[ExI] why not stalin?

[John Galt]

>>So what if… AI aligns with humans, wants to team up with us, and isn’t corrupted by power? Imagine AI proposes a variation on a theme of communism sorta, where no one is legally obligated to follow the AI central planner, but it is economically beneficial to do so. AI instructs factories how much stuff to make, how much to import, from where to import, where to market the resulting manufactured goods, how to transport it there and so on. It isn’t a dictator so much as a central instructor. It is still capitalism, AI facilitated, and people will still go without if they choose to ignore AI’s advice on how to work their businesses.

spike

Even if we had an ideal AI omniscient in all available data including global weather still couldn't plan an economy or allocate resources as efficiently as prices -- it couldn't solve the Hayek/Popper knowledge problem of individual preferences and particularly, substitution willingness/elasticity. There is no ideal voluntary (ha!) communism possible in theory as long as we have individuals making complicated decisions and tradeoffs in real time.

johngaltbooks at proton.me

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On Sunday, October 18th, 2026 at 12:29 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] why not stalin?
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 18, 2026 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> OK cool, we have one. Henrik assures us the MAGAs are neo-commies.
>>>
>>> Anyone else want to go there?
>>
>>>…Communist reality as opposed to theory was rampant corruption and incompetence. What do you think?
>>
>> Keith
>>
>> My theory is that communism inherently leads to rampant corruption and incompetence.
>>
>> I have been working on an idea however. Communism suppresses competition, under the theory that competition is inherently wasteful of resources, and that central planning makes competition unnecessary. Problem: no one is smart enough to know everything, which is what is needed to do central planning efficiently. Of course the central planners are powerful, and power corrupts in human hands.
>>
>> So what if… AI aligns with humans, wants to team up with us, and isn’t corrupted by power? Imagine AI proposes a variation on a theme of communism sorta, where no one is legally obligated to follow the AI central planner, but it is economically beneficial to do so. AI instructs factories how much stuff to make, how much to import, from where to import, where to market the resulting manufactured goods, how to transport it there and so on. It isn’t a dictator so much as a central instructor. It is still capitalism, AI facilitated, and people will still go without if they choose to ignore AI’s advice on how to work their businesses.
>>
>> spike
>>
>>>
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