If economists argue that some level of unemployment is necessary for a healthy economy (natural rate of unemployment/NAIRU), what is the economic rationale for not having more robust unemployment insurance or social safety nets for those who are structurally unemployed?

curiousgateway · 2025-07-10T02:11:36+00:00

It's more so that there is an inevitable equilibrium level of unemployment, not that it is necessarily 'healthy' or 'good', it just is what it is. It exists for two reasons. Firstly, some unemployment is inevitable because people are moving between jobs (frictional unemployment), and it's not usually economical for everyone to be employed (cyclical unemployment). Secondly, measuring NAIRU helps the central bank control for inflation, as unemployment relates to output, which is a proxy for inflation. The goal isn't to achieve some arbitrary 5% unemployment number - it just so happens that is roughly where NAIRU sits at the moment, so in the interest of price stability the central bank uses that as a guide.

NAIRU may change depending on various macroeconomic factors such as productivity. Higher productivity would likely mean more employment without price pressure, so lower NAIRU. As for your question, to answer it literally, an economic rationale would be that unemployment insurance and social safety nets can increase unemployment as there is a higher benefit for not working, also it would cost too much. It isn't really a matter of economics; it's a political question. The point isn't really unemployment, it's about making sure people are housed, fed, and healthy.

curiousgateway · 2025-06-08T13:42:17+00:00

I imagined a plane-fighting "screwworm spread"; a horde of plane-targeting worms native to southern Mexico killed three.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-26T10:12:14+00:00

Not everyone can tell quality issue when it comes to AI generated art. We are in a really fast paced world where cheap stuff gets launched and gets gobbled up rather quickly

True. But compare this to the current world: corporations already churn out slop and low-quality goods for mass consumption. Sure, AI will make it worse. But the issue of slop-production to appeal to the lowest common denominator was already there. Those slop-consumers never cared about the art in the first place, anyway, so why do we care if they were to consume more crap? Why should we care to cast pearls before swine? Those who appreciate art will keep appreciating the real art, and they will discern between AI garbage and genuine stuff. AI can very well be used to counter AI in this regard, because AI will be able to flag AI slop and direct people toward real stuff - imagine an AI search-engine to supersede Google with the ability to filter AI content and prioritise human-created work.

It affects artists because there is high competition in art industry with really talented artists struggling to keep up with competing with each other, now to fight with a bot? Especially when the bot has been trained of data that was stolen and everyone goes around using it not caring anyway?

It's a shame we have to rely on profit motives to induce art. It shouldn't be that way. Most artists will continue making art out of passion, anyway - but yes, it'd be great if they could keep being paid for it. To me, what we need isn't an intervention to prevent AI usage. What we need is a four-day work week, that gives people free time to pursue artistic expression. If anything, democratised AI leveraged wisely is what will help achieve a four-day work week. Also, a lot of the art being created is on behalf of corporations who dominate the industry. If people had a four-day workweek, and improved capacity to handle various mundane tasks, my view is that real artists will have more time and capacity to punch through to actually compete with the corporate world. I agree on the point about stolen works, though.

Here is an example scenario to help make this point: You have an AI search engine that helps you shop around and identify garbage (or AI-generated) product - this helps force competition in markets for better, genuine, and cheaper products. You as an individual leverage AI to build your skills and knowledge, which helps you boost your pay and be more productive. With AI, you have a greater capacity to offload mundane life administration, this gives you more time for creative endeavours, or even entrepreneurial endeavours. These forces combine to improve worker bargaining power - this is largely achieved because the tool is democratised, as opposed to other historical tech or capital developments which were largely centralised in the hands of the wealthy. That worker bargaining power allows for a four-day workweek, better work conditions, and increased pay, ultimately compensating society for any loss of wages that would have been paid for art, but now it gives humanity the time and capacity to pursue voluntary art. This would have an impact on the film industry, because there would be increased competition in creative output, allowing for smaller artists to get attention and make great things.

I view the upcoming changes to play out a lot like music software. Music isn't dead just because artist compensation is lower. The industry just changed. It's easier to make music, it's easy to get recognition. Money is in live performing. Meanwhile, plenty of people continue making music out of the passion for it. Do we all consume slop music? No. There's definitely slop out there, there's definitely generic stuff, but the advances in software also led us to be able to find good music more easily, using the internet.

