colin

@vogon

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colin @vogon7/26/2023, 10:39 PM

this comic is fine but it quotes a (very common) formulation that infuriates me

https://cohost.org/silasoftrees/post/2219871-this-is-a-pretty-goo

"we could automate away menial labor so we have more time to do art, but instead we're automating away art so we have more time to do menial labor" is an incredibly flawed and obnoxious way of situating the politics of artificial intelligence. there's a huge amount of menial labor¹ being automated away already, without glitzy brand names or breathless news reporting being attached, and it's already causing a lot of harm. focusing anti-AI ferment on the harms created by the automation of "the wrong things" runs the risk of legitimizing the harms created by the automation of everything else.

here accepted as a stock phrase. yes, I know describing labor as "menial" is fraught, inaccurate, and first and foremost a political statement intended to devalue certain types of labor. this post isn't about the politics of terming labor "menial".

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in reply to @vogon's post:

🥕 Mr. Drugs LXIX @MrDrugs697/26/2023, 11:26 PM

it's not immediately obvious to me which harms you mean when it comes to automating physical labor away, could you say more about that?

do you feel that automating these forms of labor is inherently harmful, or just the way that it's done now?

edit: never mind, i noticed the links. you aren't talking about physical labor at all, and i agree with your assessment of harms.

colin @vogon7/26/2023, 11:42 PM

no worries! and yeah, I think the harms of automating physical labor (a slack labor market cutting wages and rendering people unemployed) are on the whole a lot easier to recognize and deal with than the more bizarre and insidious harms created by automating various forms of "knowledge work"

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