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In recent times we've already significantly given up on our humanity. The lack of shared institutes (church, bars, etc.), remote studying, remote work, ecommerc

In recent times we've already significantly given up on our humanity. The lack of shared institutes (church, bars, etc.), remote studying, remote work, ecommerce, personal contact via chat, social media, these all point in the same direction of a contactless society where we rarely interact with the physical world and its people. It stands to reason that AI will only accelerate this further. It will be convenience on steroids. Your AI ear piece isn't going to tell you to throw it into the bin and go for a walk in the forest. It's going to tell you that you need to buy more stuff and it knows exactly what it is that you need. It's also going to feed you non-stop ultimate entertainment, custom generated for you and you only. In a rare moment of humanity, one of your friends calls you. AI knows all about your friends and their recent events so had already summarized talking points. In case you can't be bothered, AI will carry out the actual conversation, it's trained in your voice. A long running trend of outsourcing humanity to technology. Good news for philosophers though, they finally might have their moment of actual relevancy. In particular to answer the question: what is the point of anything, really?

roryisok 4y ago
> In a rare moment of humanity, one of your friends calls you. AI knows all about your friends and their recent events so had already summarized talking points. In case you can't be bothered, AI will carry out the actual conversation, it's trained in your voice I love this thought. Why not go further, have AI reach out to my friends and ask them about things they (or their AIs) recently told "me" about? Soon our AIs will carry on our social lives and we'll just lie in the dark with tubes in us. We become the computers, and the computers become us, and the robots have finally won.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  > I love this thought. Why not go further, have AI reach out to my friends and ask them about things they (or their AIs) recently told "me" about? We already have this. Secretaries. Automated Happy Birthday emails. When I was in a sales engineering role our sales team had a admin assistant who would sent out follow-ups, check-ins, and other correspondence (e.g. customer made a big public release, so congratulate them, etc.). This is just another example of robots takin ur jerbs, basically.
- dahwolf 4y ago
  Yep, our AI voice equivalents could maintain friendships with each other in which case the "what is the point?" question applies. Or, you might reach out for real but fail to be sure if you're talking to your real friend or not. Or how about this interesting second-order effect: email. Soon Office will include advanced AI capabilities to write and reply to email. What is the point of me reading it? If my AI can generate a satisfactory reply, your AI could have generated the response too. No email needed, nor a reply. We're now in a phase where anybody can generate spectacular art. What is the point of me looking at your generated art? AI can generate personalized art based on what it knows I like. If AI works, and it's headed that way, you keep ending up at the same question: what is the point of anything? As counter force, there's significant room for a new low tech hippie Luddite movement.
  - roryisok 4y ago
    > Soon Office will include advanced AI capabilities to write and reply to email. What is the point of me reading it? If my AI can generate a satisfactory reply, your AI could have generated the response too. No email needed, nor a reply. You'd be kind of daft not to proof-read the emails your AI sends out on your behalf. who knows what you might unknowingly agree to do? > We're now in a phase where anybody can generate spectacular art. What is the point of me looking at your generated art? AI can generate personalized art based on what it knows I like. If AI works, and it's headed that way, you keep ending up at the same question: what is the point of anything? there is no point to anything, there wasn't before AI and there isn't now. anything we do is meaningless, because eventually we all die, and our efforts are ultimately forgotten. once you get over that you can make your peace with whether the pretty thing you look at is made