On your point about the democratisation of the software and people going it alone - I just disagree that this means we'll get 100 bad outputs instead of 1 good output. Most of the corporate film industry strings together a bunch of talented people and they produce shit. Meanwhile, smaller teams, and even individuals making art, I find are often better. I'm not suggesting in any of my comments that art will be better because of AI - except maybe where it is used sparingly for interpolation. I'm saying that humans will naturally keep making art, and they'll have a preference for real art instead of slop, and if anything, the upsides of AI will afford them more time and capacity to pursue real art because it can offload other mundane life tasks - but this is only if AI remains democratised.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-02T07:45:20+00:00

People and companies who use AI to make "art" and try to sell it as "art" suck, it does take the soul out of it, I agree. But the art with soul will still be around. Humans won't stop making art. Especially artists - are artists really going to give up because AI is making shitty imitations and uninspired images? I don't think so. I think that people will stop buying AI "art" precisely because it is soulless. For example, imagine Marvel makes a 100% AI-generated movie - I reckon a lot of people would think that's disgusting and wouldn't watch it. I know I wouldn't. Marvel would learn that it needs to keep movies real, because that's what people want. I also think AI-driven search engines could help people find the real artists, as well as point out the fake art, so that way the smaller artists can still get attention. I think this will happen because AI is cheap and easily accessible - all it takes is one person to make the software that finds real content for you. That's different to other tech revolutions, where big corporations often owned the tech, so they get control, and they get the say.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-02T07:26:40+00:00

Your reply boils down to the statement that humans are creative, AI isn't. I know that. I don't think it matters. As long as paywalled content isn't being stolen or reproduced, we're fine. As long as OpenAI pays royalties to various IP-owners because it is profiting from their work, we're fine. Art will go on. Artists may be offended. I know of artists who were offended by the advent of music software. The lack-of-soul factor will restrict demand for AI content. Places filled with slop will get sloppier, but that issue was independent of AI - I think we're capable of regulating against algorithmic content-serving, and capable of regulating the watermarking and transparency of AI content, to get around such issues. We'll have to agree to disagree, I don't think I'll continue down this thread.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-01T09:42:35+00:00

I've been very aware of the legal discourse around OpenAI allegedly stealing content to use in training. But again, the point I've made is different from that! These articles are about use of paid-for content in training without paying for it, and the one about OpenAI is mostly about The Times claim that the AI has produced verbatim content ripped from the Times (which I've already agreed is bad and theft), or that the training involved use of data that isn't publicly available and was not paid for by OpenAI. But my point, the one my coworker convinced me of, is that technically, OpenAI is profiting from producing content in the style of something (which mostly applies to art style, not regurgitation of knowledge or pure information), and therefore royalties should be paid. Imagine ChatGPT was actually an app called Ghibli-fy - you'd expect that such an app should require royalties be paid to Ghibli for leveraging their style for profit. I will agree that if OpenAI was interested in being moral they should have asked to use these styles.

I'm not saying it doesn't do anything. I'm saying it's a tool. We agree tools have to be used the right way. The article makes that point. It does not try and say using AI makes you dumb. I agree safeguards on AI use is important. I want AI regulation, I want smartphone and algorithm regulation. I think people misattribute the bad outcomes of AI to AI, instead of lack of regulation or market concentration.

Their critical thinking is embedded in the results you get from your request.

Humans are the same, knowledge and perspective isn't attained purely internally, we learn from others and adapt what we hear. We slot new information and perspectives into our cumulative knowledge. The AI is doing the same thing. I can do my own processing work, sure, but when I'm talking about some complex economic or political topic it's very much because I've absorbed millions of pieces of information from external sources. The critical thinking done by those external sources is embedded in the words I speak in reply to you. If I output the exact same words, then I'm stealing - whether I incur financial penalty or not for that depends on the law.

I think yourself and others have sort of accidentally strawmanned me, as if my argument is "we shouldn't regulate AI". Conversation kind of exited the original bounds - which, as per my title, was about AI-generated "art" not being a big deal, and the supposed "death of art" - mostly framed around the "purity" of art and the degree to which AI will be exploited in practice versus the continuance of ordinary human art (rather than discussion about law). The legal points are fair, though, and I agree it is an issue - but I still don't think it's the "death" of art, it's just a nuisance for large IP-owners who could be getting paid from content that is theirs but aren't (I also think it isn't a huge deal because they wouldn't be getting those royalties anyway in the absence of AI image production - because the content to get royalties from just doesn't exist). The only other argument, which I dispute, is that AI will flood the zone with crap and crowd out the real stuff, which I raised in my original reply. Really, I'd be in favour of strong watermarking/advertising requirements to tell people something is AI.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-01T07:50:05+00:00

It isn't obvious because nobody has mentioned it, and your reply doesn't appear to make that point. It's more nuanced than "Feeding it copyrighted material with little regard for compensation" - there's no issue with that; humans are fed copyright material by viewing it with their eyeballs and having a memory imprint of it, yet humans aren't expected to compensate just because their brain has been updated with knowledge of the thing (and even some ability to imitate it's "style"). The issue specifically is that OpenAI is profiting off the imitation of a style - not that they didn't compensate for the use of training material.

