4 ms·

It cheapens humans, period. In the coming years, AI will be good enough to replace X% of a human's productivity. It will be as cheap as duplicating a process in

It cheapens humans, period. In the coming years, AI will be good enough to replace X% of a human's productivity. It will be as cheap as duplicating a process in a computer somewhere. It may never get to 100% but it will get to a high level. How many human equivalents will we be able to buy for a buck? AI is not the human savior people wish it would be.

eddd-ddde 2y ago
Everything that you wrote reads to me as "human savior". The issue is capitalism. If we doubled productivity that should double quality of life. The fact that they convinced us it doesn't is the issue.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago
  Our quality of life more than doubled compared to ~50 years ago. We have powerful computers with amazing screens, constantly connected to a global network that allows you to talk to pretty much anyone on the planet, with video. That allows you to search for all kinds of information near-instantly that previously could take weeks or months of digging through libraries or newspaper archives. Computers that translate in near real time. We have medicine that solved so many diseases, and is so far ahead of what we had before. We have robots that do all kinds of boring and annoying and dangerous tasks. I have two robots cleaning and mopping my floors at home. We have whole factories that are mostly run by robot labor. We have freaking GPS! Capitalism is not the issue. It's infinitely better than any other system, which most of the time steals labor, forces labor. I grew up in USSR, I know.
advael 2y ago
I think this line of thinking is what happens when economies are allowed to calcify by consolidation of power in the hands of too few. I think the degree to which current systems are actually meaningfully transformative is greatly overstated by the tech industry. However, usually a transformative technology changes how economic distribution works. For example, even very wealthy households no longer employ as many human servants, because many of the tasks they once used human labor for are now done by household appliances. If the effect of "AI" is to cheapen human labor in its entirety, then a working economy will simply no longer center around labor, because the purpose of a working economy is to support the activities of humans by coordinating the distribution of resources. The likely alternative to the economy rearranging itself this way isn't most humans simply accepting being deprived of resources, but instead a breakdown of the cooperation necessary for most technology we have to continue functioning, as even if all the necessary infrastructure could run itself, it would also have to defend itself against defectors. Maybe it'll be effective at doing so, which probably means wiping out most humans. Of course, global-scale conflict could also do that, so it seems preferable to redistribute resources
- WheelsAtLarge 2y ago
  One problem is how fast change is coming. We can adapt to change but we can't at the speed that it is happening. People are talking about giving everyone free money to help with the transition. OK. But that leaves millions of people with more free time that they can healthily use. The quote "an idle mind is the devil's workshop", is absolutely right. Look at people that have lots of free time. See how hard they work towards killing themselves, through dangerous activities. Now imagine a whole society where the majority of members are bored because they have exhausted their entertainment. Yikes! Or just as bad, a population that is plugged into constant entertainment. Neither is good.
  - advael 2y ago
    So your position is that people who have free time mostly do awful things and your support for this position is like... a misquoted aphorism from the bible ("idle hands are the devil's workshop")? I don't find that particularly compelling at all. People find things to do with their time when they don't have external pressure on them. Most of those things are "useless" but also pretty harmless, and make them happy. Often people spend their free time building community with other people, which can often be valuable to others as well. Sometimes they do stuff like discover laws of physics or write novels. To claim that there is some great evil that comes from merely giving people more leisure time is an extraordinary claim that to me seems to lack even a modicum of evidence. Sure, some people do harmful things and we should stop them from doing those things. To attribute this to people being able to pursue their own interests is not even wrong, it's completely incoherent
    - WheelsAtLarge 2y ago
      There is no absolute proof of how people will behave. People are just too inconsistent from moment to moment. But we can get an idea from past activities. The COVID lockdown was a small view into people's behavior when they have too much idle time. I remember riots, protests, and crimes, to name a few, and that was a small amount of time. Also, when do people start to get into trouble? When they have too much time. It does have to be everyone, not even the majority, for it to be a huge problem. Even you talk about it as a "useless" use of time. It may be great for the individual at the given moment. A dopamine hit always feels good. But it's not great for society. How is that a plus for the future? Thousands of years of societal evolution just to have people figure out what to stream next. Boy, AI will lead to a great future. Happy and fruitful times are on their way. :-( AI's future is all speculation. There's no way to know until it happens but I don't see it as a plus.

