What Use Do Humans Have in Transhuman Space?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Is there a single job in the TS setting that wouldn't be better done by a machine?

Humans still have votes. This makes removing them from the economy problematic.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Humans still have votes. This makes removing them from the economy problematic.

Who counts their votes? Election security is highly nontrivial already (but I'd prefer not to discuss the RL issues), and would be far more so in 2101. If corrupt officials get control over the tallying of the votes, the results are likely to be whatever they want it to be.

Of course, even with secure elections, there's the issue that THS has the science of memetics developed to a quite sophisticated degree. If one party is able to control whose memes get to the people, they'll have a far easier time winning.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Who counts their votes? Election security is highly nontrivial already (but I'd prefer not to discuss the RL issues), and would be far more so in 2101. If corrupt officials get control over the tallying of the votes, the results are likely to be whatever they want it to be.

I mean, I guess but over the last century or so this has generally been avoided. It's an old problem, that has old solutions, and it comes down to reapplying the old solutions.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Of course, even with secure elections, there's the issue that THS has the science of memetics developed to a quite sophisticated degree. If one party is able to control whose memes get to the people, they'll have a far easier time winning.

I think this is basically the new problem, that's so new, it's something that hasn't been as threatened. If I recall correctly, Memetics in THS is something like a decade or two old at the most. This puts it at an age of about Facebook and Twitter today. Memetics in THS is like Russian Bot Farms in our world. How much impact does it have? How do we counter act this? Etc.

At the same time, getting people to accept a meme like, "We should abolish the welfare state and leave me destitute." or "Let's kill everyone outside the ruling class" is going to be a tough sell, even for THS Memetics.

[Ramidel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Humans still have votes. This makes removing them from the economy problematic.

"Challenge accepted" - China.

Actually, I think the most likely place for a real SAI takeoff would be L4 or L5, if a billionaire or cooperative went up there, brought some SAIs and equipment and started manufacturing, without having to contest Earth-side elections. The end result might be something like an Eclipse Phase hypercorp - extremely advanced automation allowing a small group to command the wealth of an Earth-side transnational.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Humans still have votes. This makes removing them from the economy problematic.

Does it? Votes probably have to be backed up by hard power to matter for long. The industrial revolution made the voting revolution viable because it made large numbers of people necessary as workers and soldiers. That made it necessary to accomodate their interests over time.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Does it? Votes probably have to be backed up by hard power to matter for long. The industrial revolution made the voting revolution viable because it made large numbers of people necessary as workers and soldiers. That made it necessary to accomodate their interests over time.

OK, well let's look at it in more concrete terms. If the leadership of a democracy decides, "well, the army is composed of robots*, the economy is run by robots, and the government is run by robots, so all the humans can go sit on a rolling pin and spin.", they are basically deciding that the source of their legitimacy is meaningless. And after that, it's a very slippery slope. A general could decide, "Well, if we're not 'for the people' any more, I might as well be king", just as easily as a CEO could decide that and so on. Giving up the chief source of legitimacy to take more of the pie seems like it would lead to endless struggles over who gets the whole pie.

* Throw in whatever mix of Bioroids/LAIs/SAIs/Ghosts/etc. that suit you.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by TGLS

OK, well let's look at it in more concrete terms. If the leadership of a democracy decides, "well, the army is composed of robots*, the economy is run by robots, and the government is run by robots, so all the humans can go sit on a rolling pin and spin.", they are basically deciding that the source of their legitimacy is meaningless. And after that, it's a very slippery slope. A general could decide, "Well, if we're not 'for the people' any more, I might as well be king", just as easily as a CEO could decide that and so on. Giving up the chief source of legitimacy to take more of the pie seems like it would lead to endless struggles over who gets the whole pie.

* Throw in whatever mix of Bioroids/LAIs/SAIs/Ghosts/etc. that suit you.

So it just requires that stupid people get into enough positions of power at the wrong time, then. Easily plausible, if the writer wants to go there.

[Ramidel]

This is an issue inherent to THS, and other transhumanist settings where labor and the military can be fully automated, as I mentioned above. How people will either defend against it or try to bring it about are story questions.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by TGLS

OK, well let's look at it in more concrete terms. If the leadership of a democracy decides, "well, the army is composed of robots*, the economy is run by robots, and the government is run by robots, so all the humans can go sit on a rolling pin and spin.", they are basically deciding that the source of their legitimacy is meaningless. And after that, it's a very slippery slope. A general could decide, "Well, if we're not 'for the people' any more, I might as well be king", just as easily as a CEO could decide that and so on. Giving up the chief source of legitimacy to take more of the pie seems like it would lead to endless struggles over who gets the whole pie.

* Throw in whatever mix of Bioroids/LAIs/SAIs/Ghosts/etc. that suit you.

Yes. A ruler, or ruling class, is always dependent on somebody to sustain their power, and has to keep him/her/them happy. Ideally, that someone is the general population, but sometimes it's an army or a secret police or the like.

The trouble is that it's often easier, or seems easier, to keep a few enforcers happy than to keep a huge crowd of fractious, disputatious, ungrateful sods happy. A ruler, generally, wants his power to rest on as small a coalition as he can arrange, while the ruled are usually better off if the ruler requires a big, difficult coalition.

The existence of SAI/ghosts makes it worse, because it opens up the possibility of immortal rulers who don't have the vulnerability of living ones. Consider an in-canon case, the ruler of Kazakhstan in the THS setting. The scenario described in that book is all too plausible.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

The trouble is that it's often easier, or seems easier, to keep a few enforcers happy than to keep a huge crowd of fractious, disputatious, ungrateful sods happy. A ruler, generally, wants his power to rest on as small a coalition as he can arrange, while the ruled are usually better off if the ruler requires a big, difficult coalition.

Note there is an iffy assumption in here if you are going to claim your key to power is SAIs or ghosts or something. It's that all (or at least most) SAIs or ghosts or whatever share a common interest you can appeal to that is different from that of your human subjects. It's not so evident to me that keeping a huge crowd of SAIs happy is any easier than keeping a huge crowd of humans happy.