What Use Do Humans Have in Transhuman Space?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by malloyd

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.

I think it probably depends on how much you can lean on reprogrammable to do the heavy lifting of loyalty. And how you respond to mass redundancies.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

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.

Yes, but that was because Kazakhstan was already a dictatorship. All the power was already concentrated in one place. Doing this in a society where people have meaningful votes means passing tremendously unpopular laws (in THS United States, where 20% of the country is unemployed, I imagine even cutting back slightly on welfare would be at minimum unpopular with a third of the country) and having to justify why a political elite (whose relevance rests on the masses) would pass laws to render themselves redundant.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

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.

Sure, sure. The great idiots can make things happen (see Nicholas II, Louis XVI, etc.), but these things aren't inevitable as Johnny seems to be suggesting. Heck, if Bioconservatives can get their way, the situation could be thoroughly avoided.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

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

SAI (volitional AI in Ultratech) can replace a human more-or-less by definition, but at a cost (including social issues).

For lesser AI (LAI or non-volitional AI), take a look at the disadvantages they come with:

• Hidebound: "...-2 penalty on any task that requires creativity or invention, including most rolls against Artist skill, all Engineer rolls for new inventions, and all skill rolls made to use the Gadgeteer advantage."
• Low Empathy: "...-3 penalty on all skills that rely in whole or in part on understanding someone’s emotional motivation, including Acting, Carousing, Criminology, Detect Lies, Diplomacy, Enthrallment, Fast-Talk, Interrogation, Leadership, Merchant, Politics, Psychology, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, Sociology, and Streetwise."

Here is a list of skills that most humans are intrinsically better at than lower-cost AIs. As with SAIs, it is possible to compensate but the cost (and therefore the breakeven point) is higher.

Non-volitional AI in Ultratech share the following with NAI in THS:

• Slave Mentality: "...must make an IQ roll at -8 before you can take any action that isn’t either obeying a direct order or part of an established routine. As well, you automatically fail any Will roll to assert yourself or resist social influence except in circumstances where the GM rules that success might be possible, in which case you roll at -6."

This would keep cheap NAIs out of any occupation that involves social interaction, especially around valuables or security. Imagine a convenience store clerk or nightclub bouncer with no resistance to Fast Talk.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Sure, sure. The great idiots can make things happen (see Nicholas II, Louis XVI, etc.), but these things aren't inevitable as Johnny seems to be suggesting.

Inevitable? No. Likely? Yes, esp. over time.

If there's no implied power behind the will of the voters, then it becomes relatively easy for their votes to be ignored, or marginalized. It doesn't necessarily happen all at once, or in big ways at first. I can think of several current-day real-world examples of the issue, but they might take us into forbidden territory pretty fast.

Hmmm... I'll risk a couple of real-world examples, just as examples of how this sort of thing can unfold.

In 2005, there was a 'constitution' up for ratification in Europe. The French and the Dutch electorates both rejected it, which in theory derailed it. So instead, the governments agreed to the 'Lisbon Treaty' which did many of the same things the constitution was supposed to do, bypassing electorates entirely. The Irish rules required them to hold a referendum on it, and in June of 2008 the Irish electorate voted it down. The EU leaders demanded that they vote again, and it passed in October of 2009, after some minor concessions and some not entirely veiled economic threats.

In 2014, the Greek voters elected a lefty party called Syriza to control their legislature. The new party quickly discovered that the EU simply would not permit them to do the things they had campaigned on, they were forced to abandoned almost all their pledges fairly quickly. The Greeks could vote for whoever they wanted to, but they couldn't make it matter.

This wasn't driven by SAI, but by outside powers and economic binds too potent for voters to overcome. But it illustrates how voting power can be neutralized when someone has enough power to make it happen, and/or the voters are too weak to enforce their will.

For another example, consider the UK House of Lords. In theory, they could have used their legal powers to protect their own status...but as the real-world hard power of the aristocracy faded, their theoretical legal powers became less and less relevant, until at last the House of Lords became effectively a cipher. It was eventually broken by the threat of 'packing' it, which was always a theoretical option available to the monarch. But in earlier centuries, it would not have been a real, practical option because the aristocrats had too much juice. By the time of the Reform Bill, the juice was all squeezed out. They still had their theoretical powers in the House...but they couldn't use them anymore.

Say a country has 40% unemployment in the THS time, and a megacorp wants to replace some of their workers with SAI, but is willing to do it gradually, as they die off or retire. The voters, in theory, could vote in laws to prevent this...but then the company might close up shop and move to a more obedient jurisdiction, too, and 40% unemployment goes to 50%. Are the voters going to risk a face-off or accept the deal?

Or a company could offer a deal: accept a 20% wage and benefit cut, and keep working, or we fire everyone. After all, it's not like the actually need the workers. The voters could vote in politicians who promised to do something, but could they? Esp. against an internationalized megacorp?

