3 ms·

This is the next frontier. Today, older generations of folks often marvel at (both the positives and negatives of) the way that younger generations depend on c

This is the next frontier. Today, older generations of folks often marvel at (both the positives and negatives of) the way that younger generations depend on connectivity, made possible by their phones, to navigate their lives. My major prediction for the future is that my generation, once we're old, will marvel at (the positives and negatives of) the number and magnitude of decisions that younger generations will let their technology make for them. When to leave the house; what's on the grocery list; what colleges to apply to; where to buy a house; who to pursue a relationship with - people will be guided to answers to these questions the way that our maps apps guide us to our destinations today, and many people will simply follow those guides without thinking about it too much.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ekanes 3y ago
I've thought the same, and it'll make perfect sense. If the LLM knows you very very well, and it knows the world better than any human could, it can match those up well. The effects on broader society could be interesting. If everyone knows about some secluded beach that's cheap and great, that would quickly change... I wonder if we'll see a "smoothing out" of everything so that the big outlier advantages and disadvantages will go away, because everything is known by everyone('s LLM).
- chinchilla2020 3y ago
  The LLM does not know the world better than human could. It know how to rapidly search an encylopedia better than a human could.
- cooper_ganglia 3y ago
  Or alternatively, when everyone is special, no one is. When the supply of genius goes up, the demand goes down. Everyone is a genius, so genius is no longer valued, and even those who were very naturally gifted are valueless to those who have already mopped up all the resources that control the society made up of LLM-infused geniuses. I hope the future doesn't look like the lovechild of Brave New World and Flowers for Algernon, but I have a feeling that it may...
thatfrenchguy 3y ago
I mean, we already do, everything you buy and you think is a good product vs bad is influenced by how you have been marketed to. It’s pretty obvious when you immigrate to another country and some of the decisions people make buying wise don’t make sense to you :)
vsareto 3y ago
>and many people will simply follow those guides without thinking about it too much If capitalism keeps taking the time gains from technology advancements and adding more work into that time instead of giving it back to us, we simply won't have much time to think. That creates a great environment for high-pressure sales tactics.
barrysteve 3y ago
It hasn't changed that much. In a lot of ways technology has put us into a Zen valley of unknowing. The only reason people rely on technology for 'order' is because they have been cut off from mapping out the Truth. It is only through technology that you can destroy/disrupt so much past value in a short period of time and call it progress. It is deeply sad to watch many thousands of bright lives wasted on maintaining wealth for the status quo. Getting camels through needle eyes, is only a small part of life.
- hilbert42 3y ago
  "It is only through technology that you can destroy/disrupt so much past value in a short period of time and call it progress." Oh how true. I've spent much of my life as a technologist and occasionally I've been at its cutting edge. Yet there are few tech things that have truly improved my life. Most modern tech simply adds irrecoverable overhead to one's life—and one's life speeds up just through maintaining it. Some tech has had great potential to offer advantages but has fallen short in delivery though greed, lack of agreement on standards, planned obsolescence and indifference and abuse from users. Combined, synergies have rendered much tech disappointing and very suboptimal. I look at the many thousands of irrecoverable hours I've wasted on trying to make computers do what they're supposed to do and make software like Windows just simply work as expected—which it could have easily done if it were not for the greed and intransigence of Microsoft. And nowadays printers have evil intent thanks to the proprietary actions of Canon, Epson and others. These monstrous contraptions are so only because manufacturers spend so much time and effort at optimizing their profit, and it's users who foot the expence. Similarly, technology is too often used to abuse and inconvenience people. The article's photo of the Transport for London card only sign with the caption “You can use any shade of payment, as long as its digital" is nothing other than an abuse of technology, it's the sort of brazen technocratic instruction that would make me want to jump the barrier and say 'fuck you'. Yes, it's deeply sad to see wealth misused, especially so by the powerful. It's also terribly sad to read the words of younger generations and to know there's no way of putting wisdom onto young shoulders. It's through no fault of their own that imparting experience and wisdom to them is akin to explaining color to someone who's been blind from birth. Unfortunately, it's a terrible tragedy of the human condition that knowledge of this kind can only be bought with time.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ekanes 3y ago

I've thought the same, and it'll make perfect sense. If the LLM knows you very very well, and it knows the world better than any human could, it can match those up well. The effects on broader society could be interesting. If everyone knows about some secluded beach that's cheap and great, that would quickly change... I wonder if we'll see a "smoothing out" of everything so that the big outlier advantages and disadvantages will go away, because everything is known by everyone('s LLM).

chinchilla2020 3y ago
The LLM does not know the world better than human could. It know how to rapidly search an encylopedia better than a human could.
cooper_ganglia 3y ago
Or alternatively, when everyone is special, no one is. When the supply of genius goes up, the demand goes down. Everyone is a genius, so genius is no longer valued, and even those who were very naturally gifted are valueless to those who have already mopped up all the resources that control the society made up of LLM-infused geniuses. I hope the future doesn't look like the lovechild of Brave New World and Flowers for Algernon, but I have a feeling that it may...

thatfrenchguy 3y ago

I mean, we already do, everything you buy and you think is a good product vs bad is influenced by how you have been marketed to. It’s pretty obvious when you immigrate to another country and some of the decisions people make buying wise don’t make sense to you :)

vsareto 3y ago

>and many people will simply follow those guides without thinking about it too much If capitalism keeps taking the time gains from technology advancements and adding more work into that time instead of giving it back to us, we simply won't have much time to think. That creates a great environment for high-pressure sales tactics.

barrysteve 3y ago

It hasn't changed that much. In a lot of ways technology has put us into a Zen valley of unknowing. The only reason people rely on technology for 'order' is because they have been cut off from mapping out the Truth. It is only through technology that you can destroy/disrupt so much past value in a short period of time and call it progress. It is deeply sad to watch many thousands of bright lives wasted on maintaining wealth for the status quo. Getting camels through needle eyes, is only a small part of life.

hilbert42 3y ago
"It is only through technology that you can destroy/disrupt so much past value in a short period of time and call it progress." Oh how true. I've spent much of my life as a technologist and occasionally I've been at its cutting edge. Yet there are few tech things that have truly improved my life. Most modern tech simply adds irrecoverable overhead to one's life—and one's life speeds up just through maintaining it. Some tech has had great potential to offer advantages but has fallen short in delivery though greed, lack of agreement on standards, planned obsolescence and indifference and abuse from users. Combined, synergies have rendered much tech disappointing and very suboptimal. I look at the many thousands of irrecoverable hours I've wasted on trying to make computers do what they're supposed to do and make software like Windows just simply work as expected—which it could have easily done if it were not for the greed and intransigence of Microsoft. And nowadays printers have evil intent thanks to the proprietary actions of Canon, Epson and others. These monstrous contraptions are so only because manufacturers spend so much time and effort at optimizing their profit, and it's users who foot the expence. Similarly, technology is too often used to abuse and inconvenience people. The article's photo of the Transport for London card only sign with the caption “You can use any shade of payment, as long as its digital" is nothing other than an abuse of technology, it's the sort of brazen technocratic instruction that would make me want to jump the barrier and say 'fuck you'. Yes, it's deeply sad to see wealth misused, especially so by the powerful. It's also terribly sad to read the words of younger generations and to know there's no way of putting wisdom onto young shoulders. It's through no fault of their own that imparting experience and wisdom to them is akin to explaining color to someone who's been blind from birth. Unfortunately, it's a terrible tragedy of the human condition that knowledge of this kind can only be bought with time.