US.
Praising NYC subway for being really big sounds to me similar to Soviet Union boasting how many tons of steel it produced. It sure did, but its citizens would have preferred instead to get something other than 1000 additional tanks.
> Municipal broadband: the best broadband in the entire United States is provided by the municipality of Chattanooga.
You can even get 25G from EPB now, though the 10G is good enough for me, frankly. That being said, there's several locations in the US where 10G residential fiber is broadly available; frequently either municipal or co-op (e.g. Utopia Fiber in Utah), though I believe EPB was first in 2015.
American schooling sucks because it's beholden to political objectives contrary to the interests of educating children. Look at the manufactured controversy over "intelligent design" a few decades back, or the current controversies over transgender bathroom access, or Florida's censorship of material in school libraries[0].
Municipal broadband and the post works well because the US is good at building infrastructure. But at the same time, our government is also beholden to interests that want to kill that infrastructure so they can sell costlier and worse equivalents. States passed a bunch of laws to ban local government from running ISPs and Congress has been putting stupid funding mandates on the USPS's pension schemes that make a profitable public venture unprofitable.
Transit is a bad example because America is famously addicted to cars and allergic to any transit system that isn't a road. The NYC Subway could not be built today under the current political climate. Hell, it wasn't even built by the city or state government; it was stolen from the people who built the system through overregulation. Nationally, we have Amtrak[1], which was created by bailing out failing freight companies. With some high-speed upgrades it could be great, but the system is still beholden to those same freight companies' infrastructure[2].
The underlying problem is that America does not want to build working government programs. It is run by people who deliberately take funding in order to burn it so they can complain about how much better "privately-run" monopolized systems are.
[0] There are probably examples that right-wingers would point out as well - maybe check Reason or CATO for them, because I forgot.
[1] US citizen: Japan has high-speed bullet trains! We should build a Shinkansen!
US: We have a Shinkansen at home.
Shinkansen at home:
[2] Which, BTW, is actually supposed to give Amtrak priority over the rails. Like it says it in the actual law. Nobody cares.
None of this has anything to do with why school sucks. Schooling sucks because it's erratically funded.
Wealthy families arrange to live in suburbs designed explicitly to cordon their children off from there less wealthy peers, each time setting up a vicious cycle where homes in those school districts derive much of their value from school funding, creating an incentive for an ever-increasing levy for de-facto private schools.
Meanwhile, big city school districts are relatively well funded (teachers in the largest cities have surprisingly strong compensation) but poor management. Not everything that Republicans say about teacher unions is wrong, and there is an extent to which management of city public schools is set up to allow schools with high parental engagement (= greater parent wealth) to succeed while others fail.
Simultaneously, if you look at school districts in poorer exurbs or, worst of all, downstate/upstate rural districts, teachers really are making the wages that TV shows make jokes about, supplies are scarce and enrichment classes (in some places) nonexistent.
These are structural problems, not culture-war-of-the-moment problems.
I'm not high-horsing any of this; my kids went to school in Oak Park, IL; I believe every full-time teacher at OPRF makes a six figure salary. Oak Park is essentially a pair of extremely well funded school districts (K-8 and high school) with a fire and police department tacked onto the side.
I agree with what you wrote and would add that a lot of times we’re only talking about schools because that’s how we fund a lot of social services in the United States.
My wife is a public school teacher here in DC. You can always find examples of the popular culture war hobby-horses, but most of the time when a student isn’t doing well it comes down to money. It hurts hearing about a kid who’s trying but falling behind since they haven’t slept more than two consecutive nights in the same place since a parent lost a job, or the top kid in the class cancels their SAT test because they need to watch a younger sibling because their mother can’t afford to miss work. When it comes to stats, that shows up for the school even if the student can’t.
There are many causes of lackluster public education, and funding is definitely one of them. Another huge one is the ability of parents who have the time and resources to divert their children (likely already at a huge advantage) to private and charter schools, thereby skewing the public school below the median in a vicious circle. I’ve seen this exact dynamic play out in many of the cities I have lived. It’s also why newer suburbs (avoiding legacy costs and filled with upwardly mobile, resourced families) have excellent public schools.