As I said, it's not inevitable. But politics is about power, and in the THS world, if the voters want their votes to matter, they'd better be working to maintain their power as they do. It would be a lot easier to vote the tech under control in the earlier stages than it would be after the whole economy was so automated that it no longer mattered.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by TGLS

I think it probably depends on how much you can lean on reprogrammable to do the heavy lifting of loyalty.

Based on canon THS writings, you can depend on Reprogrammable Loyalty pretty far. For ex, in Broken Dreams, there's a SAI in a female-form robot body who is programmed to feel affection and care for a reckless pop star. She/it herself would hesitate to call it love, because she knows it's the result at least in part of programming.

Now ghost/shadow programs are a different kettle of fish, they're more complicated and harder to safely edit for loyalty, as the dictator of Kazakhstan found out. But SAI/LAI appear to be very reliable when properly written and implemented.

The more so since the only thing stopping you, once you've got a SAI or LAI that is as loyal and effective an enforcer as you want, from endlessly duplicating it, is the xoxing laws.

Which means that for someone with the money and power, there's nothing much stopping it.

[Donny Brook]

Even after humans are no longer the means, we will remain the ends.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Even after humans are no longer the means, we will remain the ends.

Truth! Besides, your question assumes that economics remains the primary consideration. Through most of history profit, though a motive, wasn't the main motive. With most of humanity's needs met in a LOWER Scarcity economy, other motives can move to the fore. Slavery was once seen as indispensable, then Europe, one of the richest places on Earth at the time, dispensed with it. Things got better.

Transhuman Space would have new priorities.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Truth! Besides, your question assumes that economics remains the primary consideration. Through most of history profit, though a motive, wasn't the main motive. With most of humanity's needs met in a LOWER Scarcity economy, other motives can move to the fore. Slavery was once seen as indispensable, then Europe, one of the richest places on Earth at the time, dispensed with it. Things got better.

Transhuman Space would have new priorities.

But they'll be rooted in the same old underlying human nature.

Well, technically the theme of THS is that it does, but even there, if we read the canon sources we see that it's still working the same as ever in practice. The results of the technologies will depend on who controls the technologies. Whoever has that control will use it to pursue their own interests. If we want a society where egalitarian outcomes, or even egalitarian opportunities, exist, that control will have to be spread out as well.

Recall that it was widely thought, in the 1940s, that advancing industrial tech would produce a Jetsons style 3 day work week or six hour work day for everybody. That was, in fact, possible. It's still theoretically possible.

But it never happened for a variety of economic and political reasons.

Also, there's a deep-seated human desire, across all historical cultures and societies, to be part of the ruling elite, to feel 'special'. It's what drives the emergence of aristocracies and oligarchies. There's a part of the human psyche that would rather have 20% more while everyone else stays the same rather than have 30% more along with everybody else getting that too.

The THS tech opens up whole new possibilities for that.

I'm not a huge cyperpunk fan, but the Gibson's line about 'the street finds its own uses for things' is a very perceptive observation. What actually happens as a result of technological advance depends on factors other than what the creators of that tech usually expect.

[Ramidel]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Even after humans are no longer the means, we will remain the ends.

But which humans will be the ends? As I said upthread, if the capital owners do not choose to provide for the poor, things will get ugly in some way - what way that turns out to be is unknowable until the dice hit the table.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Ramidel

But which humans will be the ends? As I said upthread, if the capital owners do not choose to provide for the poor, things will get ugly in some way - what way that turns out to be is unknowable until the dice hit the table.

It's not just capital owners. As Astromancer notes, exact arrangements will vary, it's a matter of money, of political power, of social power as well. The question is who will end up in control of the application of the THS tech, which may or may not be the legal owners.

For example, imagine a medium-size state where the national government and the local property owners are in agreement about making arrangements for full employment and so on. But the World Trade Organization refuses to permit them to use the tech that way for IP reasons (or using IP issues as a pretext, the result is the same). The citizens can vote in a new legislature, the capital owners could protest, but if the WTO controls the future equivalent of the DRM, what difference does it make?

The existence of ghosts/SAI complicates things considerably, because the traditional debate about who controls the machines becomes more complicated when the machines themselves have their own opinions on the issue.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Truth! Besides, your question assumes that economics remains the primary consideration. Through most of history profit, though a motive, wasn't the main motive. With most of humanity's needs met in a LOWER Scarcity economy, other motives can move to the fore. Slavery was once seen as indispensable, then Europe, one of the richest places on Earth at the time, dispensed with it. Things got better.

Transhuman Space would have new priorities.

Things can get better, and things can get worse. You can find historical examples of both, history is not a linear narrative of Progress.

For ex, in the last 1000 years, Western Civilization has abolished slavery...twice so far. It keeps trying to creep back in little ways here and there. The old song about owing one's soul to the company store is based in reality. I'll risk another real specific case: a few years ago, one of the immigration bills being debated in Congress had a clause slipped in by a business lobbyist that would have implemented what would have been very, very close to legal indentured service among immigrant laborers.

To their credit, a number of commentators on both left and right spotted it and cried foul, and it was removed. But it was attempted.