Nah, 10 years ago they still had the same definition the GP is using: AI is a machine that can do things machines cannot currently do.

That does not change the fact that as soon as one develops a self-improving AI, the world will become a very different and probably very awful place.

Why? It's funny, a bunch of people believe AI is absolutely impossible because you can't create a soul or brains are magic or hyperdimensional pineal gateways or something. The rest seem to believe it can do anything including instantly becoming so intelligent it's magic.

So the answer to the GP's question is "yes."

I don't think you need AI for that either. LinkedIn was just as douchey before.

If they had some super powerful analysis and synthesis computer that solves problems for them, would it be able to sort this out?

Improving capital is where that extra capital comes from.

Capital is the means of production, minus land and labour. It's fairly comprehensive to think of it as all the tools, procedures, etc. that make up a business, whether that business is one guy in the yard of his hut or a multinational corporation. It's reasonable to think of a business itself as a machine, and the machine is capital.

Improving capital means making it work better. Designing and building better tools and procedures to produce whatever you're producing more efficiently. If you take some funny rocks, bake them in a pile of mud you carefully designed, and pound them into swords, you've improved capital. If you buy a hammer, an anvil, a forge and some iron, and learn to make horseshoes, you've improved capital. If you buy some guy's smithy and figure out you can make horseshoes cheaper by casting or stamping them, and build equipment and procedures to do that, then you've improved capital again. You started with existing capital, assembled it into a machine and/or innovated a bit and ended up with a machine (which is capital) that produces something valuable its original parts did not.

The most basic feature of capitalism is the idea that the benefit from doing those things should go to the person(s) responsible, and by doing so will encourage people to improve capital. Related ideas are that anybody who wants to should be able to engage in that process and, almost always, that a free market determines value.

That idea is opposed to, for example, feudalism, where improvements you make will primarily benefit the lord, or communism, where they benefit the group. You figure out how to make horsehoes better or make a field produce more and you maybe get a nice thanks from the boss man, but the same ration as before.

Capitalism existed long before corporations, particularly modern ones, legal liability, or anything like that. Many people identify capitalism with things that are distinctly non-capitalist because they're frustrated with aspects of "capitalism" that aren't capitalist at all. Corporations, for example, are typically very similar to fedual systems internally, and both employees and employers expect them to be.

My parents replaced their fridge 10-years ago, the old fridge is in the garage, been working without issue since. They've been through three "new" fridges since. The in-laws, their fridge has died four times, maybe five. My sister bought all new appliances, fridge, stove, oven, dishwasher, washer, drier, the full works with a 5-year warranty, ~1-month after the warranty ended, all dead. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a 40-year-old house, with 30-year-old appliances, that just work.

Technology can improve things, but, if you remove the ability to use those things, or to trust them, you've done a disservice to the item. I don't need a Wi-Fi connected dishwasher or oven. I don't need a Wi-Fi connected electrical panel. What I need is an oven that can turn on, and turn off, with a temperature setting.

Farm equipment doesn't need to be "smart", it needs to be functional. Your engine won't start, spray some ether in it, and bam, you're up and running. A belt broke, meh, just grab another, slap it on and get going. This stupidity of make it smart, and brick it, doesn't make sense. When our dishwasher broke a few months ago, I just bought a new motor (if that's the right word), disassembled it and reassembled it within 1-hour.

Running on a computer provided by friendly aliens, no doubt. Just like the pyramids.

Yes, changing how the device works after being sold is a reasonable argument. Most people, including the OP, get the reasoning backwards though. It was to extend the useful life of the device, not to shorten it. They could have gone the old way and just have the battery say fuck you after a certain number of charge cycles.

The "my device, my rules" argument leads to ridiculousness. They should stop with all the constant current charging nonsense. Let the user decide how fast they want to charge. And they could charge longer. The theoretical max for a lithium cell is around 5 V but they only charge to 4.2 V!

It would certainly make it more exciting to get on a plane or anywhere you're in close quarters with people charging their phones too.

Agreed. But Marvel / MCU also shows that "Stargate Syndrome" is all too easy to catch. The heroes and villains just keep getting more powerful and dangerous, no wonder the movies are flopping.

No ownership implies no market exchange mechanism. That was a direct response to the OP's "markets existed before capitalism". They didn't, because exchange is tied up with ownership. Once ownership is agreed, you have capitalism. It literally is synonymous with ownership of the means of production. Lands, water wheels, slaves, you name it. If it can be sold, somebody owns it. And if it can be exchanged legally, somebody owns it.

Do you own a shovel or a chicken? Congratulations, those are means of production. You're a capitalist!

Maybe you should (re?)read Marx. Das Kapital is precisely about capitalism in history. Renaming terms because "modern" doesn't invalidate the old terms.

The palace owns the means of production. The rest you can read in the appropriate economics book referenced.

Markets cannot exist without capitalism. A market doesn't make sense if there is no concept of personal ownership.

"I'll give you three apples for this orange please. Those apples don't belong to you, I'll take them for nothing. Goodbye."

"Ya meh taek are lives..... but ya'll never taek are freedum!"

*shakes fist in air*

*buys Canadian tractor*

Although I do wonder where the first web app came from, the one that let us make all the other web apps.

It came from Unix! All Hail Unix! All Hail Unix! (I'm not worthy!)