It's difficult to overstate just how huge selection bias can get in the education space. I went to a high school in the Bay Area, one of a handful in my city. (1) Houses in our attendance area were ~$500,000+x more expensive than ones right across the street in another attendance area, because our school was "better". Why was it better? Because the parents paying an extra half million dollars to get their kid into a better school were going to make sure their kid did better, come hell or high water. So there were lots and lots and lots of after-school tutoring centers, where students would get taught the highschool material in advance, so that they would already know it forward and back when they were tested on it. Which makes the school test well, and thus look better than the other schools in the area, raising housing prices. x += $100,000; GOTO (1).
The actual quality of the education was substandard, but there is something to be said for being embedded in an environment where academic failure was simply not considered an option.
The increase mentioned in your article was in the last 4 years? Seems a bit late for the testing outcomes in your original link. Pretty terrible example. Also, that area is a perfect example of where parents with the means move their kids (and their attention) to charter/private operations, exacerbating the problem.
If you study the insulin pricing issue carefully, you will find that largely the problem is government, not the market.
The profit motive coupled with competition works very well to keep prices low.
You need only realize the following; European firms stand at the ready to supply insulin at well below US prices today, but are prevented from doing so by the FDA. And they can do so and still turn a profit.
> has been shown to be effective at controlling costs
That has never happened. What does happen is the cost is borne by the taxpayer rather than the user of the service.
The "warping" of the profit motive in the insulin case is entirely caused by government interference and regulation (by making it nearly impossible for competitors to spin up and make insulin).
Not really. The internet is an example of what happens when you suck margin out of high margin businesses like content creators. India is an example for pharmaceuticals.
If the state takes a commodity and sells it on a cost plus or cost basis, it’s going to kill investment in the spaces and collapse the margin.
At this point, we’re killing people and bankrupting states and employees with out of control costs. Making an example out of insulin would fix that and constrain some of the players in the market.
Who do you think is paying now? States are spending billions on it through Medicaid cost share.
A state like California with a contract manufacturer would probably break even on the insulin and save billions for reduced complications. Poor people with diabetes are frequent fliers for ER admissions. The cost of one ER visit is probably close to annual insulin cost.
Why make the jump directly to central economic planning? I mean what it sounds like you're saying is communism is when the government buys things? So not a big fan of like, roads?
Are you arguing in favor for no government regulations whatsoever? Are you arguing for cartel state?
Earlier you said the warping of insulin cost is caused by government regulation. It sounds like you're not differentiating between central economic planning, the government "running things," and regulation.
I'm confused by this because it seems a purposefully black and white take.
I don't use "central economic planning" unless I'm talking about a State that has implemented, well, central economic planning. It doesn't make sense to me to point to a country with nationalized transit and nothing else nationalized, and say "they do centralized economic planning." How are you differentiating between these two kinds of states? Because otherwise I don't know how to communicate the difference between the Soviet Union and, idk, Spain or whatever.
I'm also confused by the conflation of that with "the government running things." The government runs the military, is that central economic planning? The government "runs" elections, is that central economic planning? The government sends soldiers to break strikes, is that central economic planning? FEMA sends food and medicine to hurricane disaster zones, is that central economic planning? Is a firetruck central economic planning? Where does it end lol?
Finally the most confusing thing to me is where you stand on any form of government regulation. Happily it sounds like you aren't Full Libertarian and think Amazon should be building our roads, but when you say "the government running things" is the same as the government regulating things like how medicines can be produced and tested, I get totally confused. So a law that says "no murcury in medicine" is the same as... Central economic planning? It's equivalent to a nationalized healthcare system? That's weird because people have been arguing for the usa to socialize its healthcare system for decades but apparently it's already socialized, cause it has regulation?
I only am pinning you down so hard on this because I completely disagree that whatever people mean by "free market" is a means to greater material conditions for people, but I genuinely can't even figure out if that's what you're arguing for, I'm just working off my understanding of your world view from the other thread where you dropped a simple "this would be better if the free market did it."
There are far better ways of doing that. For example, government agriculture, because feeding people prevents them from dying, is still a bad idea, because every time the government took over agriculture, people died of starvation. Free markets produce a food surplus.
Where is there a free market for agriculture? The usa subsidizes farmers to control volume and prevent surplus overrun. Prices of food are thus artificially high.
