dissolve the standard debate between different branches of ethics
What I suspect is that consequences, as traced to the long term, would yield the same result of the collective being outcompeted as a result of adopting a fairly obvious malpractice. Additionally, I would rather see the argument explore in more detail what it means to produce good things.
Were mankind to become totally unemployed and live off some distribution of AI-produced goods, the reasoning from the comic which you mention would have a far better basis: the character would no longer be able to claim that his happiness is more important than the thief’s happiness[1]because the character, like the thief, would be unlikely to become able to usefully contribute to the society. This state reminds me of groups of kids in a kindergarten where they learn the basics of social interactions and find it hard to meaningfully claim ownership[2] of things received from teachers or of kids in a family trying to claim ownership of stuff received from parents.
However, before the rise of AI mankind would have individuals or collectives perform economically useful tasks, and being rewarded for these tasks made perfect sense. Thieves, on the other hand, only redistributed the goods in their favor and didn’t do anything like producing them, receiving them for something else or even protecting the collective from adversaries.
P.S. I also wonder what you would say in the post that you were planning to write.
However, such claims become easier once the kids’ interests diverge far enough. For example, if a kid isn’t interested in music, then the kid wouldn’t be sad about losing the opportunity to play the violin bought due to another kid’s interests.
What I suspect is that consequences, as traced to the long term, would yield the same result of the collective being outcompeted as a result of adopting a fairly obvious malpractice. Additionally, I would rather see the argument explore in more detail what it means to produce good things.
Were mankind to become totally unemployed and live off some distribution of AI-produced goods, the reasoning from the comic which you mention would have a far better basis: the character would no longer be able to claim that his happiness is more important than the thief’s happiness[1] because the character, like the thief, would be unlikely to become able to usefully contribute to the society. This state reminds me of groups of kids in a kindergarten where they learn the basics of social interactions and find it hard to meaningfully claim ownership[2] of things received from teachers or of kids in a family trying to claim ownership of stuff received from parents.
However, before the rise of AI mankind would have individuals or collectives perform economically useful tasks, and being rewarded for these tasks made perfect sense. Thieves, on the other hand, only redistributed the goods in their favor and didn’t do anything like producing them, receiving them for something else or even protecting the collective from adversaries.
P.S. I also wonder what you would say in the post that you were planning to write.
Unless, of course, the thief ended up overconcentrating the goods.
However, such claims become easier once the kids’ interests diverge far enough. For example, if a kid isn’t interested in music, then the kid wouldn’t be sad about losing the opportunity to play the violin bought due to another kid’s interests.