Unless you mean "all jobs across the entire economy", this is pretty obviously false. People used to weave fabrics by hand, make screws and nails by hand, bake bread by hand. These jobs hardly exist anymore.

Of course this did not imply that all jobs disappeared and the economy collapsed. But the sense in which "AI is not replacing workers" is contingent on specific features of software development, not about automation in general.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46233752

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

> why don't we also have laws criminalizing things like refusing to be friends with $SKIN_COLOR people?

Some combination of "it would be impossible to enforce" and "laws about who can be friends with who sounds kind of crazy".

> There is no right of foreigners without a green card to enter in the first place

There is no right of black people (or any people) to get a job, either. It simply does not follow that "no counteroffer ... could be inappropriate". This is sort of my point - all the law says is "if you would offer this job to person X, only on the condition that they were white rather than black, then you must offer them the job anyway". Please note that I am not arguing about what the law says - I am arguing that the law is unethical.

Now, you say getting a job is somehow more "necessary" than, say, being friends with someone. I would argue also it's more "objective" in the sense that a job is a job, it would be silly for someone to try to argue "well, I can choose not to be friends with black people, so why can't I choose not to hire them?". This would be disingenuous - hiring people is not similar to being friends with them. So, given you agree this kind of law is ok for jobs and not ok for people's friendships, which one do you think is more similar to immigration?

This is a very strange failure of reading comprehension. I think you're trying to write "I will only give you food if you're white." Are you trying to say this sentence is incoherent? I admit that if you say this sentence to a black person, it is logically equivalent to "I will give you food if you change your immutable characteristics". But they are not logically equivalent in general, so your gotcha doesn't apply to my argument.

About your actual argument: a) it is obvious they don't have constitutional protections, I am not arguing about the law, this is an ethical point; b) identity-group prejudice is not the only kind of unethical behaviour. Since you mention prejudice, I think you proved my point - if the ethical standard was "nobody is materially worse off" then this kind of prejudice would just be irrelevant. If the US had a "whites only" immigration policy that would be A-OK with you, they have no obligation to let people in. If that's your ethical standard, I have nothing more to say.

Of course I can say that. I can say "you can't come into my house if you're black" too. The point is that it's unethical. It would be unethical for me to search your phone before you entered my house, too. This is not complicated, I'm not sure why you're having trouble understanding it.

For example, I do not have an obligation to let people into my house. I can choose to let them in or decline them entry. But there are certain preconditions I cannot apply. I cannot, for example, say "you may come into my house only if you murder my neighbour". That's because I'm legally bound not to induce people to commit murder. It would obviously be disingenuous to say this means I have an "obligation to admit" them.

It's the same with immigration. They actually are legally bound in certain ways - an immigration official can't assault you for instance. It's not hard to imagine them being legally bound not to search people's phones. That doesn't mean "they have to admit people".

If someone comes up to me and asks for food, I am not obliged to give it to them.

If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face, do you really believe "nothing wrong has happened"? That I, applying an unethical condition, did nothing wrong?

If someone else says "You must not make punching someone in the face a precondition of giving them food", does that create a "right to food"? Of course not.

That doesn't sound relevant.

Nobody said that they were obliged to admit you, they complained that the reasons for declining admittance were unfair. Unless you think "no obligation to admit" means carte blanche to decline for any reason, and to treat you however they like?

If so, then that is unreasonable. It is a much stronger condition than "I don't have to let you in".

Yes! That is how they work.

It seems much more likely that they are doing some other behaviour that only sometimes resembles thinking, in the same way that when you press the middle autocomplete button on your phone keyboard it only sometimes resembles conversation.