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That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a saf

That researcher probably wouldn't have an army of SWEs at his or her disposal but be out of a job like the SWEs. If they get AI to a point where it can be a safe and competent senior SWE, it'll be able to fill a huge breadth of other roles as well. Human creativity isn't looking like quite the moat it was supposed to be. Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work, possibly for good, nor are we in any way ready for the kind of power certain tech billionaires would have if their workforce were to scale with just the amount of hardware they own. At this point I kind of hope the current breed of AIs will plateau quickly and stay there for a while so that maybe society can catch up instead of getting surprise bulldozed by a gaggle of tech giants.

cudgy 2y ago
Question I have is if no one has any job because it’s been replaced by AI, what happens to the economy?
- blibble 2y ago
  essentially it would be the end of employment and return to feudalism likely followed by either a French Revolution (if lucky) or a Russian Revolution (if not)
  - cudgy 2y ago
    Of what use are the peasants in an AI driven and dominated feudal society, though. Maybe us peasants be useful in wars or battles between the different lords, but this would also probably be performed by automated drones and robots. It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. Who’s gonna buy their crap and for what reason will they they create anything? The whole thing seems like a massive doom spiral.
    - DaleMgrh 2y ago
      https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria
      - cudgy 2y ago
        “The Solarians specialized in the construction of robots, which they exported to the other Spacer Worlds.” Thanks for this, but Solarians have an economy that sells robots to other planets. Earth has no such luxury.
    - Nevermark 2y ago
      > It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. You have machines that can design and build mega-yachts, mansions, private space craft, .... You can afford to purchase vast areas of land from people selling whatever they have to get by, ... -- Asking what billionaires will do when they can't sell to the poor, is like asking why the human economy didn't crash ages ago because we have any off planet aliens to sell to. Or how did we keep the economy going all this time, given the ants and trees couldn't afford anything we produce? All an economy needs is someone with the means of production, who is able to get resources, and use those resources to produce something they want. I.e. you can have a working economy with just a single person. Or self-interested AI. Hermits have an economy. Now imagine the hermit has trillions of dollars of resources and square miles of intelligent circuitry and robotic servants. That hermit doesn't need the rest of us. Customers? Where we are going, we don't need customers.
      - cudgy 2y ago
        Ok. I guess they have themselves to Lord over. I’d hardly call that an economy though.
BoorishBears 2y ago
> Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work Our societies were built before there was a technology that could replace its smartest people with machines that never tire? I don't get why people keep trying to imagine current society + super-intelligent AI: by definition it won't be our current society if we can actually get there would it? I mean if we have AI that can even replace the researchers (I wouldn't dream so boldly tbh), imagine how much faster the pace of scientific discovery becomes. Imagine how much more efficient we can make power generation and transmission, discover new treatments for disease, democratize learning at costs never before possible... I don't love to spend too much time daydreaming what we could do down that because SWEs already feels like a bit of a pipedream, so all novel research being automated away is just completely in fantasy land... but realistically we're already on a pretty terrible trajectory otherwise. Our next billion people are about to be born into some of the worst off parts of the planet. AI becoming good enough to replace researchers would be an infinitely more positive trajectory than some of the others we could end up on on otherwise.
- dividedbyzero 2y ago
  Social media could have been utopian, too, yet those apps are algorithmic manipulation hellscapes that threaten to bring down even the most robust democracies. The same people who make it so are poised to be the ones in control of these AIs. I don't think they want the kind of utopia you imagine.
  - BoorishBears 2y ago
    What I described doesn't have to be utopian in an absolute sense, just significantly better than where we're currently headed. I think a lot of the unchecked pessimism around super-intelligent AI is just people being a bit naive or shut off from the reality of just how terrible things are going to be over the next century. We're waging 25% tariffs over planefuls of people, what's going to happen when it's 100 million people trampling over borders trying to escape disease, famine, and temperatures incompatible with human life? Compared to that, even if these companies abuse their ownership of AI and monopolize the gains, an AI capable of producing novel research and development by itself would still bring us much closer to solving major problems than otherwise.

cudgy 2y ago

Question I have is if no one has any job because it’s been replaced by AI, what happens to the economy?

blibble 2y ago
essentially it would be the end of employment and return to feudalism likely followed by either a French Revolution (if lucky) or a Russian Revolution (if not)
- cudgy 2y ago
  Of what use are the peasants in an AI driven and dominated feudal society, though. Maybe us peasants be useful in wars or battles between the different lords, but this would also probably be performed by automated drones and robots. It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. Who’s gonna buy their crap and for what reason will they they create anything? The whole thing seems like a massive doom spiral.
  - DaleMgrh 2y ago
    https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria
    - cudgy 2y ago
      “The Solarians specialized in the construction of robots, which they exported to the other Spacer Worlds.” Thanks for this, but Solarians have an economy that sells robots to other planets. Earth has no such luxury.
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    > It would seem that the Lord‘s will have nothing to Lord over though. You have machines that can design and build mega-yachts, mansions, private space craft, .... You can afford to purchase vast areas of land from people selling whatever they have to get by, ... -- Asking what billionaires will do when they can't sell to the poor, is like asking why the human economy didn't crash ages ago because we have any off planet aliens to sell to. Or how did we keep the economy going all this time, given the ants and trees couldn't afford anything we produce? All an economy needs is someone with the means of production, who is able to get resources, and use those resources to produce something they want. I.e. you can have a working economy with just a single person. Or self-interested AI. Hermits have an economy. Now imagine the hermit has trillions of dollars of resources and square miles of intelligent circuitry and robotic servants. That hermit doesn't need the rest of us. Customers? Where we are going, we don't need customers.
    - cudgy 2y ago
      Ok. I guess they have themselves to Lord over. I’d hardly call that an economy though.

BoorishBears 2y ago

> Our societies are not in any way equipped to deal with putting what may well be a sizable majority of working-age people out of work Our societies were built before there was a technology that could replace its smartest people with machines that never tire? I don't get why people keep trying to imagine current society + super-intelligent AI: by definition it won't be our current society if we can actually get there would it? I mean if we have AI that can even replace the researchers (I wouldn't dream so boldly tbh), imagine how much faster the pace of scientific discovery becomes. Imagine how much more efficient we can make power generation and transmission, discover new treatments for disease, democratize learning at costs never before possible... I don't love to spend too much time daydreaming what we could do down that because SWEs already feels like a bit of a pipedream, so all novel research being automated away is just completely in fantasy land... but realistically we're already on a pretty terrible trajectory otherwise. Our next billion people are about to be born into some of the worst off parts of the planet. AI becoming good enough to replace researchers would be an infinitely more positive trajectory than some of the others we could end up on on otherwise.

dividedbyzero 2y ago
Social media could have been utopian, too, yet those apps are algorithmic manipulation hellscapes that threaten to bring down even the most robust democracies. The same people who make it so are poised to be the ones in control of these AIs. I don't think they want the kind of utopia you imagine.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  What I described doesn't have to be utopian in an absolute sense, just significantly better than where we're currently headed. I think a lot of the unchecked pessimism around super-intelligent AI is just people being a bit naive or shut off from the reality of just how terrible things are going to be over the next century. We're waging 25% tariffs over planefuls of people, what's going to happen when it's 100 million people trampling over borders trying to escape disease, famine, and temperatures incompatible with human life? Compared to that, even if these companies abuse their ownership of AI and monopolize the gains, an AI capable of producing novel research and development by itself would still bring us much closer to solving major problems than otherwise.