
Why Technology Favors Tyranny - rbanffy
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568330/#click=https://t.co/sGVm38xCIN?single_page=true
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CM30
Interesting article, though I've got a few criticisms of it as well as related
points I feel it missed out on.

1\. AI won't necessarily replace humans because the success of a business
isn't always dependent on an 'objective' metric like price or technical
quality. For example, branding is often more important to the success of a
product or business than the actual objective properties of the product is,
especially in the world of film/tv/video games/music/etc. Disney won't lose
sleep to an upstart creating a Star Wars or Mickey Mouse competitor with
AI/machine learning, and Nintendo won't see Mario/Zelda/Pokemon lose
popularity to AI generated rivals. Same goes on smaller scale with YouTubers,
Twitch streamers, etc. Their fanbase likes them because of who they are, not
just some objective quality about their work.

So in that sense, I feel it may be likely we get an artist/brand economy when
AI takes over, where the only way to succeed is to market yourself/your
character/world.

I also feel businesses based on location aren't going to be too threatened by
AI for the time being either. Objectively, the shops at an
airport/station/wherever are terrible, and offer worse wares at higher prices
than their competitors.

But they still make a ton of money, because for many people 'something edible
now' is more important than 'something better in 20 minutes or so'. People are
lazy and impatient, so there will always be an audience for convenience,
regardless of better options in existence.

So in that sense, it's doubtable that AI will put everyone out of work, simply
because people aren't purely rational creatures using quality and price as the
only important thing they look for in a product or service.

2\. The flipside of authoritarianism and technology is that any technology
used by tyrants and those already with power can be easily turned against them
by their opponents too, especially if cyber security doesn't get much better
than it is today.

This has both a good and a bad side. On the good one, well it means the
rebels/revolution/whatever will be able to literally hijack the military that
the powerful are using to try and supress them. Or that peacekeeping forces
can basically shut down a dictatorship's army there and then, or cripple their
entire 'society' altogether.

At the same time however, it also means a small group or individual without
any popular support could also take over societies themselves.

Which in turn brings me to the depressing point that all negative futurism
articles fail to make clear. Namely:

Technology makes it possible to rule with a zero percent approval rating.

[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZeroPercentAppro...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZeroPercentApprovalRating)

That's the scary thing about its effects on governments and power. The more
advanced technology gets, the less a tyrant needs to be loved or even
tolerated by the population to hold onto power.

Either way, the article's got some good points, and I definitely feel we
should planning for these issues before they're too late.