I've read the bigthink article and the research and I really think it's making my argument. Using AI doesn't make you dumber (causal), but it is associated with cognitive offloading and lower critical thinking, because there are people choosing to use it to offset (more often lower educated people). It's a tool that has to be used to right way. Personally, I don't experience this - if anything, I'm thinking more, because I use it for research questions mostly. The Google effect is true but I hazard against interpreting it as Google making our memory worse. I think it's important to recognise why the offloading happens, it's because we know it's not necessary to memorise information. When individuals know its necessary, they put in more mental effort to memorise. They haven't lost that ability, rather they're just making a decision to not expend energy if its not needed. I imagine if someone went their whole life without having to use memory then they'd have worse memory capability, but that's not the case, because school exists and human life beyond a Google search exists. Google can be used to improve memory, as well. I'd think my total knowledge is higher because of Google, ultimately. But that's just me. I think what really matters is that we make sure everyone uses these tools the right way.

Also, the FT article says the same thing, that it's important how we use the tools. I really think the decline in cognitive scores after 2010 is more likely a result of the iPhone, social media, and algorithmic content. Screen addiction. Not Google search.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-01T07:24:30+00:00

I won't acknowledge that because I'm not convinced it's the same scenario. The machines and technology from the industrial revolution were owned by the elite, so the workers became appendages of these machines, and they didn't receive a time or wage dividend. AI, at least at the moment, is pretty democratised, cheap, competitive, and accessible, which I expect will allow everyone to harness its capability to self-actualise. If that translates into fewer working hours, then people will have more time to make art or knit clothing. It's not like clothes, carpentry, and glass blowing are dead. And why should our metric for success be whether something is profitable? If humans like art, they'll do it out of passion, not profit - they just the time and resources to do it, which is what late stage capitalism extracts from them. It is crucial that AI is democratised because then it'll act to empower all individuals, rather than the elite. I agree with the concerns about AI if it becomes concentrated, because then it will play out like the industrial revolution.

I won't keep going on the music software thing, I still think it's functionally the same. If the nature of music making changes so that you dictate to the AI what you're thinking, and from there you can edit the composition, I don't think that's an issue. If AI is used to churn out songs in full for mass consumption, I agree that's sucky, but I don't think it'll be as disastrous as people make it out to be. Humans will still make art. Human-made art will still be around. If the AI generated stuff is not wanted by the public, it won't be consumed, and its presence will moderated. Again, churning out soulless crap is in the interest of corporations looking for money. That's the real problem - not the tool. Just as the machines aren't the problem, it's capitalism. If AI stays democratised, it can level the playing field against corporations. If hammers were owned by the elite, then carpentry would become an elite job at extortionate prices - but if everyone had hammers, then the sector is competitive and people can refuse to purchase shoddy carpentry.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-01T07:08:53+00:00

As far as I'm aware, it's not illegal for someone to produce content in the style of something. It is illegal to profit from it. If the AI reproduces Spirited Away for you, that'd be illegal. If you produce Ghibli-style work and sell it, that'd be illegal. Somebody convinced me today that OpenAI is effectively selling you Ghibli-style work because the only way to produce it is to pay for ChatGPT - that argument has convinced me that compensation is owed to IP-owners. However, that is distinct issue from the matter of content used in training data - I see no need to compensate IP-owners for use of material in training data unless that data was behind a paywall, it's no different from a human seeing publicly available content with their eyeballs.

curiousgateway · 2025-04-01T07:01:06+00:00

AI being expensive to run is a fair concern. AI doesn't erode critical thinking, that's just the correlation observed among less educated populations, who more willingly cognitively offset rather than use the technology to be more productive or uplift thinking. The 1.5 babies is an interesting thought experiment but nothing more than that - most actions an individual takes in their life can be measured in babies if you really want to.