eddd-ddde 2y ago

Everything that you wrote reads to me as "human savior". The issue is capitalism. If we doubled productivity that should double quality of life. The fact that they convinced us it doesn't is the issue.

bufferoverflow 2y ago
Our quality of life more than doubled compared to ~50 years ago. We have powerful computers with amazing screens, constantly connected to a global network that allows you to talk to pretty much anyone on the planet, with video. That allows you to search for all kinds of information near-instantly that previously could take weeks or months of digging through libraries or newspaper archives. Computers that translate in near real time. We have medicine that solved so many diseases, and is so far ahead of what we had before. We have robots that do all kinds of boring and annoying and dangerous tasks. I have two robots cleaning and mopping my floors at home. We have whole factories that are mostly run by robot labor. We have freaking GPS! Capitalism is not the issue. It's infinitely better than any other system, which most of the time steals labor, forces labor. I grew up in USSR, I know.

advael 2y ago

I think this line of thinking is what happens when economies are allowed to calcify by consolidation of power in the hands of too few. I think the degree to which current systems are actually meaningfully transformative is greatly overstated by the tech industry. However, usually a transformative technology changes how economic distribution works. For example, even very wealthy households no longer employ as many human servants, because many of the tasks they once used human labor for are now done by household appliances. If the effect of "AI" is to cheapen human labor in its entirety, then a working economy will simply no longer center around labor, because the purpose of a working economy is to support the activities of humans by coordinating the distribution of resources. The likely alternative to the economy rearranging itself this way isn't most humans simply accepting being deprived of resources, but instead a breakdown of the cooperation necessary for most technology we have to continue functioning, as even if all the necessary infrastructure could run itself, it would also have to defend itself against defectors. Maybe it'll be effective at doing so, which probably means wiping out most humans. Of course, global-scale conflict could also do that, so it seems preferable to redistribute resources

WheelsAtLarge 2y ago
One problem is how fast change is coming. We can adapt to change but we can't at the speed that it is happening. People are talking about giving everyone free money to help with the transition. OK. But that leaves millions of people with more free time that they can healthily use. The quote "an idle mind is the devil's workshop", is absolutely right. Look at people that have lots of free time. See how hard they work towards killing themselves, through dangerous activities. Now imagine a whole society where the majority of members are bored because they have exhausted their entertainment. Yikes! Or just as bad, a population that is plugged into constant entertainment. Neither is good.
- advael 2y ago
  So your position is that people who have free time mostly do awful things and your support for this position is like... a misquoted aphorism from the bible ("idle hands are the devil's workshop")? I don't find that particularly compelling at all. People find things to do with their time when they don't have external pressure on them. Most of those things are "useless" but also pretty harmless, and make them happy. Often people spend their free time building community with other people, which can often be valuable to others as well. Sometimes they do stuff like discover laws of physics or write novels. To claim that there is some great evil that comes from merely giving people more leisure time is an extraordinary claim that to me seems to lack even a modicum of evidence. Sure, some people do harmful things and we should stop them from doing those things. To attribute this to people being able to pursue their own interests is not even wrong, it's completely incoherent
  - WheelsAtLarge 2y ago
    There is no absolute proof of how people will behave. People are just too inconsistent from moment to moment. But we can get an idea from past activities. The COVID lockdown was a small view into people's behavior when they have too much idle time. I remember riots, protests, and crimes, to name a few, and that was a small amount of time. Also, when do people start to get into trouble? When they have too much time. It does have to be everyone, not even the majority, for it to be a huge problem. Even you talk about it as a "useless" use of time. It may be great for the individual at the given moment. A dopamine hit always feels good. But it's not great for society. How is that a plus for the future? Thousands of years of societal evolution just to have people figure out what to stream next. Boy, AI will lead to a great future. Happy and fruitful times are on their way. :-( AI's future is all speculation. There's no way to know until it happens but I don't see it as a plus.