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> skilled manufacturing labor, research and design, testing and iteration, hypothesizing and postulating is all done better by humans Currently. The point is t

> skilled manufacturing labor, research and design, testing and iteration, hypothesizing and postulating is all done better by humans Currently. The point is that it will likely improve to the point where AI can do this better. Why would there be a hard limit somewhere under the ability of humans? AI is already better at writing than most high-schoolers, why couldn't it be better at other learnable skills once the training data, compute and architecture is sufficient? >Go talk to an AI, it's dumber than a sack of rocks Lmao hyperbolic, even jokey statements like this aren't convincing. What does a sack of rocks score on the MMLU? How many companies have laid off thousands because sacks of rocks can do their human employees' jobs better? The point of my post isn't that AI is currently capable of the changes I've discussed, but the rate of improvement in general capabilities makes a future where this isn't as unreasonable as any random sci-fi scenario. Why do people insist that current limitations with AI will always persist and it will never improve? Remember AI video a year ago? Then SORA came out.

talldayo 2y ago
Look, automation is here. The existence of line-replaceable employees, 24/7 manufacturing and machine-assisted assembly is a century old today, we're currently living in the post-automation world and very little has changed. Humans do different things and the job market looks different as a result. I don't know what your proximity to the field is, but I've basically worked in robotics and industrial automation since I was a high schooler. Nobody is talking about this stuff; it's a sideshow reserved for wooing investors and particularly gullible public audiences. Know why? Because computer vision has been used in production for over a decade now. We've already replaced those jobs and moved on. ChatGPT-4o isn't even a party trick to these people. If you continue to assume that AI will accelerate along a neverending path of success, then you'll believe anything. I have watched and implimented LLMs since BERT was released and I strongly feel that you are overestimating ChatGPT's capabilities to an unreal degree.
- atleastoptimal 2y ago
  I understand that ChatGPT isn't an industrial grade offering. It was meant as a research demo and I still believe it best functions as that. What it does however show is a slice of how far a generally capable agent can perform at a wide range of tasks, not simply ones in the narrow range it was specifically trained for. I couldn't use ChatGPT 3.5 for anything useful. Now I can describe the mechanics of an entirely new game with abstract rules I invented offhand and it can code a workable demo. I can give it specific feedback and it will fix it reasonably well. Of course once things get really really subtle and complex it starts hallucinating, but the fact that it did so well on the first try is astounding given how crappy these things were 4 years ago. > I've basically worked in robotics and industrial automation since I was a high schooler. Nobody is talking about this stuff Then why is China planning a massive initiative to mass-produce humanoid robots in the next year? (https://www.therobotreport.com/china-plans-to-mass-produce-humanoids-by-2025/ https://www.therobotreport.com/china-plans-to-mass-produce-h...). Why are billions being funneled into these efforts? Of course you can believe that all investors and the entire country of China is delusional but at some point there is reason to assume that things might just be starting to change in a way that isn't directly proportional to past changes.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > Of course you can believe that all investors and the entire country of China is delusional I have been doing that for as long as I've been familiar with the cycles of venture capital and authoritarianism, respectively. Why did China spend billions of dollars promoting cryptocurrency on the global stage only for their investments to go unrequited? Because trends come and go, and powerful people would rather look like they're ahead than actually do something actually novel. The original thread you submit borders on hysteria and suggests to me that you lack perspective on how other people in the world live. Things will be fine.
    - atleastoptimal 2y ago
      > powerful people would rather look like they're ahead than actually do something actually novel. Except China actually has done a lot of novel huge investments that led to their manufacturing might. If their authoritarian excess weren't beneficial or productive on-net, they wouldn't be the second biggest economy in the world with the largest manufacturing capacity. Likewise, with VC hype, if VC's were wrong more often then not, they wouldn't be trusted with billions to invest, they'd be penniless, and more sound, rational investors would naturally adopt their role in the market. Of course hype is a major part of this, but every groundbreaking technology had a hype cycle, it doesn't mean they ended up being useless. However, even if this is all hype, your previous comment said "nobody is talking about this", which is obviously not the case, unless the stated aim of Chinese manufacturing, Tesla, Figure, Sanctuary AI, Boston Dynamics, the hundreds of AI startups popping up securing unicorn funding, etc. count as no one. Regarding my original thread, I don't believe it is 100% likely to happen, but I feel it's important to be able to map out possible futures clearly so that there is substance to argue against why the premises leading to that future are more/less likely than implied. Simply saying "this is all bullshit, nobody is talking about this, nothing will happen, everything will be fine" is a pleasant thing to think about but it doesn't address the nature of the premise or how things are shaping up.