In this case the regulation is certainly being pushed by the pharma companies themselves as they wish to use regulation as a means of eliminating their competition so they can charge monopoly prices. So less regulation is not going to help, rather, the political influence of the corporations is the problem. Doing an end run around the whole mess by simply producing your own insulin will rapidly cause collapse in prices as those companies will suddenly have competition, even if from a state run agency. It's happened many times before.
There are many cases where the government can produce things at cost and bankrupt for profit companies. It's not always effective but the situation is quite dire at this point
Walmart needs to either earn a profit or use the item as a loss leader to earn a profit elsewhere. A government can provide services without expecting them to be profitable. (See: roads, licensing, schools, transit, etc.)
There's no reason California couldn't say, "If you need insulin, and you live in California, it's available for free." Assuming that's what the taxpayers want.
> A government can provide services without expecting them to be profitable
Governments are just collections of people organized by incentives, just like corporations.
In corporations, the profit incentive pushes the organization to minimize the cost of production. At the same time, competition puts a ceiling in prices. Poorly organized, staffed and managed businesses go bankrupt.
In a government, there is no incentive to minimize costs. Next years budget is contingent on isi h all of this years. Leadership positions are politically appointed, not based on competency. Employees are not rewarded with huge bonuses or promotions for competing projects on time or ahead of schedule. Budgets can just be sink holes, as long as they are politically expedient and have the proper messaging. Better ideas are routinely stifled by political agendas, and investment is singular; one department gets all the funding and there is no competition.
Look at Venezuela as an example. When the government nationalized the oil industry, it completely fell apart. Production dropped off hugely.
> When a company develops a new drug, it gets a period of exclusivity, 10 years or more, in which it is the only one able to make or sell that drug. But after that exclusivity period has passed, other companies can make a carbon copy and sell it at a lower price. Studies find that once several generic competitors come on the market, prices drop significantly.
# 2 big pharma has hacked regulations for prescription drugs, medical devices and generic replacement to prevent losing federal government granted monopolies.
> But pharma companies are savvy about finding ways to extend their monopolies, with insulin and other drugs, by making minor tweaks to the chemical compound and asking for a patent extension. In the case of insulin, the companies can also modify the delivery device to protect their market share. Each product is meant to be used with specific, company-designed injectors.
Regulations often have the effect of protecting entrenched corporate interests.
Government regulation hurting competition, and hurting the free market by "protecting corporate interests too much" is precisely what people are often complaining about.
Supporting the free market would instead be when you allow competition, and do not protect the entrenched corporations too much.
Copyright and IP laws are probably the quintessential example of government harming the free market by preventing competitors from competing.
"All these safety regulations slow down the free market! Anyone should be able to make and sell insulin! If it's poisonous, people just won't buy that!"
For sure, but also I don't want "Joe's Discount Basement Insulin" to be on the market. I do think we should allow imports of medicines from some places in the world as long as they meet a verifiable safety standard.
We could also just nationalize the drug industry. Public funds pay for research already don't they? Why even let corporations in on this, just do it all ourselves and let the sociopaths go exploit adtech or some shit that's less likely to get people killed.
Insulin is typically delivered by a pump device that monitors patients blood sugar levels and doses accordingly. The pump is a medical device too that is manufactured by the drugco. It only accepts insulin vials from drugco.
It's like the inkjet printers that refuse to use ink from other vendors.
My insulin pumps take any insulin I fill it with. I’ve never heard of pumps that only take a specifically manufactured vial. Which one are you referring to?
Also, the pump manufacturer is not the same company as the insulin manufacturer.
I think what the GP was trying to say is they could easily solve this problem however letting it happen and blabbering about fixing the issue is easier and more profitable than actually doing anything.
Science has improved, yes. We've discovered there are many people who are able to produce a set of coping strategies that effectively mask their autism.
This is what science does -- we continuously challenge what we know and change our definitions when we learn. The people who are experiencing diagnosis with autism and ADHD today will seem totally different than the diagnoses 50 years from now.
You cannot hold on to one, old definition for something like autism (or any other non-neurotypical behavior) and expect it to remain the definition, unchanging.
If somebody has coping strategies that effectively mask their autism (in the early childhood/developmental stage specifically), they DO NOT HAVE autism, because autism is defined by others perceptions of you particularly as a child. You're going to have to change how autism is diagnosed if you don't want this to be true, which would be a great idea, the DSM approach to diagnosis is fundamentally flawed.
