Can a bot run a company?

[untermensche]

What a society needs is to find ways to get wealth into as many hands as possible.

It doesn't need capitalism.

A society where wealth is as widespread as possible is a society with a high standard of living but little investment in the future. In time it will crash badly because there isn't the capital floating around funding new enterprises.

No that is a society where a few hoard all the wealth and most live paycheck to paycheck.

Your view of the world is absolutely upside down.

Probably because you're standing on your head trying to defend things like dictatorship.

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A society where wealth is as widespread as possible is a society with a high standard of living but little investment in the future. In time it will crash badly because there isn't the capital floating around funding new enterprises.

The left believes that businesses just appear. While that's reasonable for small-scale things that's not enough for things that must start large.

....

This would apply only if everyone in the society were Libertarians.

In a society with an equitable distribution of wealth and property, people would form cooperative groups and pool capital. Of course there would have to be laws enacted to protect people from the unscrupulous. We would call this corporate law.

The idea that an inequitable distribution of wealth is necessary for investment in large scale infrastructure and industry is ridiculous.

Libertarians did not invent people cooperating with one another.

It is libertarian. Not Libertarian.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A society where wealth is as widespread as possible is a society with a high standard of living but little investment in the future. In time it will crash badly because there isn't the capital floating around funding new enterprises.

The left believes that businesses just appear. While that's reasonable for small-scale things that's not enough for things that must start large.

....

This would apply only if everyone in the society were Libertarians.

In a society with an equitable distribution of wealth and property, people would form cooperative groups and pool capital. Of course there would have to be laws enacted to protect people from the unscrupulous. We would call this corporate law.

The idea that an inequitable distribution of wealth is necessary for investment in large scale infrastructure and industry is ridiculous.

This cooperative fantasy persists amongst the left. It doesn't work for big projects!

 

[Bronzeage]

This would apply only if everyone in the society were Libertarians.

In a society with an equitable distribution of wealth and property, people would form cooperative groups and pool capital. Of course there would have to be laws enacted to protect people from the unscrupulous. We would call this corporate law.

The idea that an inequitable distribution of wealth is necessary for investment in large scale infrastructure and industry is ridiculous.

This cooperative fantasy persists amongst the left. It doesn't work for big projects!

If it doesn't work for big projects, how do you explain corporations with millions of shareholders?

 

[Juma]

This cooperative fantasy persists amongst the left. It doesn't work for big projects!

If it doesn't work for big projects, how do you explain corporations with millions of shareholders?

Shareholders doesnt run projects. They sell and/or buy shares. When shareholders begins to meddle in projects you are deep in shitcreek with no paddle, and soon no canoe.

 

[Bronzeage]

If it doesn't work for big projects, how do you explain corporations with millions of shareholders?

Shareholders doesnt run projects. They sell and/or buy shares. When shareholders begins to meddle in projects you are deep in shitcreek with no paddle, and soon no canoe.

No one said shareholders run projects. That's the point of being a shareholder. You hand over some of your wealth to someone who will use it. In return, you hope to gain a little more wealth. It is a cooperative model, and it's the basis of every cash and credit economy that ever existed. The argument that wealth must be concentrated in a few hands in order for a society to progress is simply not valid.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This would apply only if everyone in the society were Libertarians.

In a society with an equitable distribution of wealth and property, people would form cooperative groups and pool capital. Of course there would have to be laws enacted to protect people from the unscrupulous. We would call this corporate law.

The idea that an inequitable distribution of wealth is necessary for investment in large scale infrastructure and industry is ridiculous.

This cooperative fantasy persists amongst the left. It doesn't work for big projects!

I think that is funny seeing that large project bidders are often required to farm off a percentage of their total bid to MBE, FBE, VBE.

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What a society needs is to find ways to get wealth into as many hands as possible.

It doesn't need capitalism.

A society where wealth is as widespread as possible is a society with a high standard of living but little investment in the future. In time it will crash badly because there isn't the capital floating around funding new enterprises.

The left believes that businesses just appear. While that's reasonable for small-scale things that's not enough for things that must start large.

