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If you want to create an AGI it will eventually "target" all professions. Art, writing, and basic programming are just the easiest ones to tackle first. You ha

If you want to create an AGI it will eventually "target" all professions. Art, writing, and basic programming are just the easiest ones to tackle first. You have fast iteration cycles because iteration is virtual. This temporary period of difficulty is the price we pay for AGI, which will yield far more benefit in the long run.

sophacles 3y ago
> which will yield far more benefit in the long run. This is questionable at best. Im glad you have optimism, but do you have any facts that show it won't be a long run benefit like cfcs, or lead in everything? > This temporary period of difficulty is the price we pay... Im glad you're signing me up for difficulty. I get that you probably think you stand to benefit in some way from AGI, so why don't you pay the price yourself instead of volunteering others? Maybe it's because the difficulty that it causes really really sucks, and the benefit isn't worth paying the price yourself?
- xvector 3y ago
  Coal workers don't like renewables even though it's great for humanity because it threatens their jobs. The same goes for AGI and everyone else. It's irrelevant what the average person thinks about AGI because they can't see past the short term fear of losing their job. They can't see the billions of lives that will be saved, the therapies and medicines and technologies that will be developed, etc. Nothing about the concept of the "singularity" registers, just fear about their next paycheck - a fear to be expressed to their government at that, instead of killing progress that may one day save their own or their children's lives. We volunteer you for AGI, and myself, and everyone else, because our selfish shortsighted nature and fear for our jobs are not worth the lives and suffering and death and disease of billions of people to come. It's sad that we lose our jobs - but it is the price we pay for the cure to everything. The best we can do is implement UBI while we make this transition as a species. Trying to stop the development of AGI out of this fear is akin to being a plague doctor trying to stop the development of penicillin so as to not be out of work. I get it, we are all afraid for our jobs, but their importance does not stand a candle to the reduction in global human suffering AGI would be able to net us. We are all literally going to die, you hear me? You, me, our children. It's not going to be pretty, because the lack of choice/consent around dying is the single biggest driver of human suffering, full stop. But AGI could at least give us a choice here, a choice to spend many decades more in healthy life with those we cherish and love, fully provided for and safe and secure, and that's worth more than any job.
  - sophacles 3y ago
    I never said anything about stopping AI. I just pointed out that rushing into something that could make things better has historically involved an awful lot of suffering for people. An awful lot of things that were promoted as short term suffering for some people to make life better for everone (that remained) turned out to be long on the suffering and short on the "better". So here's my thinking about an alternate plan: What if we moved forward in a way that both advances the tech and also doesn't force suffering on people? This is possible. There is no evidence that any of your promises, maybes and coulds are anything but words, and as such you are gambling other people's lives. The idea that "maybe we can help people in the future if we hurt them now" is merely a delusion without evidence, a lie those that hurt people on a whim tell themselves to justify and hide their true motives.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Call everyone scared where their next meal is going to come from selfish all you want, that isn't helping them, their spouse, or their kids not go hungry. Maybe it's the gift of hindsight, but the plague doctor could transition to using penicillin to treat their patients. It's less clear what a jr frontend dev or data scientist is going to do. Saying there's a singularity in the future, when that's so very far from a guaranteed future in many people's eyes - who's to say we don't end up with a dystopian Terminator future rather than a utopian Star Trek future? Your time machine is just as good as theirs. We have three choices for our future. The billionaires, corporations, and the government. One of those three is where the singularity is going to come from. Which do you pick? Unfortunately, all three a flawed in different ways, so utopian Star Trek future of the singularity is by no means even guaranteed inn the first place. You want people to trust that one of those three groups will just grant the rest of us living in the singularity. For all of human history, every revolution, it's been the same - there's been new jobs created. Just wait for it to be different this time. Avoiding the question of if we'll ever develop AGI because it's irrelevant, the question is when will machines be able to fix themselves, because that's when no new jobs or follow on jobs need be created. If no new jobs end up being created, then what? One time, it'll be different. I don't think we're looking at that quite just yet, but it doesn't see that far off in the future. Openinterpreter is already fixing problems for me on my computer without much intervention, robots doing the same for robots really doesn't seem impossibly far off.
rob74 3y ago
Far more benefit - but the question is, for whom? And don't start with topics like universal basic income, I'm not very optimistic about that. The way it's looking like right now, in the long run 1% will reap the benefits, while 99% will be out of a job...
- jackling 3y ago
  Strange to ask the question, but eliminate one of the strongest arguments right off the bat. Should probably explain why UBI is not feasible in this scenario. As for benefits, likely for everyone. People don't work just to make money, people make money since they work and produce for society right? Making money was never the end goal, and if we can avoid more work, that should be better for society as a whole.
  - GPerson 3y ago
    I’m not making an argument here. What I would like explained is why we don’t already have UBI, given that mass production and automation has existed for a very long time already.
    - jackling 3y ago
      The new form of automation is different than previous forms, that could be a reason why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU&ab_channel=CGPGrey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU&ab_channel=CGPGr.... In short, automation shifted the amount that needed to be done in certain industries. AI could possibly make shift so large that there won't be enough work for everyone to do.
      - GPerson 3y ago
        Automation practically eliminated the labor required to provide for the basic necessities of human survival, but if I don’t maintain an increasingly inconsequential job, then I will die homeless in the streets in short order. I’m really not trying to argue for or against any new technology. But I don’t see why any new technological change necessarily brings about UBI given the absolutely drastic reduction in the amount of labor necessary for human survival we already achieved in the mid 1900’s. So my question is still, why did the old forms of automation not bring about a post scarcity utopia (or at least a UBI)?