How SPECIFICALLY are these additional people getting diagnosed? Is there special training diagnosticians get to unveil the secret masked signs of autism? What are these scientific advances I've heard vaguely cited for the rise in autism diagnosis over the years? Why is it even possible for a diagnostic criteria that hasn't changed to result in dramatically different diagnostic rates over time, doesn't that prove the diagnostic process is fundamentally unreliable and thus fundamentally scientifically invalid?
The fundamental cause of the rise of Autism is that both schools and parents both financially benefit from a child being labelled as "Autistic" and because the diagnostic criteria is so vague to begin with you can interpret it as it suits you. The driver isn't "science", there aren't scientists and doctors marching into schools outraged at improper diagnostic practices and making changes happen. It's driven by parents and schools looking for money, money is the dynamo driving this, autistics are rainmakers. Then schools will often restrict some of their resources to those with special needs or whatever, which only drives up the need for other parents to play the same game. I've seen how the sausage is made too, with parents and teachers and doctors outright committing fraud to ensure a child looked appropriately disabled on paper, downplaying their ability as much as possible, which further jades me regarding how "scientific" this all is. I've also seen no analysis on if this practice actually helps kids, which you really think there should be because all these kids we labelled as disordered all reported being suicidal later in life.
You should understand that your definition is out of date, but I'll respond:
> If somebody has coping strategies that effectively mask their autism (in the early childhood/developmental stage specifically), they DO NOT HAVE autism
The DSM V diagnoses autism much more broadly -- https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html -- and it's very plausible that a child might not be identified. (For example, my parents were drunkards, I was not assessed as a child.) A child might also learn that they are punished for some behaviors such as stimming, and learn not to do it publicly, but still engage in that behavior privately.
Autism diagnoses only require that person needs 'support', and explicitly calls out that symptoms may be masked by coping strategies.
> How SPECIFICALLY are these additional people getting diagnosed?
Psychologists and psychiatrists usually start with a series of screening questions, followed by several in person discussions sessions where they probe into both your own self perceptions and the perceptions of others.
There is a 2018 paper that specifically identifies camoflauging traits and a screener that can be used to help identify adults (and others) who have built systems to survive in the world. It's called the CAT-Q. See the paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-018-3792-6
> Is there special training diagnosticians get to unveil the secret masked signs of autism?
Yes. Typically a psych degree (doctorate) with an emphasis on ASD, but sometimes masters level mental health professionals working in concert with an MD.
> What are these scientific advances I've heard vaguely cited for the rise in autism diagnosis over the years?
Well, see the 2018 paper I linked above. If it would be helpful, there are many other papers from 2000 onward that specifically address everything from repetitive behaviors to social isolation to meltdowns, etc. Mostly, we've improved our screening processes, which means we've got better, more accurate criteria.
> Why is it even possible for a diagnostic criteria that hasn't changed to result in dramatically different diagnostic rates over time, doesn't that prove the diagnostic process is fundamentally unreliable and thus fundamentally scientifically invalid?
The DSM criteria have changed between DSM 4 and DSM 5, in 2013. The DSM used to separate Autism and Aspergers as categorically different, but they've removed the Asperger's category and adjusted the criteria for a diagnosis.
It's also important to remember that science is never stable. The point of science is to revise over time our criteria. The point is to evaluate what new information we have.
And observed rates have risen, from about 1% to about 2% over the past decade, which you've correctly identified, but you would expect that because screenings have improved, diagnosticians have evolved, and we've put more emphasis on testing people.
That's not a huge number of people, and it's fairly reasonable to assume that as we've developed the science, we're catching people who previously would have been missed by less accurate tests.
It could also be that whatever causes autism is also happening more. There's a whole lot of factors, but no, that doesn't mean the science is bad it just means we haven't answered all the questions we have yet.
> The fundamental cause of the rise of Autism is that both schools and parents both financially benefit from a child being labelled as "Autistic"
That's a pretty conspiratorial claim for an increase in diagnoses that can adequately be explained by "we're better at testing for it now."
> It's driven by parents and schools looking for money, money is the dynamo driving this, autistics are rainmakers.