This is why there is so much wealth in nations like Barbados and the Bahamas. Those few really wealthy people lift the entire nation because of their untouched wealth!

 

[Axulus]

This is why there is so much wealth in nations like Barbados and the Bahamas. Those few really wealthy people lift the entire nation because of their untouched wealth!

That seems like a pretty poor example. Those two countries are the #1 and #2 wealthiest countries in the Caribbean.

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...UTF-8#q=wealthiest+countries+in+the+caribbean

Additionally, 12.8% live in poverty in the Bahamas (the rate is 14.8% in the US)

http://www.thenassauguardian.com/news/48012

For Barbados, the rate is 13.9%

http://www.bb.undp.org/content/barbados/en/home/countryinfo/barbados.html

 

[arkirk]

A society where wealth is as widespread as possible is a society with a high standard of living but little investment in the future. In time it will crash badly because there isn't the capital floating around funding new enterprises.

Where do you find such economic ignorance?

Come on, Laughing one! It's just Loren doing his usual justification of the need for rich bitches controlling everything. My concern is if the rich guy owned the bot and all the profits it might produce...you might get a mighty inhumane bot. On the other hand if it were just one of the many fellow owner/workers in the company, the wealth might be distributed more fairly to the workers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This cooperative fantasy persists amongst the left. It doesn't work for big projects!

If it doesn't work for big projects, how do you explain corporations with millions of shareholders?

Those millions of shareholders don't meaningfully participate in running the company.

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This is why there is so much wealth in nations like Barbados and the Bahamas. Those few really wealthy people lift the entire nation because of their untouched wealth!

Those countries have lots of money parked there, not lots of wealth.

 

[Bronzeage]

If it doesn't work for big projects, how do you explain corporations with millions of shareholders?

Those millions of shareholders don't meaningfully participate in running the company.

.

What difference does that make? You contend that large projects cannot be undertaken if wealth is evenly distributed in a society. What prevents large projects if that evenly distributed wealth is in the form of corporate shares?

 

[braces_for_impact]

That's interesting. What if we can make an expert system to run large companies? Why pay some corporate tool hundreds of millions when you can have a brain in a box that doesn't need stock options, time off, or even emotions when eliminating positions?

 

[Jayjay]

That's interesting. What if we can make an expert system to run large companies? Why pay some corporate tool hundreds of millions when you can have a brain in a box that doesn't need stock options, time off, or even emotions when eliminating positions?

I think it would be far easier replacing board members than the CEO.

 

[Bronzeage]

That's interesting. What if we can make an expert system to run large companies? Why pay some corporate tool hundreds of millions when you can have a brain in a box that doesn't need stock options, time off, or even emotions when eliminating positions?

When something goes wrong, who do you fire?

 

[fromderinside]

When something goes wrong, who do you fire?

Weatherman!

 

[bilby]

That's interesting. What if we can make an expert system to run large companies? Why pay some corporate tool hundreds of millions when you can have a brain in a box that doesn't need stock options, time off, or even emotions when eliminating positions?

I think it would be far easier replacing board members than the CEO.

That's very easy to do - just have a box with a button on it; when the button is pressed, the word 'Yes' lights up.

 

[Bronzeage]

When something goes wrong, who do you fire?

Weatherman!

My weatherman just predicted 6 inches of rain in the next 24 hours. I wish I could fire him.

This idea has been a staple of science fiction for about 70 years or so. It always ends badly for the computer and the people. It's only the greatest optimism that could inspire anyone to think this would work, even with a sci-fi fantasy computer.

The problem is always the same. How do we assign value?

We have computers which will play chess and they are very good at it. The basic principle is fairly simple. The computer can see all possible moves on the board and it has an algorithm which assigns a value to each move. This is basically what a human does, but much faster and with greater capacity for recognizing moves.

Chess is easy compared to real life. Pawns don't scream when trampled by a knight.

It all comes down to value, how it is defined and how it is measured.

For example, we consider life to be valuable. In the next few weeks, I predict several thousand people will drown in the Mediterranean Sea. If I truly value life and had the resources, I might park a cruise ship in the area and take on passengers before their overloaded ship capsized and left them in the water.