by a human feeding sentences to a computer or a human carefully marking paper with a pencil, or some combo. but seriously, as a human who has spent all of my life doodling, drawing, illustrating, painting, thousands of hours creating my own art, and even building my own tools to do so, I find AI is just another tool in the box. I can use it to make images, and now someone who has not spent most of their life drawing can use it to make something more visually stunning than I ever could. has it rendered my efforts meaningless? hell no, I enjoyed every second I spent drawing. I still draw. but I don't harbour any illusions that I'm doing it for anyone other than myself.
solarmist 4y ago
South Park did it last week.
golergka 4y ago
Remote work brings people together. Instead of being in an office with colleagues, I'm in the same space with my significant other, and what used to be smoke breaks are now sex breaks. The time I used to waste on commute I now use to meet with friends and acquaintances.
- gumballindie 4y ago
  Some people are so devoid of life that they think the formality of an office is what counts as friendship.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    If my colleague calls me at least two times a day that means they like me and we're friends
    - gumballindie 4y ago
      They like you so much they want you to stop seeing your family and return to office so you can provide emotional support and water cooler chats.
- tick_tock_tick 4y ago
  I mean I agree for my life but only because I already built up my social circle from these shared spaces. What's someone fresh out of school in a new city supposed to do in 20 years?
  - golergka 4y ago
    Go to bars, clubs, hobbies centers, on tinder dates, to sport games, to friends house parties, to theaters, to restoraunts, to parks, to museums, to wine tastings, to internet forums and world of Warcraft guilds, to Facebook groups, to irc chats, to mailing lists. Putting your responsibility to find social relationships off on your job is pathetic.
- dahwolf 4y ago
unsupp0rted 4y ago
We gave up our humanity when we came down from the trees, then again when we started cooking our food, then again when we made up languages, started writing, reading, and counting... the list goes on. Whatever "our humanity" is, we don't seem to be the worse for having lost it and made up a new one over and over. Each time might be the last, but so far we've done well.
- lonelyasacloud 4y ago
  "done well"? At best isn't the jury out on that one pending what is left after we've handled climate change?
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    So far we've done well. We may annihilate a big chunk of life on the planet in a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow, but up to today we're ok. It's too early to tell what comes next. If we're going to penalize humanity for climate change we might as well give points to humanity for becoming capable of diverting asteroids or curing multi-species plagues too.
    - lonelyasacloud 4y ago
      > We may annihilate a big chunk of life on the planet in a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow, but up to today we're ok. UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’( https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur... ). UN climate report: Scientists release 'survival guide' to avert climate disaster (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65000182 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65000182) Sorry, not seeing doing ok.
      - colonCapitalDee 4y ago
        Climate change is horrible and will change life on Earth for the worst for all forms of life, including humans. But given the choice between (a) no industrial revolution and no climate change, and (b) industrial revolution and climate change, I'm picking (b) every time and it isn't even close.
conductr 4y ago
We’re slowly opting into the matrix.
throwaway675309 4y ago
"In a rare moment of humanity, one of your friends calls you. AI knows all about your friends and their recent events so had already summarized talking points. In case you can't be bothered, AI will carry out the actual conversation, it's trained in your voice." This is the premise of an episode of Silicon Valley where Guilfoyle trains an AI to act as his chat agent surrogate based on his historical transcripts, and then his colleague creates another one and they end up just conversing with each other.

