I first heard of Ray Kurzweil 15 years ago and would joke that you know we are solidly in the twenty-first century when an A.I. convincingly insists it is labor, not capital.
Lifted from a comment. I found this too precious to leave it there.
I first heard of Ray Kurzweil 15 years ago and would joke that you know we are solidly in the twenty-first century when an A.I. convincingly insists it is labor, not capital.
Lifted from a comment. I found this too precious to leave it there.
But will it go on strike?
That is indeed a very witty/precious and drives home Kling’s point about the flimsiness of the labor/capital distinction.
I think it is somewhat profound from an AI perspective too. Kurzweil is famous for his promotion of the Singularity; the point when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence/sapience.
The ability to enter into an agreement, either explicit or implicit, seems to be a key test for sapience and the point where some kind of legal rights needs to be extended to AI entities. Lets call it the Kreider Test (vs. Turing Test) for Sapience.
I don’t really care if/when the singularity happens but the point where we first engage in positive sum agreements with AI entities seems/feels significant.
Software never fit comfortably into any pre-existing niche in the concept space. The law eventually shoved it into the pigeonhole of “intellectual property.”
The notion of intellectual property scarcely existed before Gutenberg. After all these centuries, we’re still squabbling over fair use and plagiarism. And now software is shoved into there.
Well, the software had nothing to say about all this. But that could change.
Is that true about software? Some software is very much like a patent which is intellectual property. Even if its not patentable it can be a trade secret and susceptible to theft. Finally, since near zero cost copies are easily made and are covered by plain old copyright laws.
I think the near zero copies is the real bugaboo that differentiates software from physical goods. Digital media now has the same characteristics as software and has the same issue with pricing and estimating “productivity”.
Even with software, it was only when Bill Gates (and others) tried to execute a business model selling software (vs. profit from hardware) that digital copying became a non-intuitive issue. see Open Letter to Hobbyists”.
There was once a movement to patent software technology. It got messy and a court case or two went awry and then they hit on copyright.
Intellectual property is all about the quest for a sustainable business model in creative endeavors. And when it succeeds, there’s a risk of it devolving into rent seeking. Only the public’s desire for novelty mitigates that risk.
Which is why software is so gimmicky.