Or, I might take a broader view and work for economic and social justice across North Africa, and thus eliminate the need for thousands of people to flee their homes in leaky buckets, facing possible death at sea.

For a computer to make this kind of choice, someone has to write an algorithm which can not only choose between my two options, but also see many more. That algorithm will always reflect the values of the human, or group of humans, which created it, and this will be reflected in the decisions made by this fantasy computer manager.

 

[fromderinside]

It all comes down to value, how it is defined and how it is measured.

For example, we consider life to be valuable. In the next few weeks, I predict several thousand people will drown in the Mediterranean Sea. If I truly value life and had the resources, I might park a cruise ship in the area and take on passengers before their overloaded ship capsized and left them in the water.

Or, I might take a broader view and work for economic and social justice across North Africa, and thus eliminate the need for thousands of people to flee their homes in leaky buckets, facing possible death at sea.

For a computer to make this kind of choice, someone has to write an algorithm which can not only choose between my two options, but also see many more. That algorithm will always reflect the values of the human, or group of humans, which created it, and this will be reflected in the decisions made by this fantasy computer manager.

Two parts to my answer here.

First If we are choosing among things we probably won't ever try your model is still to grandiose. Humans can only work fairly effectively one on one or one on crowd. So either we choose among aspects we more or less automatically process like facial features and body carriage and thrust revealing certain attributes we can address in transactions with others, or, we operate on a mass scale where we manipulate the situation to our advantage.

We don't have enough information about faces and carriage for computers to be very well programmed, but, we do have enough to mimic a dictator. All that's really necessary to achieve an effective dictator is input from a lot of polls about attitudes and the use of emotionally indexed code words for such such to be set up.

Second we are getting pretty good at writing algorithms using reusable (off the shelf) code I argue we can mimic a social control bot because we have more than enough information about group attitudes and behavior, that's what history and politics are all about. Mass behavior control and manipulation depends on being able to orient the group toward common stereotypes. We actually simplify the overall human interaction paradigm by making the interaction one of making a group act like a mob.

On the other hand, what we are, individually, so good at is sizing up another based on cue recognition. Very subtle signs need be successfully interpreted which is what growing up is all about. Putting such capacity into a computer would be a massive undertaking requiring much time and training. So lets not try doing that for another couple hundred years or so.

 

[Bronzeage]

It all comes down to value, how it is defined and how it is measured.

For example, we consider life to be valuable. In the next few weeks, I predict several thousand people will drown in the Mediterranean Sea. If I truly value life and had the resources, I might park a cruise ship in the area and take on passengers before their overloaded ship capsized and left them in the water.

Or, I might take a broader view and work for economic and social justice across North Africa, and thus eliminate the need for thousands of people to flee their homes in leaky buckets, facing possible death at sea.

For a computer to make this kind of choice, someone has to write an algorithm which can not only choose between my two options, but also see many more. That algorithm will always reflect the values of the human, or group of humans, which created it, and this will be reflected in the decisions made by this fantasy computer manager.

...
We don't have enough information about faces and carriage for computers to be very well programmed, but, we do have enough to mimic a dictator. All that's really necessary to achieve an effective dictator is input from a lot of polls about attitudes and the use of emotionally indexed code words for such such to be set up.

....

I'll pass on the lowest common denominator social engineering.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Those millions of shareholders don't meaningfully participate in running the company.

.

What difference does that make? You contend that large projects cannot be undertaken if wealth is evenly distributed in a society. What prevents large projects if that evenly distributed wealth is in the form of corporate shares?

Existing large projects will continue. The problem is creating new ones.

 

[Bronzeage]

What difference does that make? You contend that large projects cannot be undertaken if wealth is evenly distributed in a society. What prevents large projects if that evenly distributed wealth is in the form of corporate shares?

Existing large projects will continue. The problem is creating new ones.

There is no reason new projects cannot be created. If you know of one besides your supposition that wealth must be concentrated in few hands, I'd like to hear it.