4 ms·

So I've been doing a lot of thinking and I've gone through a rollercoaster of feelings concerning AI and becoming redundant. Recently though, I've had a differ

by uludag 2y ago

So I've been doing a lot of thinking and I've gone through a rollercoaster of feelings concerning AI and becoming redundant. Recently though, I've had a different "oh fuck" moment: what if the period of general global prosperity is coming to an end, that Fukuyama's end of history is coming to an end, that climate change won't come under control. Maybe I'll look back and wish that I could be a redundant SWE in a 2010s economy. With such a backdrop, how scary could AI really be?

ben_w 2y ago
> With such a backdrop, how scary could AI really be? On a personal level, sure. On a society-wide level… Even if the AI doesn't improve, consider that there are people who think the answers to every question can be found in the actual literal Bible, and then ask what such a personality would do when there's a small box that can opine confidently about basically everything and is right often enough to be competitive with people who stay in full time education until age 19 or 20. Or, if the Bible analogy doesn't appeal, consider how it took until the Renaissance for European society to seriously attempt to go past that of classical Rome and Greece.
JohnMakin 2y ago
> that climate change won't come under control. All signs point to this, or it's already reached a tipping point - certainly nothing we are already doing is reducing total carbon output, just slowing its acceleration. There was that one weird year in 2020 where emissions went down as the entire world stopped commuting - regardless of what you think about the realistic ability of new/unproven tech and regulations will be at preventing 3+ celsius change from industrial average by 2100 (catastrophe of biblical proportions) - if AI is indeed as critical to the economy/humanity's future as its proponents (marketers) say, the enormous amount of power and other resources that often don't get factored in, like the massive amounts of increasingly scarce water to cool the massive datacenters - will certainly make such efforts at reducing emissions extraordinarily unlikely, if not impossible, short of converting our entire power grid to sustainable energy, which there seems to be little to no political will for. It's grim, I'm extremely skeptical of optimism at this point on this particular topic. I am bracing for catastrophe at some point in my life (looking at the LA fires very near me, I would argue it's already here) and think the world governments would be wise to do so as well rather than pretend we're just going to magically figure it out at the last possible second. Not even to mention there are a lot of people, including people in power, who don't even believe climate change is happening at all. We're living in Don't Look Up.

by uludag 2y ago

ben_w 2y ago

> With such a backdrop, how scary could AI really be? On a personal level, sure. On a society-wide level… Even if the AI doesn't improve, consider that there are people who think the answers to every question can be found in the actual literal Bible, and then ask what such a personality would do when there's a small box that can opine confidently about basically everything and is right often enough to be competitive with people who stay in full time education until age 19 or 20. Or, if the Bible analogy doesn't appeal, consider how it took until the Renaissance for European society to seriously attempt to go past that of classical Rome and Greece.

JohnMakin 2y ago

> that climate change won't come under control. All signs point to this, or it's already reached a tipping point - certainly nothing we are already doing is reducing total carbon output, just slowing its acceleration. There was that one weird year in 2020 where emissions went down as the entire world stopped commuting - regardless of what you think about the realistic ability of new/unproven tech and regulations will be at preventing 3+ celsius change from industrial average by 2100 (catastrophe of biblical proportions) - if AI is indeed as critical to the economy/humanity's future as its proponents (marketers) say, the enormous amount of power and other resources that often don't get factored in, like the massive amounts of increasingly scarce water to cool the massive datacenters - will certainly make such efforts at reducing emissions extraordinarily unlikely, if not impossible, short of converting our entire power grid to sustainable energy, which there seems to be little to no political will for. It's grim, I'm extremely skeptical of optimism at this point on this particular topic. I am bracing for catastrophe at some point in my life (looking at the LA fires very near me, I would argue it's already here) and think the world governments would be wise to do so as well rather than pretend we're just going to magically figure it out at the last possible second. Not even to mention there are a lot of people, including people in power, who don't even believe climate change is happening at all. We're living in Don't Look Up.