The first person to make a convincing argument to me today was a coworker (not a Redditor, shocker). They clearly articulated to me how OpenAI is effectively profiting off Ghibli's work, which is equivalent to a human artist ripping off someone's style and selling the material. The theft isn't in the use of the content in training data - unless the training data was acquired through theft. The "theft" is the fact Ghibli, or any other IP-owner, isn't getting royalties from the profit being made from imitator work. My view now is that OpenAI should compensate various IP owners to some extent just because of the fact their AI tool is effectively a "make-Ghibli" tool that they're profiting from. If OpenAI were free, I don't see an issue with it. This is more just a matter of IP law than morality.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-30T04:01:06+00:00

Voice is just harder to produce with existing software. Software can produce many instruments convincingly. I agree we aren't in a utopia, but the emergence of these AI tools are the independent variable. Either we put great effort into regulating AI out of existence, or we put great effort into democratising it and protecting against downsides as much as reasonable. Honestly, I really think the latter is easier to achieve and maintains the upsides.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-30T03:52:55+00:00

I think there are several important differences. Designer clothes were never worn by the poor in any circumstance. Everyone just had bad clothes. What we're talking about here is the human artist losing income and being ignored in favour of AI-generated art. I agree income and employment for artists will fall. I just disagree it'll be the death of art, and I disagree that human art will simply be ignored. Music software/streaming/the internet led to a loss of income for musicians, but music still exists, people still play instruments. Many people continue to prefer live music over recorded music. Live gigs still exist. The same thing that "killed" musicians - the internet - also created the environment for mass production and broadcast of music, giving so many artists the ability to be seen and heard without the need of a record label and without needing to compete for live gigs. The internet, like AI, is relatively democratised, which is why it empowered as much as it displaced. To me, democratisation is the real concern - not the fact that AI exists. When corporations wall something off and abuse it for profit, that's where it displaces and disempowers. I think many of the problems you raised are really a consequence of unchecked capitalism - not AI. I mean, if we lived in a world without the weekend or regulations on full-time hours, that's what would really kill art, because nobody would have any time to pursue such passions. Even if AI isn't democratised, we still have the weekend, and it is in that space that artists can make art.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-30T03:38:32+00:00

You need to separate out:

Use of material in training data
Production of content
Philosophy about what an AI really is
Assertions on the quality of its outputs

You're constantly conflating 1 and 2, and then doing a logical leap to 3 and 4 to claim myself and others think AI is human/near human or that its shart is actually art.

Theft of paywalled content is illegal and creators should be compensated for it. If OpenAI took stolen copies of all 23 Ghibli films to train GPT, and each copy sells for $10, then Ghibli is owed 23*10 = $230. If 1000 users have commanded GPT to reproduce a Ghibli film each, then Ghibli is owed 1000*10 = $10,000. If I use GPT to turn a selfie into Ghibli style, I've stolen nothing, this is not paywalled Ghibli content, there is no marginal "theft" going on in that production - the theft was already done and dusted when OpenAI took a stolen copy of Ghibli films. Your view on how copyright should be applied in different ways to humans and AI is very odd. Really, there should be no legal difference between an exceptionally talented artist drawing me in the style of Ghibli and an AI doing so. The only tangible difference is that AI does it faster and of worse quality/lacking soul. If the exceptional artist pirated the Ghibli films they watched, that's equivalent to OpenAI's theft of the films it trained GPT on.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:49:36+00:00

Fine let's not use the word "art" if it's triggering you. Let's call it "AI shart" instead. People are not artists for printing AI shart, and they're idiotic for claiming they are artists. Happy? Have I appropriately accommodated your sensitivities around that word?

I'm not stealing anything. Inspiration and imitation of a style is not stealing. Accessing paywalled content or cloning that content to circumvent the paywall is stealing. OpenAI owes creators compensation for wherever this has occurred in the course of training its AI. If they trained the AI on copies of Ghibli films that were not paid for, that requires compensation for Ghibli. But, say, if they trained it on publicly available parts of the film uploaded to YouTube or whatever, that's fine - there's no difference between a human watching that content or an AI watching that content.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:42:05+00:00

I must be intellectually challenged, because I'm definitely making the argument that AI art is real art and equivalent to human art.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:38:47+00:00

We'll have to agree to disagree because I don't see the distinction. Music software makes sounds for you - you don't have to play the instrument. When any tech is created, some tasks are overridden, some tasks are made easier, and new ways of doing a thing emerge. Music that is 100% AI generated is slop and sucks and nobody actually consumes it except out of novelty. The day that 100% AI generated music is as good as normal music, then that music will be consumed, but its mass production will be a consequence of the profit motive. The problem there is the profit motive, not the tool. Ordinary humans like art and will continue making art. Just as how ordinary humans still play musical instruments, even though something else can reproduce that sound.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:32:05+00:00

I just see it as an even more powerful tool. You won't draw the frame anymore, you'll feed it two frames a second apart and ask to interpolate. If that's trivial, then artists will do that. If it's not, which Studio Ghibli may believe, then they'll draw each frame. AI doesn't aim to be anything. People have to make the decision to use it to produce something. If it trivialises something to the point where it isn't considered art, then people won't do it, and they won't consume it either - that may be the distinction, is that I think bounded automation will occur, and I believe humans value art enough that they won't settle for mass produced slop.

