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> Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? This is the part about generative AI that gives me the most profound anxiety about our f

> Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? This is the part about generative AI that gives me the most profound anxiety about our future. Every thing I know about human psychology tells me that in order for people to thrive, we need to be needed by others. A world where everyone is more or less alone consuming media automatically generated machines might be a world where people nominally have all their problems solved, but it's a world where everyone will be absolutely miserable. We are already living in the throes of the societal impact of outsourcing or automating away many of the male-dominated blue collar jobs in the US that provided fulfilling jobs for people with limited education. Where do you think so much of the male rage driving US politics today is coming from? Now imagine what happens to the fabric of society if you automate away most of the white collar jobs too. People are like border collies. If we don't have a job, not literally a job job, but like, meaningful work in service of others we care about, we will start chewing up the furniture.

fasterik 4y ago
There seems to be a contradiction in the picture of the world you're drawing. Humans deeply need to be needed by others, yet when all our problems are solved we will sit around alone consuming media? If we were truly in that situation, why wouldn't our deep needs drive us to spend our days with friends and family, pursuing creative projects, and inventing new problems to solve?
- rizzaxc 4y ago
  not everyone can resist instant gratification; not to mention the intelligence hurdle 'pursuing creative projects, and inventing new problems to solve' entails. i think both are true, that humans need to be needed but we're also wired to be 'lazy' and 'energy efficient'
- munificent 4y ago
  For the same reason we: * Eat a bag of chips instead of cooking a meal. * Watch a travel show instead of leaving the house. * Binge watch a vlogger and become a superfan instead of nurturing a real symmetric friendship. * Read books about how to draw but never fill a sketchbook. * Buy a gym membership but never go. Because delaying gratification is hard and we're just poor apes doing the best we can.
  - fasterik 4y ago
    Sounds like your issue isn't with automation, it's with the human condition. It reminds me of this passage from Schopenhauer: If every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty; in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. While I see some truth in this kind pessimism, I don't think it means that so-called utopia is necessarily worse than the world we live in today. I agree that human problems aren't going away, but I think we underestimate the potential value of removing the need to have a "job" to acquire the basic necessities for survival and the amount of suffering that causes today.
    - machiaweliczny 4y ago
      I am in top 10% earners in the world and I would love for more work to be still automated. I would simply ride a bike more, feast, dance and play and tons of other stuff like create own virtual worlds etc. Currently it’s hard to find to coordinate for these activities as work occupies lots of time. If from this advancement we will be able to get 4 day work week and 4 day weekend it will be huge thing.
    - munificent 4y ago
      > Sounds like your issue isn't with automation, it's with the human condition. Absolutely 100% not. There is nothing pessimistic about my understanding of the human condition. I love that humans are this way: that our greatest sense of satisfaction comes not from infinite self-indulgence, but from strenous labor in service of those we care about. What could be more noble than that? (Of course, I admit that I only perceive it as noble because of thousands of years of evolution where tribes of humans that cooperated were more fit than ones that didn't. But I am a human, and if I have to evaluate my value system using my value system, I'll choose to evaluate it positively.) My issue is with systems that deliberately or as an unintended emergent property run afoul of human nature. Working well with human nature should be the ultimate goal of any tool or system used by humans. The things we build should help us flourish in all of the ways that our species has evolved to do best in. If a chair is comfortable on your butt, it's a problem with the chair, not the butt.
lukeplato 4y ago
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands
djokkataja 4y ago
If we consider an actually aligned AGI rather than merely generative AI, I would expect that this would be accounted for. And AGI could help to open up possibilities for intelligence amplification, which has gone by the wayside compared with all the explosive advances in AI. If humans have routes to continue developing in various ways, then we're not stuck sitting around with all our "problems solved." Granted, that's still really nebulous, but I like the idea of it better than endless cosmic boredom.

fasterik 4y ago

There seems to be a contradiction in the picture of the world you're drawing. Humans deeply need to be needed by others, yet when all our problems are solved we will sit around alone consuming media? If we were truly in that situation, why wouldn't our deep needs drive us to spend our days with friends and family, pursuing creative projects, and inventing new problems to solve?

rizzaxc 4y ago
not everyone can resist instant gratification; not to mention the intelligence hurdle 'pursuing creative projects, and inventing new problems to solve' entails. i think both are true, that humans need to be needed but we're also wired to be 'lazy' and 'energy efficient'
munificent 4y ago
For the same reason we: * Eat a bag of chips instead of cooking a meal. * Watch a travel show instead of leaving the house. * Binge watch a vlogger and become a superfan instead of nurturing a real symmetric friendship. * Read books about how to draw but never fill a sketchbook. * Buy a gym membership but never go. Because delaying gratification is hard and we're just poor apes doing the best we can.
- fasterik 4y ago
  Sounds like your issue isn't with automation, it's with the human condition. It reminds me of this passage from Schopenhauer: If every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty; in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. While I see some truth in this kind pessimism, I don't think it means that so-called utopia is necessarily worse than the world we live in today. I agree that human problems aren't going away, but I think we underestimate the potential value of removing the need to have a "job" to acquire the basic necessities for survival and the amount of suffering that causes today.
  - machiaweliczny 4y ago
    I am in top 10% earners in the world and I would love for more work to be still automated. I would simply ride a bike more, feast, dance and play and tons of other stuff like create own virtual worlds etc. Currently it’s hard to find to coordinate for these activities as work occupies lots of time. If from this advancement we will be able to get 4 day work week and 4 day weekend it will be huge thing.
  - munificent 4y ago
    > Sounds like your issue isn't with automation, it's with the human condition. Absolutely 100% not. There is nothing pessimistic about my understanding of the human condition. I love that humans are this way: that our greatest sense of satisfaction comes not from infinite self-indulgence, but from strenous labor in service of those we care about. What could be more noble than that? (Of course, I admit that I only perceive it as noble because of thousands of years of evolution where tribes of humans that cooperated were more fit than ones that didn't. But I am a human, and if I have to evaluate my value system using my value system, I'll choose to evaluate it positively.) My issue is with systems that deliberately or as an unintended emergent property run afoul of human nature. Working well with human nature should be the ultimate goal of any tool or system used by humans. The things we build should help us flourish in all of the ways that our species has evolved to do best in. If a chair is comfortable on your butt, it's a problem with the chair, not the butt.

lukeplato 4y ago

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands

djokkataja 4y ago

If we consider an actually aligned AGI rather than merely generative AI, I would expect that this would be accounted for. And AGI could help to open up possibilities for intelligence amplification, which has gone by the wayside compared with all the explosive advances in AI. If humans have routes to continue developing in various ways, then we're not stuck sitting around with all our "problems solved." Granted, that's still really nebulous, but I like the idea of it better than endless cosmic boredom.