Ask HN: Will humans still vote after AI takes over?

4•nothrowaways•1h ago

Taxpayer money has always been central to democracy, as it allows citizens to decide how public funds are used.

But if AI and robots take over most labor and taxes are no longer needed, it makes me question: will human votes still matter? Or will those who own the AI and robots become the new decision-makers a.k.a voters, since they control the resources once funded by taxes?

Without taxes or meaningful employment, people's role in governance might become irrelevant.

Is that where we are headed?

Comments

PaulHoule•1h ago

See https://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/HON301/franchise.pdf

nothrowaways•1h ago

What's your take?

PaulHoule•35m ago

Maybe not the answer you are looking for, but see:

https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th...

e.g. The Republic is not yours to lose.

tjr•1h ago

I disagree that citizens really have much pull over how public funds are used, especially through general elections. We can vote for one candidate over another, in hopes of seeing public funds used for this or that, but in the end, we elect people to represent us, and they make the actual policy decisions.

That said, even if we did arrive at the scenario of AI and robots handling most labor (everything except plumbing, right? We'd be a nation of plumbers), it would still require major legal changes to remove the citizens from the voting process. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it wouldn't happen solely because of AI/robots taking over labor.

Would the elected officials make those major legal changes, to eliminate citizens voting? In my opinion, I rather doubt it.

eimrine•1h ago

Of course losing both war and commercial value will change the world very much. But ask the simpler question: do we really vote now? In EU votes are rigged, in rest of the Old world they have never been a thing, in US the cessarian president wants to stop democracy. Maybe these questions just do not deserve to be in conjunction.

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