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> But once most people went through the transition it won't be bad. Society I believe will be better off. We will stop being obsessed with money and status and
by xpe 4y ago
> But once most people went through the transition it won't be bad. Society I believe will be better off. We will stop being obsessed with money and status and spend much more time with family and friends. Entertainment will be insanely good and so will healthcare. Possibly medicine to make our moods better. It could be utopia.
First, I don't see "utopia" as likely; furthermore, I have a suspicion it may be impossible, given human nature.
Second, even the argument that society will be "better" demands much more reflection. The implied argument above is only a sketch. I don't find it convincing much less plausible. I'll call attention to four points (implied from above):
1. AI will replace humans in most or all professions
2. AI quality will be much higher than the previous human levels
3. A broad swath of people (using some notion of equity and fairness) will have enough money to live happily
4. "We'll spend much more time with family and friends"
Each of the four points are quite uncertain. Furthermore, even if `k` is true, `k+1` does not follow.
Who would like to flesh out some ways the sequence (1, 2, 3, 4) might happen?
- weatherlite 4y agoYes of course you are right, we don't know anything yet I agree. I am speculating a lot here. But I'm a believer in "intelligence as a commodity" as Sam Altman put it after seeing GPT3.5 so I think points 1 and 2 will be reality. 3 follows quite naturally to me but only in Western societies... Putin will have different ideas. Anyway speculating is fun but you're right its just speculating. My main point is we should always keep in mind this could turn out to be great .
- xpe 4y agoFair enough :) _And_ if since we care about our AI-interdependent future, more of us (as in the people here on HN) need to wade into the gory details, including ethics and the current power structures. The "technology" (as in algorithms, data structures, hardware, etc) is arguably the "easy" part. There are plenty of existing incentives and structures to keep those _moving_. But moving in what direction? Even the notion of an "ethical compass" seems antiquated in light of current technology. We may have to reframe everything. This is a big challenge.
- monocasa 4y agoI'm not sure 3 follows. A walk downtown of any major city in America shows what society does for anyone who's work can't be commoditized or aren't sitting on an existing pile of wealth such that they don't need to work. They get nothing but tents and shame.
- weatherlite 4y agoThat's because people like you and me (I'm assuming you're somewhere in the comfortable middle class) vote in for this system. Because so far we've enjoyed a reasonable quality of life. If that's no longer the case, we can vote for other leaders and other systems.
- monocasa 4y agoNot really unfortunately, the US hasn't been a democracy reflecting the collective will of it's voters for some time now. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
- 1-hour-ago 4y agoBut people under stress might opt for a some sort of religeous acceptance of hardship, or a cult, or fascisim first. Where are the examples of the middle voting against the extremes when times get really hard?