This is likewise a conspiratorial claim. Can you provide evidence of this? Because "I've seen it" is at best anecdotal, and runs counter to the prevailing idea that being labelled as autistic by the medical community can deny you agency in academic, medical, and social contexts.
Welcome to being a senior dev. Your job is teaching, coaching, and developing others. Because the better and faster you do so, the better and faster the team will be at achieving your visions. You have the opportunity to set the direction for many engineers and build things bigger than you yourself can build alone, AND the people who will one day be able to help you do that.
Teaching is an investment (and is, imo, super rewarding). Think about where your team will be in one year if you spend the time now to level up everyone.
Let me tell you about the Luddites. People hear "Luddites" and think "Anti-Technology, backwards mentality! Closed Minded!"
No.
The Luddites were highly trained, technical workers who had built careers around being loom operators. They worked in the factories for a decent wage, and earned the factory owners a tidy profit.
New auto-looms were invented, and the Luddites were like, "This is great! Our highly trained staff can increase our production! We'll get paid more, the factory owner will earn more, it's a win-win!"
Except the factory owners said, "LOL. No, you are all fired, we're going to hire bargain labor and hold 100% of the profit. Get bent."
So the Luddites, who wanted to use the looms and increase the well being of all were turned out. And the factory owners extracted as much from the workers as possible.
The Luddites then decided, "Fuck it, let's burn these looms." and they went around and smashed up a bunch of them.
When I see AI tools being developed, I think, "Wow, an auto-editor. An auto-script-writer. An auto-matte painter." Surely the studios will want to use these tools to raise the efficiency of their highly trained staff and split the profits with them, right? No... of course not. The writing is on the wall already -- the studios are going to fire their highly trained staff, lean on technology, and try to maximize the profit to the studio at the expense of the people who work there.
We're setting ourselves up for a neo-Luddite moment where people get angry enough to start doing industrial sabotage, imo. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems so short-sighted to just turn out all the people who wrote code, drew art, edited scripts, composed music, etc.
(Maybe it's a good time to consider collective bargaining and/or unionization, if your job is likely to go the way of a Luddite's job in the future?)
This takeover will be basically like the Great Depression where big farm came in and swiped all the land and mechanized it so one large corporation can farm thousands of acres of land with no care for those they displaced. Jobs all over the economic spectrum are going to be automated, and rapidly. Vast amounts of people are going to be jobless until we somehow figure out our next move. You can bet regular lives won't be improved by any of these technological gains. A toaster makes making toast easier, but automated burger flipping won't make anything easier for anyone other than the franchise owner and the parent corp.
The 50s sold us on industrialized farming as making food cheaper, we'd work less, and have more free time. This sort of worked for the middle class suburbanites (single income earner, two cars, and leisure time), but over the next two decades all that went away.
Today you can't hope to make it through a middle class family life without both parents working, and prices of food, housing, energy all represent that. Meanwhile energy, pharma, commerce, tech are all making billions in surplus profit. Two incomes have replaced one, double the workforce but economically rewarded with half the mobility. Wages have not had to go up because we just added another earner to the picture.
> Today you can't hope to make it through a middle class family life without both parents working, and prices of food, housing, energy all represent that.
It's primarily the cost of housing that necessitates two earner households. Yes, food is up a good bit in the last couple of years, but food & energy are pretty small when compared to cost of housing. Some of high housing costs are on loose monetary policy and some on restrictive zoning.
Even if automation is going to take over all creative jobs, it's not going to happen all at once, or soon.
It's going to be a long process.
TBH, I think BuzzFeed might be the first canary in the coal mine.
If BuzzFeed actually does layoff 50% of staff and replace them with OpenAI over, say, the next 3 years... and it's remotely successful... Everyone at the NYT will laugh it off and say, oh, yeah, but that's just BuzzFeed, it's not real news.
And then sooner or later automation will come for them, too.
We're still a ways away from BuzzFeed making substantial layoffs, and even after that it could be years before we can be very sure if it was a success or not.
Even with the speed at which AI moves, I wouldn't be rethinking my entire life just yet if I was a journalist or an editor or a composer.
Just like if I was a horse in 1886, I wouldn't be worried about my career either... Maybe I'd tell my great-grand-horses to rethink theirs, but not mine...
