I get the sentiment, but that is a really dumb take.
$13B invested in OpenAI feels more and more like malinvestment and graft, incentivized by our disastrous energy policy and enormous tech subsidies.
This isn’t purely software automation. Its also an investment in physical media and machines, new or renovated energy infrastructure, and enormous volumes of potable water.
Seems more like a job for unions and workplace safety regulations than for robots
In 2020, a leaked company memo detailed Amazon’s use of a new technology — the geoSPatial Operating Console (SPOC) — to analyze and visualize data sets pertaining to threats to the company, including unions. Reported by Jason Del Rey and Shirin Ghaffary at Vox, some of the data points related to unions include:
Amazon-owned Whole Foods’ market activism and unionization efforts.
Flow patterns of union grant money.
The presence of local union chapters and alt labor groups.
The approach is an obvious attempt by the company to use more passive means of identifying and neutralizing union sympathizers in the company.
“Amazon’s tracking of workers’ micro-movements, decision points and searches and then linking all of that data to that of unions, community groups and legislative policy campaigns is union busting on its face,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in a statement at the time.
That is very true, but my critique was more focused on the difference between automating software tasks vs mechanical tasks, especially with non-uniform inputs and not the economic investment required. Some tasks are better suited to automation - and plagiarizing art is far easier than deconstructing and recycling massive industrial freighters.
Not on the side of the AI art generators here - that was just low hanging fruit compared to something like was suggested in the original post. Definitely need extremely strong labor law to protect against AI union busting (and union busting generally)
my critique was more focused on the difference between automating software tasks vs mechanical tasks
Somewhat paradoxically, we’ve been much more successful automating mechanical tasks than digital ones. We’ve had steam looms and automotive assembly plants far longer than server farms and super computers.
And I might argue this kind of automation has been far more fruitful. I can point to a lot more in my daily life that has benefited from the industrialization of steel and plastic fabrication than what I’ve received from Google Search Results.
To say the millions of man-hours and trillions of dollars sunk into the advertisement and entertainment industries couldn’t be put to better use… Come on, man. The latest Marvel movie wasn’t so good that I wouldn’t have traded it for a globalized 1980s British NHS.
I think you absolutely nailed the analysis. Another small point to keep in mind is that for Microsoft, all the investment in OpenAi comes back as a revenue figure when the system works operating on top of the Azure platform.
$13B invested in OpenAI feels more and more like malinvestment and graft, incentivized by our disastrous energy policy and enormous tech subsidies.
This isn’t purely software automation. Its also an investment in physical media and machines, new or renovated energy infrastructure, and enormous volumes of potable water.
The Role of AI in Union Busting: How Employers Use Artificial Intelligence to Keep Workers From Unionizing
In 2020, a leaked company memo detailed Amazon’s use of a new technology — the geoSPatial Operating Console (SPOC) — to analyze and visualize data sets pertaining to threats to the company, including unions. Reported by Jason Del Rey and Shirin Ghaffary at Vox, some of the data points related to unions include:
The approach is an obvious attempt by the company to use more passive means of identifying and neutralizing union sympathizers in the company.
“Amazon’s tracking of workers’ micro-movements, decision points and searches and then linking all of that data to that of unions, community groups and legislative policy campaigns is union busting on its face,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in a statement at the time.
That is very true, but my critique was more focused on the difference between automating software tasks vs mechanical tasks, especially with non-uniform inputs and not the economic investment required. Some tasks are better suited to automation - and plagiarizing art is far easier than deconstructing and recycling massive industrial freighters.
Not on the side of the AI art generators here - that was just low hanging fruit compared to something like was suggested in the original post. Definitely need extremely strong labor law to protect against AI union busting (and union busting generally)
Somewhat paradoxically, we’ve been much more successful automating mechanical tasks than digital ones. We’ve had steam looms and automotive assembly plants far longer than server farms and super computers.
And I might argue this kind of automation has been far more fruitful. I can point to a lot more in my daily life that has benefited from the industrialization of steel and plastic fabrication than what I’ve received from Google Search Results.
To say the millions of man-hours and trillions of dollars sunk into the advertisement and entertainment industries couldn’t be put to better use… Come on, man. The latest Marvel movie wasn’t so good that I wouldn’t have traded it for a globalized 1980s British NHS.
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I think you absolutely nailed the analysis. Another small point to keep in mind is that for Microsoft, all the investment in OpenAi comes back as a revenue figure when the system works operating on top of the Azure platform.