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I didn’t really get this point in the essay. What’s wrong with wanting servants as long as it’s done ethically etc and is not indentured servitude?

The whole gig/services economy is just building this up piece-by-piece: you can now pick the set of household needs you want taken care of for varying levels of money; and practically everyone participates in one form or another. This is exactly a disaggregated 21st century version of servants: paying for convenience. Of course with many issues in implementation, but I don’t see the ethical/moral issue with wanting this kind of thing?

by kaikai17 hours ago|

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There’s a difference between servitude and slavery. Servitude is voluntary, slavery is not. There’s a gradation between them, and indentured servitude is somewhere in between the two. The “issues in implementation” are exactly where the ethical and moral issue lie.

by christina9715 hours ago|

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I’m not sure if you are just repeating what I said or trying to add something? I was indeed implying that the ethical and moral issues lie in implementation, but my point was that I don’t see an ethical/moral issue with in abstract wanting convenience. There’s nothing wrong with wanting food delivered to your door or an LLM to do the boring tasks for you. The issues of slavery lie elsewhere.

by wilg18 hours ago|

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Slavery was about racism and power and control, not economics. Slavery is bad for the economy!

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31758

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/nations-dont-get-rich-by-plund...

by zdragnar16 hours ago|

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"Slavery was about racism and power and control" is very much not universal. Slavery existed (at varying scales) around the entire world for much of human history for a variety of things. Sometimes, as in US history, there was typically a racial difference between owners and slaves, other times it was a difference of conquered and conquering peoples, and other times it didn't have anything to do with race at all.

Race might be a decent analogue to the difference between human actors and sentient AI, but I suspect work animals (plow horses, etc) would be a better analogy.

by IAmBroom38 minutes ago|

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Slavery is at least as old as recorded human history, and had nothing to do with racism in most cases (although it often involves xenophobia). The Torah and Old Testament give specific moral guidelines on how to acquire and keep slaves. Prisoners of war are often made into slaves (from earliest times through today's conflicts). You seem to be conflating "slavery" with "18th-century US slavery".

If slavery truly provided no economic advantages, it's hard to explain why countless human civilizations have engaged in it. It's wrong on every moral front, but riches were inarguably built upon its back.

by axus17 hours ago|

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AI is bad for the economy too, but the AI-holders will make a lot of money. There was plenty of racism and control after slavery ended.

by cma25617 hours ago|

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True but I would also caveat that it may have been an open economic question back then (I don't know the state of the debate) and the personal-economics of slavery are unmistakable for the "lucky" few.

by TZubiri18 hours ago|

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Hard to escape the white shouth-african optics