talldayo 2y ago

Look, automation is here. The existence of line-replaceable employees, 24/7 manufacturing and machine-assisted assembly is a century old today, we're currently living in the post-automation world and very little has changed. Humans do different things and the job market looks different as a result. I don't know what your proximity to the field is, but I've basically worked in robotics and industrial automation since I was a high schooler. Nobody is talking about this stuff; it's a sideshow reserved for wooing investors and particularly gullible public audiences. Know why? Because computer vision has been used in production for over a decade now. We've already replaced those jobs and moved on. ChatGPT-4o isn't even a party trick to these people. If you continue to assume that AI will accelerate along a neverending path of success, then you'll believe anything. I have watched and implimented LLMs since BERT was released and I strongly feel that you are overestimating ChatGPT's capabilities to an unreal degree.

atleastoptimal 2y ago
I understand that ChatGPT isn't an industrial grade offering. It was meant as a research demo and I still believe it best functions as that. What it does however show is a slice of how far a generally capable agent can perform at a wide range of tasks, not simply ones in the narrow range it was specifically trained for. I couldn't use ChatGPT 3.5 for anything useful. Now I can describe the mechanics of an entirely new game with abstract rules I invented offhand and it can code a workable demo. I can give it specific feedback and it will fix it reasonably well. Of course once things get really really subtle and complex it starts hallucinating, but the fact that it did so well on the first try is astounding given how crappy these things were 4 years ago. > I've basically worked in robotics and industrial automation since I was a high schooler. Nobody is talking about this stuff Then why is China planning a massive initiative to mass-produce humanoid robots in the next year? (https://www.therobotreport.com/china-plans-to-mass-produce-humanoids-by-2025/ https://www.therobotreport.com/china-plans-to-mass-produce-h...). Why are billions being funneled into these efforts? Of course you can believe that all investors and the entire country of China is delusional but at some point there is reason to assume that things might just be starting to change in a way that isn't directly proportional to past changes.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Of course you can believe that all investors and the entire country of China is delusional I have been doing that for as long as I've been familiar with the cycles of venture capital and authoritarianism, respectively. Why did China spend billions of dollars promoting cryptocurrency on the global stage only for their investments to go unrequited? Because trends come and go, and powerful people would rather look like they're ahead than actually do something actually novel. The original thread you submit borders on hysteria and suggests to me that you lack perspective on how other people in the world live. Things will be fine.
  - atleastoptimal 2y ago
    > powerful people would rather look like they're ahead than actually do something actually novel. Except China actually has done a lot of novel huge investments that led to their manufacturing might. If their authoritarian excess weren't beneficial or productive on-net, they wouldn't be the second biggest economy in the world with the largest manufacturing capacity. Likewise, with VC hype, if VC's were wrong more often then not, they wouldn't be trusted with billions to invest, they'd be penniless, and more sound, rational investors would naturally adopt their role in the market. Of course hype is a major part of this, but every groundbreaking technology had a hype cycle, it doesn't mean they ended up being useless. However, even if this is all hype, your previous comment said "nobody is talking about this", which is obviously not the case, unless the stated aim of Chinese manufacturing, Tesla, Figure, Sanctuary AI, Boston Dynamics, the hundreds of AI startups popping up securing unicorn funding, etc. count as no one. Regarding my original thread, I don't believe it is 100% likely to happen, but I feel it's important to be able to map out possible futures clearly so that there is substance to argue against why the premises leading to that future are more/less likely than implied. Simply saying "this is all bullshit, nobody is talking about this, nothing will happen, everything will be fine" is a pleasant thing to think about but it doesn't address the nature of the premise or how things are shaping up.