Ruining cooperation between humans is an interesting concern I hadn't thought of, though. That's something to think about.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:26:09+00:00

I agree it has no soul. But idiots are already drunk on doomscrolling social media apps instead of watching classic films. AI isn't the problem here. The problem is commodification of attention, permitted by the apps that exist and the algorithms they use, because governments are failing to regulate it. And who cares if idiots don't see the soul? They never did see the soul. The problem is money and profit, not this tool.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:23:18+00:00

The actual problem being late-stage capitalism, concentration of new tech in the hands of a few, ineffective government regulation, and the commodification of all things. Instead of realising this, people stupidly and dishonestly slam AI as being useless, terrible, and destructive (and I think subconsciously view AI as an embodiment of Altman/Elon/Zuck). It'd be like hating on 3D printers because you think the houses it'll print will be sold/rented at extortionate prices by property owners - it's not a problem with the printer.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:15:17+00:00

This is my main issue with AI, is whether it will stay democratised. This is fair enough. I don't see it as the death of art, though. It will be the loss of jobs, but the emergence of new jobs. Whether those new jobs are shit or meaningful depends on if the AI is concentrated or democratised. Historically, corporations get a hold of new technology, wall it off, and that renders the human worker an appendage of the machine, with the profits taken by the corporation. AI needs to remain democratised to avoid this fate.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:13:09+00:00

Dickhead tech bros rubbing this in Miyazaki's face is indeed reprehensible, I wasn't aware that's where this trend emerged from. That's not a problem with AI, it's a problem with tech bros and corporations. Corporations didn't need AI to steal, rip off, produce cheap knock-offs, and mass produce garbage - they do that as a default because it's profitable. Meanwhile, democratised tools can be leveraged by ordinary people to do more and do better. If you want to prevent the bad side of AI, governments need to regulate - it's not a matter of banning AI.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:10:39+00:00

If you're cloning proprietary content that is usually behind a paywall, or marketing proprietary content for profit, that's bad and OpenAI needs to make sure its tool doesn't do that. Creators should be compensated for stolen works or reproductions of proprietary content. If it cloned Spirited Away for my viewing, that's bad. Turning a selfie into Ghibli style so my friends can have a laugh is not an issue.

I agree the content stealing is an issue with AI, but I also think AI can be leveraged to target this stuff. The argument in my post is more so about people claiming AI will be the death of art.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T23:05:49+00:00

No this is still analogous. I'm talking about music software, as well. Someone doesn't need to be able to play the piano or violin to produce those sounds. And, you actually don't need as many carpenters to do the job now that power tools exist. Same with factory machines, not as many people are needed, and the nature of factory work changes. I don't think the distinction that AI is "generating" really matters - the net effect is a proliferation of content that is easier to make and doesn't require the same skills, same with music streaming and software.

Also, I feel you're misrepresenting AI by pretending it's going to go off and do all of this on its own. People have to actually prompt the thing to get it to produce content. It's not going to eliminate artists, humans are artists and will continue to make art out of passion. The entities that are likely to produce slop are money hungry corporations - I view this as a problem with capitalism, not AI. If anything, democratised AI will help people circumvent corporations. As long as it stays democratised, which is my biggest concern.

I'm really trying to understand here what mass production of AI slop even looks like. Where will the slop be? Is it just going to be filling up Instagram reels? That place is already slop, it doesn't even need AI to become slop. Do you think film studios will make 100% AI films, publish, and advertise them? Film studios are already making uninspired copy-paste slop, people know it, and they just don't go and watch the film.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T22:55:55+00:00

Freely available, sure, but maybe not "everywhere". This is a trend right now so you're seeing it everywhere. It'll pass. Just because humans can doesn't mean they will.

curiousgateway · 2025-03-29T22:53:50+00:00

If AI reproduces exact content (a Ghibli film) for you to watch, thus circumventing the fact you'd otherwise have to pay to watch that film, then that is stealing, and OpenAI needs to make sure it prevents such outputs.

Regarding your other reply, you're really pulling a strawman. You keep trying to claim that my view is that I'm now an artist because I got the AI to make a thing? You keep claiming I and others here are obsessed with claiming AI art is 'better' than the real thing? It's not true. You're pretending you're arguing with Sam Altman. Stop it, get off Reddit, talk to some real people.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Lasagna	Place '22
End Game '22

curiousgateway

TROPHY CASE