sophacles 3y ago

> which will yield far more benefit in the long run. This is questionable at best. Im glad you have optimism, but do you have any facts that show it won't be a long run benefit like cfcs, or lead in everything? > This temporary period of difficulty is the price we pay... Im glad you're signing me up for difficulty. I get that you probably think you stand to benefit in some way from AGI, so why don't you pay the price yourself instead of volunteering others? Maybe it's because the difficulty that it causes really really sucks, and the benefit isn't worth paying the price yourself?

xvector 3y ago
Coal workers don't like renewables even though it's great for humanity because it threatens their jobs. The same goes for AGI and everyone else. It's irrelevant what the average person thinks about AGI because they can't see past the short term fear of losing their job. They can't see the billions of lives that will be saved, the therapies and medicines and technologies that will be developed, etc. Nothing about the concept of the "singularity" registers, just fear about their next paycheck - a fear to be expressed to their government at that, instead of killing progress that may one day save their own or their children's lives. We volunteer you for AGI, and myself, and everyone else, because our selfish shortsighted nature and fear for our jobs are not worth the lives and suffering and death and disease of billions of people to come. It's sad that we lose our jobs - but it is the price we pay for the cure to everything. The best we can do is implement UBI while we make this transition as a species. Trying to stop the development of AGI out of this fear is akin to being a plague doctor trying to stop the development of penicillin so as to not be out of work. I get it, we are all afraid for our jobs, but their importance does not stand a candle to the reduction in global human suffering AGI would be able to net us. We are all literally going to die, you hear me? You, me, our children. It's not going to be pretty, because the lack of choice/consent around dying is the single biggest driver of human suffering, full stop. But AGI could at least give us a choice here, a choice to spend many decades more in healthy life with those we cherish and love, fully provided for and safe and secure, and that's worth more than any job.
- sophacles 3y ago
  I never said anything about stopping AI. I just pointed out that rushing into something that could make things better has historically involved an awful lot of suffering for people. An awful lot of things that were promoted as short term suffering for some people to make life better for everone (that remained) turned out to be long on the suffering and short on the "better". So here's my thinking about an alternate plan: What if we moved forward in a way that both advances the tech and also doesn't force suffering on people? This is possible. There is no evidence that any of your promises, maybes and coulds are anything but words, and as such you are gambling other people's lives. The idea that "maybe we can help people in the future if we hurt them now" is merely a delusion without evidence, a lie those that hurt people on a whim tell themselves to justify and hide their true motives.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Call everyone scared where their next meal is going to come from selfish all you want, that isn't helping them, their spouse, or their kids not go hungry. Maybe it's the gift of hindsight, but the plague doctor could transition to using penicillin to treat their patients. It's less clear what a jr frontend dev or data scientist is going to do. Saying there's a singularity in the future, when that's so very far from a guaranteed future in many people's eyes - who's to say we don't end up with a dystopian Terminator future rather than a utopian Star Trek future? Your time machine is just as good as theirs. We have three choices for our future. The billionaires, corporations, and the government. One of those three is where the singularity is going to come from. Which do you pick? Unfortunately, all three a flawed in different ways, so utopian Star Trek future of the singularity is by no means even guaranteed inn the first place. You want people to trust that one of those three groups will just grant the rest of us living in the singularity. For all of human history, every revolution, it's been the same - there's been new jobs created. Just wait for it to be different this time. Avoiding the question of if we'll ever develop AGI because it's irrelevant, the question is when will machines be able to fix themselves, because that's when no new jobs or follow on jobs need be created. If no new jobs end up being created, then what? One time, it'll be different. I don't think we're looking at that quite just yet, but it doesn't see that far off in the future. Openinterpreter is already fixing problems for me on my computer without much intervention, robots doing the same for robots really doesn't seem impossibly far off.

rob74 3y ago

Far more benefit - but the question is, for whom? And don't start with topics like universal basic income, I'm not very optimistic about that. The way it's looking like right now, in the long run 1% will reap the benefits, while 99% will be out of a job...

jackling 3y ago
Strange to ask the question, but eliminate one of the strongest arguments right off the bat. Should probably explain why UBI is not feasible in this scenario. As for benefits, likely for everyone. People don't work just to make money, people make money since they work and produce for society right? Making money was never the end goal, and if we can avoid more work, that should be better for society as a whole.
- GPerson 3y ago
  I’m not making an argument here. What I would like explained is why we don’t already have UBI, given that mass production and automation has existed for a very long time already.
  - jackling 3y ago
    The new form of automation is different than previous forms, that could be a reason why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU&ab_channel=CGPGrey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU&ab_channel=CGPGr.... In short, automation shifted the amount that needed to be done in certain industries. AI could possibly make shift so large that there won't be enough work for everyone to do.
    - GPerson 3y ago
      Automation practically eliminated the labor required to provide for the basic necessities of human survival, but if I don’t maintain an increasingly inconsequential job, then I will die homeless in the streets in short order. I’m really not trying to argue for or against any new technology. But I don’t see why any new technological change necessarily brings about UBI given the absolutely drastic reduction in the amount of labor necessary for human survival we already achieved in the mid 1900’s. So my question is still, why did the old forms of automation not bring about a post scarcity utopia (or at least a UBI)?