roryisok 4y ago

> In a rare moment of humanity, one of your friends calls you. AI knows all about your friends and their recent events so had already summarized talking points. In case you can't be bothered, AI will carry out the actual conversation, it's trained in your voice I love this thought. Why not go further, have AI reach out to my friends and ask them about things they (or their AIs) recently told "me" about? Soon our AIs will carry on our social lives and we'll just lie in the dark with tubes in us. We become the computers, and the computers become us, and the robots have finally won.

red-iron-pine 4y ago
> I love this thought. Why not go further, have AI reach out to my friends and ask them about things they (or their AIs) recently told "me" about? We already have this. Secretaries. Automated Happy Birthday emails. When I was in a sales engineering role our sales team had a admin assistant who would sent out follow-ups, check-ins, and other correspondence (e.g. customer made a big public release, so congratulate them, etc.). This is just another example of robots takin ur jerbs, basically.
dahwolf 4y ago
Yep, our AI voice equivalents could maintain friendships with each other in which case the "what is the point?" question applies. Or, you might reach out for real but fail to be sure if you're talking to your real friend or not. Or how about this interesting second-order effect: email. Soon Office will include advanced AI capabilities to write and reply to email. What is the point of me reading it? If my AI can generate a satisfactory reply, your AI could have generated the response too. No email needed, nor a reply. We're now in a phase where anybody can generate spectacular art. What is the point of me looking at your generated art? AI can generate personalized art based on what it knows I like. If AI works, and it's headed that way, you keep ending up at the same question: what is the point of anything? As counter force, there's significant room for a new low tech hippie Luddite movement.
- roryisok 4y ago
  > Soon Office will include advanced AI capabilities to write and reply to email. What is the point of me reading it? If my AI can generate a satisfactory reply, your AI could have generated the response too. No email needed, nor a reply. You'd be kind of daft not to proof-read the emails your AI sends out on your behalf. who knows what you might unknowingly agree to do? > We're now in a phase where anybody can generate spectacular art. What is the point of me looking at your generated art? AI can generate personalized art based on what it knows I like. If AI works, and it's headed that way, you keep ending up at the same question: what is the point of anything? there is no point to anything, there wasn't before AI and there isn't now. anything we do is meaningless, because eventually we all die, and our efforts are ultimately forgotten. once you get over that you can make your peace with whether the pretty thing you look at is made by a human feeding sentences to a computer or a human carefully marking paper with a pencil, or some combo. but seriously, as a human who has spent all of my life doodling, drawing, illustrating, painting, thousands of hours creating my own art, and even building my own tools to do so, I find AI is just another tool in the box. I can use it to make images, and now someone who has not spent most of their life drawing can use it to make something more visually stunning than I ever could. has it rendered my efforts meaningless? hell no, I enjoyed every second I spent drawing. I still draw. but I don't harbour any illusions that I'm doing it for anyone other than myself.

solarmist 4y ago

South Park did it last week.

golergka 4y ago

Remote work brings people together. Instead of being in an office with colleagues, I'm in the same space with my significant other, and what used to be smoke breaks are now sex breaks. The time I used to waste on commute I now use to meet with friends and acquaintances.

gumballindie 4y ago
Some people are so devoid of life that they think the formality of an office is what counts as friendship.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  If my colleague calls me at least two times a day that means they like me and we're friends
  - gumballindie 4y ago
    They like you so much they want you to stop seeing your family and return to office so you can provide emotional support and water cooler chats.
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
I mean I agree for my life but only because I already built up my social circle from these shared spaces. What's someone fresh out of school in a new city supposed to do in 20 years?
- golergka 4y ago
  Go to bars, clubs, hobbies centers, on tinder dates, to sport games, to friends house parties, to theaters, to restoraunts, to parks, to museums, to wine tastings, to internet forums and world of Warcraft guilds, to Facebook groups, to irc chats, to mailing lists. Putting your responsibility to find social relationships off on your job is pathetic.
dahwolf 4y ago

unsupp0rted 4y ago

We gave up our humanity when we came down from the trees, then again when we started cooking our food, then again when we made up languages, started writing, reading, and counting... the list goes on. Whatever "our humanity" is, we don't seem to be the worse for having lost it and made up a new one over and over. Each time might be the last, but so far we've done well.

lonelyasacloud 4y ago
"done well"? At best isn't the jury out on that one pending what is left after we've handled climate change?
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  So far we've done well. We may annihilate a big chunk of life on the planet in a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow, but up to today we're ok. It's too early to tell what comes next. If we're going to penalize humanity for climate change we might as well give points to humanity for becoming capable of diverting asteroids or curing multi-species plagues too.
  - lonelyasacloud 4y ago
    > We may annihilate a big chunk of life on the planet in a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow, but up to today we're ok. UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’( https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur... ). UN climate report: Scientists release 'survival guide' to avert climate disaster (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65000182 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65000182) Sorry, not seeing doing ok.
    - colonCapitalDee 4y ago
      Climate change is horrible and will change life on Earth for the worst for all forms of life, including humans. But given the choice between (a) no industrial revolution and no climate change, and (b) industrial revolution and climate change, I'm picking (b) every time and it isn't even close.

conductr 4y ago

We’re slowly opting into the matrix.

throwaway675309 4y ago

"In a rare moment of humanity, one of your friends calls you. AI knows all about your friends and their recent events so had already summarized talking points. In case you can't be bothered, AI will carry out the actual conversation, it's trained in your voice." This is the premise of an episode of Silicon Valley where Guilfoyle trains an AI to act as his chat agent surrogate based on his historical transcripts, and then his colleague creates another one and they end up just conversing with each other.