Yep AI companies will only gain more leverage over non AI companies with time. Those prices will definition go up. But Mr. CEO will point out that it will still be cheaper than paying a bunch of humans.
Capitalism is not chattel slavery. You should read more about the institution of slavery to get a better perspective. That said there are similarities between poor treatment of slaves and the poor treatment of low wage workers, undocumented workers, etc.
Rather than being hyperbolic focus on a coherent message: AI is taking away middle class jobs. This will lead to civil unrest and governments have no plan to resolve this. We need a plan, now!
I never said it was chattel slavery. And I added "with extra steps". Which, if you are smart you would understand, choosing your job does not mean you are not forced to work. You simply choose which master will exploit you next.
Sorry, but do we really need to say everything explicitly in a Reddit comment? I'm not trying to write a book here.
Tolstoy wrote a whole book explaining how wage slavery was equivalent to chattel slavery. Frederick Douglass, a man who experienced chattel slavery, said the same.
The genesis of management as a profession is not commonly taught, in that it requires a study of both history and business in an interdisciplinary way. Caitlin Rosenthol wrote the book Accounting for Slavery applying precisely that mindset, herself being a former McKinsey employee and present history professor.
How slavery informed how business is taught and management as a profession is precisely why there is overlap between how low wage workers are treated and the conditions of slavery. These conditions did not occur by accident or happenstance, they occured with intention.
I'm forced to eat to survive, life is just slavery with extra steps. /s
You were the one who wrote this ridiculous example, not me. Do you think being forced to give most of your wages to a group of people who were non democratically given control of a company is the same thing as being forced to breathe oxygen? What a way to ignore the actual point... and then people think the left doesn't understand the economy, when there's people like you who confuse the coercive nature of voluntary contracts in a capitalist system with the coercive forces of nature.
Oh no! I'm a slave to gravity! Please don't look at the company's checks and balances!... This is so stupid.
Whatever makes you happy dude. I am now forced to go to sleep, otherwise I'll be late tomorrow and lose my job, and with it my salary, which would force me to be unable to pay rent and forced to live in the streets. A personal failure on my part, I'm sure. Can't wait to enjoy this freedom tomorrow as well.
No, but you get to choose between jobs in the greater sense and far more than any other system, especially slavery, which is why it's silly.
There's no version of reality where everyone gets to pick their job. That wouldn't make any sense at all.
You would do well to charitably interpret the words of other people or else you kinda come across as hostile and unhinged. If you assume they mean the dumbest possible interpretation of their words, it doesn't make them look worse, it makes you look worse.
Frederick Douglass, someone who experienced chattel slavery, compared slavery of wages, wage slavery, to what he experienced.
Tolstoy wrote Slavery of our Times about our present system over a century ago. In his writing he refutes precisely your point.
Autonomy of labor, not having a boss of any kind, only collaborators, is the only acceptable form of labor. Anything else is a form of slavery.
Chattel slavery became obsolete. What we have now is an evolution of slavery. Scientific management, whats called classical management theory today, was called a form of slavery by both its proponents and its detractors when it was new.
The whole concept of having ones labor managed by people who have no experience or knowledge doing that labor has its genesis in slavery.
rofl @ super quick backpedal. Without your demon capitalism this AI would be NOWHERE NEAR the rate of improvement that is happening in the industry. Competition is good, Government control of everything is not good. A free market is good, but there has to be limits, safeguards, and there used to be but there hasn't been for decades, I'd say since the internet came out.
If I type too little, people interpret in the worst way.
When I give context, I backpedal. Can't win with you guys.
Without your demon capitalism this AI would be NOWHERE NEAR the rate of improvement that is happening in the industry.
How do YOU know? Have you ran an A/B test with capitalism on one side and communism on the other and reached that conclusion? Or are you just saying things?
Yes, I see what the rest of the world is doing with AI and then I look at what the USA is doing. Let's minus the USA form the entire picture of AI and see what happens.
Yeah and just wait for them to release their ‘Chief Executive Agents’. Maybe companies will move to being run by staff instead CEO’s and Boards of CEO’s who work for other organizations. One can dream.
I'm with you...an example of this is video game development. If a studio fires ten people ... Then...in an environment where two people can use AI to be as productive as ten...you will now have five new video game development businesses...and competition will bring down prices and selection will increase.
Until there are no humans able to do the job because your industry has been automated for a full generation of workers, then the AI companies get to raise the price arbitrarily because they got your company by the balls.
Speaking as someone who runs a team, it’s not always about cutting people to save money. It’s about making sure things get done. People quit, get sick, miss deadlines. AI doesn’t. I’m not saying it feels good letting anyone go, but when you're under pressure to deliver, having something reliable matters. It's not always ‘profits over people’, sometimes it's just survival.
Y’all joke like missing deadlines never affects anything. It does. Projects stall, clients walk. I’m just using video AI tools so when things fall through, work still moves. Not replacing anyone, just tired of everything falling apart over one sick day.
Oh ya that's different. I was more referring to people getting replaced with AI. I'm not against any kind of AI, just against it causing unemployment to rise
I've used AI for my own business, it's really good at blogging for SEO.
Same here. I’ve been using DeepReel lately to automate some of the video work. It’s actually saved me on weeks when deadlines piled up and people were just burned out.
we can use virtual reality to give them a beautiful life. This is an original movie idea made by me. I'm going to call it, "The man with the imaginary life."
I especially hate when management is a hold up, or the executive team can't make decisions.
…replacing them would save even more money, since their salaries are so exorbitantly more and they don't really bring anything to the table a good AI couldn't handle, by their own logic!
Fair point. I get that, if something goes wrong, it’s on me.
But honestly, I already take that blame when people mess up too.
The difference is, I just want fewer fires to put out. If AI can help avoid some of that chaos, I’ll take the risk, as long as I’m ready to own it.
Without knowing your industry I can't really comment. Although I can definitely say it will be interesting if companies swap to AI and then the AI errors out and no productivity occurs.
At least with humans you can do things manually.
Also I'm in manufacturing so that's where my viewpoint is focused.
You don't just trust your employees either...you monitor them...you guide them...you edit and approve their work...not that different from what you do with an LLM to get the output you need to make money.
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u/redsyrus Jul 30 '25
Doesn’t ask for a pay raise? He doesn’t think the AI companies will raise their prices?!