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The main fallacy with this article is assuming that generative AI is just another tool that we use. But what happens when the tool becomes far more capable inte

The main fallacy with this article is assuming that generative AI is just another tool that we use. But what happens when the tool becomes far more capable intellectually than the person wielding the tool? Why have that person around? What would they do that the AI can't do? We're not there yet of course and short term this dynamic plays out of tools enhancing productivity and lowering cost. But at some point it flips around to the point where an AI can now do anything that we do faster, better, and cheaper. Of course that kind of thinking is also a bit of a fallacy because there is a third way of some people enhancing themselves with AI to level up their own capabilities. These hybrid/enhanced individuals would be able to complement each other and be able to interface with both the real world and the digital world far more efficiently. We'll be competing with our enhanced future selves. Maybe they'll ditch the wetware at some point but the near future is a hybrid of hardware and wetware.

rahimnathwani 3y ago
The article already mentions this objection: The really fundamental objection to everything I’ve just said is to ask what would happen if we had a system that didn’t have an error rate, didn’t hallucinate, and really could do anything that people can do. If we had that, then you might not have one accountant using Excel to get the output of ten accountants: you might just have the machine. This time, it really would be be different. Where previous waves of automation meant one person could do more, now you don’t need the person.
goatlover 3y ago
The question we should be asking is why do we want AI that can do anything faster, better, cheaper than us? Corporations would like to not have to pay labor costs, and some would argue a society where nobody has to work is utopian. But do you trust governments like the US to figure out UBI? Do we really have any sort of sociological understanding of what such a society would be like? Do we have an understanding of what war will look like? One could argue that AI should only ever be tool to enhance human capabilities, not something to replace humans. Why do we want to do that? For whose benefit?
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Because we can use them to eliminate tedious tasks and make better use of our limited time on this mortal coil. The article covers this. Is it bad that we don't have teams of people spending their lives pulling barges up rivers or writing out copies of documents by hand? No, it isn't bad.
sanderjd 3y ago
This keeps happening in these discussions, instead of discussing LLMs, people want to skip to discussing this other, totally speculative, thing. It's like people are already bored with this new technology and have nothing to say about it, so they talk about this other thing that isn't boring yet.

rahimnathwani 3y ago

The article already mentions this objection: The really fundamental objection to everything I’ve just said is to ask what would happen if we had a system that didn’t have an error rate, didn’t hallucinate, and really could do anything that people can do. If we had that, then you might not have one accountant using Excel to get the output of ten accountants: you might just have the machine. This time, it really would be be different. Where previous waves of automation meant one person could do more, now you don’t need the person.

goatlover 3y ago

The question we should be asking is why do we want AI that can do anything faster, better, cheaper than us? Corporations would like to not have to pay labor costs, and some would argue a society where nobody has to work is utopian. But do you trust governments like the US to figure out UBI? Do we really have any sort of sociological understanding of what such a society would be like? Do we have an understanding of what war will look like? One could argue that AI should only ever be tool to enhance human capabilities, not something to replace humans. Why do we want to do that? For whose benefit?

sanderjd 3y ago
Because we can use them to eliminate tedious tasks and make better use of our limited time on this mortal coil. The article covers this. Is it bad that we don't have teams of people spending their lives pulling barges up rivers or writing out copies of documents by hand? No, it isn't bad.

sanderjd 3y ago

This keeps happening in these discussions, instead of discussing LLMs, people want to skip to discussing this other, totally speculative, thing. It's like people are already bored with this new technology and have nothing to say about it, so they talk about this other thing that isn't boring yet.