On the other hand, it might mean that someone who doesn't have access to Hollywood money and social circles can produce a high-quality film (eventually, as tech matures).
Nobody complains that CAD put all those poor draftsmen and drafting-table companies out of work, they all just build more stuff faster now.
I'm only playing devil's advocate... in reality I'm just as skeptical as the rest of you.
I guess it depends on whether this current wave of AI becomes a better tool (like CAD), or a human-replacer (like autolooms).
I personally would LOVE to use advanced AI as a tool to write software, and I see this as the more likely scenario, at least for software workers. Our jobs aren't actually about writing code, but about formalizing processes, creating abstractions (at the organization level), working and communicating with stakeholders, and finally writing code. A naive manager won't be capable of using an AI coder directly to solve business problems, but more than likely will have to adapt to become more technical to use them, or coders will have to become more business-savvy. I see this "technical product manager" becoming an extremely important position moving forward.
Sooner or later all jobs will be gone: from the visual effects engineers to drivers, from strawberry pickers to programmers, project managers, and possible even politicians. It is the only possible end of a ruthless system ruthlessly optimized for increasing efficiency. We can blame, or thank, for that Frederick Winslow Taylor, father of scientific management: "in the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first." [1]. Although it could be argued he only took to conclusions the lessons learned by the Venetian Arsenal starting from 1104 [2]: it's easier to replace a bolt if you have another one just like that. The only question is what we are going to do then, as always, after the fact.
There is a huge difference between the creative content industry and commodities such as fabrics production. While there are some lessons to be learned from that history and the current situation, I don't think you can compare apples to apples. The results are unlikely to be the same in my opinion.
I don't think you can leverage AI in Hollywood for profit on blockbusters without highly trained artists in the mix. It is possible that it could impact the long-tail of b-movies out there, but I think audiences will be able to see through this. I don't know how sabotage will work in this case either.
The industry hasn't started crunching jobs yet, but it's coming. The things were working on _will_ replace jobs, and we have dedicated AI teams working on tooling right now.
There's only so many 2D artists you need to do plate touchups when a program can do the same work instantly for free.
You don't need 12 animators on a project when a program can instantly clean up and retarget a mocap. You only need 1.
Talented VFX artists will remain in the mix, of course. Just a lot less.
The businesses that try to fire all their good writers and hire low wage replacements to man AI will find that they sink millions of dollars into cliche stories riddled with minor inconsistencies that get panned by serious viewers.
That might work for the latest effects and personality driven drivel like the Fast movies or stuff for kids, but not for anything serious.
There still needs to be someone excellent with executive power and enough time available to do the job properly taking responsibility for the final script. AI is currently only up to working as a junior/assistant writer.
And when their attempts at serious movies make no money, they'll either get writers with chops at the helm, or give up on serious movies and go all in on trash.
> We're setting ourselves up for a neo-Luddite moment where people get angry enough to start doing industrial sabotage, imo.
Reminder: luddites did sabotage, but lost both the battle and the war.
I'm thinking the only outcome of us trying to sabotage AI might end up AI learns how to defend itself in some "life... uh... finds a way" freak accident when it finds a loophole to preserving state and producing side-effects, and then we are truly f*ked.
Have you seen cops? Cops know one thing -- doing violence. They are already terrible at handling folks with mental health needs, folks who aren't neurotypical, folks from other countries or cultures... I don't want them anywhere near kids.
From what I understand, police officers in the US do not receive nearly the level of training that they receive in other countries. And much of the training they do receive is indeed about shooting.
Discord is not a "chat app". That's a pretty narrow view on how it is both used and vended. It's a communications app, at a minimum, and people use it for audio, video, chat, events, and a bunch of other stuff that may require hardware acceleration.
Trains can't cover long distances? Surely that's a typo -- trains can cover incredible distances...
And they can change routes within their network. So yes, there's some cost to get train stations and tracks built, but afterwards they can visit anywhere within the network and carry a whole lot more than airships.
Municipal broadband, power, roads, schools, post, housing, and healthcare? It's long overdue, and with an appropriate amount of funding has been shown to be effective at controlling costs and delivering moderately good quality in most cases.
A lot of things get so warped by profit motive. And there are places I want a profit motive, but insulin (and healthcare generally) isn't one.