4 ms·

This reads like someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of the underpinnings at generative AI. Every major technology progression has come with 'sky is

by brk 2y ago

This reads like someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of the underpinnings at generative AI. Every major technology progression has come with 'sky is falling' predictions. Generative AI accelerates the productivity of productive people, and potentially replaces the efforts of button-pusher types adding minimal value or creative input to a process. Not entirely different than personal computers, robots, locomotives, printing presses, and so on.

realce 2y ago
Eventually we will pull the black ball out of the urn. It is the responsibility of those currently alive to assess the possible harm their creations might cause. This cynical invincibility complex is becoming a tacit allowance of extreme danger. It's not some annoyance for people to act responsible, and not all technological achievements are the same as ones previously produced.
- tarr11 2y ago
  > Eventually we will pull the black ball out of the urn What is this reference?
  - consumer451 2y ago
    Seems like it might be this? https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf
  - realce 2y ago
    https://mishayurchenko.me/2019/03/27/pulling-a-black-ball-from-the-urn/ https://mishayurchenko.me/2019/03/27/pulling-a-black-ball-fr...
  - zero_shift 2y ago
    In the 18th and 19th centuries, gentlemen's clubs would vote whether to accept a new member. Each man would secretly place a ball in an urn, either black or white. If your urn contained even one black ball, your membership was vetoed and your chances - ruined.
    - realce 2y ago
      I had forgotten the stem of this, thank you!
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
oilkillsbirds 2y ago
I have a solid understanding of AI, and it will destroy the value of most human work, creative and non-creative. The power to do exactly what your job is with the push of a button, for free, in seconds. If it's not already here, it's coming. Ubiquity kills the value of anything. Anything short of an actual boycott on AI produced work/art will result in this.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  What makes you correct, while the generations of your ancestors who said similar things weren't?
  - palata 2y ago
    What makes them wrong?
  - zero_shift 2y ago
    Were they incorrect? Most preventative measures were, at some stage, speculation or moral panics. For example our consumer laws emerged out of anxiety about poisonous food. Our libel laws emerged out of moral panics about misuse of the press. Etc. But were still good measures. There's also the asymmetric risk element. The social risks of the technology are larger than the material risks of putting it off. Being wary of that isn't Luddism, it's just math
  - joe_the_user 2y ago
    I don't think generations of my ancestors made any predictions about AI /s. I mean, an argument that "technology" hasn't eliminated work previously so we can assume it won't do so now is ridiculously broad. I don't even think current LLMs will eliminate all jobs - I think it's limited to a particular kind of mediocre output, an output the demand for which is very elastic. But an arguments about what "AI" can do should based on it's potential, not on some "technology has always created jobs" incantation.
  - notfed 2y ago
    To support the grand-post but reword it: we're on the verge of AI becoming a "great creativity equalizer". It used to be that each individual had a "skill level" on a scale from 0-100 for each practice, where very few people were above level 60. But now everyone can be a level 60+ artist, if they want to be. This lower limit will keep rising and, at a certain point (and maybe were talking 1000 years) it will be hard for anyone to differentiate any everyday media from human- vs AI-generated. Maybe equality is good? For utilities like locomotion, that sounds great. But for creativity? I think what will happen is a later generation will grow up bombarded by level-100 art and music. I guess that sounds net positive...right? As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost.
Terr_ 2y ago
Like leaded gasoline and subprime CDOs? The dangerous interactions were already known, the risk-level was criticized, but there was money to be made...
joe_the_user 2y ago
Generative AI accelerates the productivity of productive people, and potentially replaces the efforts of button-pusher types adding minimal value or creative input to a process. I've seen this rough formula applied to earlier tech. But it's hard to see how, if AI/LLM usage consists of mainly in simple commands ("prompts"), it won't be about making people into "button-pusher types" or just empowering exactly those types. Indeed, one of the draws of generative AI is that it allows managers/marketers to get default mediocre illustrations for a text without having to consult with an artist or even a stock-photo agency (which peddled things made by artists - up until now).
- brk 2y ago
  You are correct in those examples, but I think it also opens up new avenues for creation. I can design reasonably decent PCBs (up to 4 layers), I can hack together not-terrible code in a handful of languages from embedded-C (eg: ESP32 stuff) up to Windows or linux apps. But I absolutely suck at graphic design and basic layout. Many of my creative projects stall at the UI level, and rarely are they worth paying someone to help. I've been using genAI tools to help with design, layout, etc. things. I can also see the inverse, someone who may be good at design and can craft something that just oozes "use me", but perhaps they struggle with coding, genAI tools might allow them to use robust components, like ESP32's with attached touchscreens, to build things previously out of reach to them. This seems to me like something that can propel things forward, but potentially at the cost of a person whose previous job was mostly editing powerpoint slides on the corporate template.
notfed 2y ago
> This reads like someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of the underpinnings at generative AI. They're talking about the future, though. You are correct that they, nor you or I, have a solid understanding of technology in the future.
trescenzi 2y ago
I'm not sure we read the same piece. The title is hyperbolic, they all are these days, but the content is much more measured. And I suspect you might even agree with the second to last paragraph: > In my own practice, I’m learning to use AI not as a tool of compression, but one of expansion. Prompts become not endpoints but starting points. They create new voids to explore, new territories for my mind to inhabit.
sonofhans 2y ago
The examples you cite — PCs, robots, locomotives, printing presses — each caused various clear harms. LLMs will do the same. Waving off these harms as lack of understanding on someone else’s part doesn’t make them go away. Some of the things you haven’t listed — air conditioning, internal combustion engines, car-centric cities — are busy causing so much harm that our biosphere is showing the strain. Other things you haven’t listed — government-subsidized sugar production, sedentary lifestyles due to constant PC use — are busy causing so much harm to out bodies that humans are dying of simultaneous over-indulgence and despair. People warning about these harms were _right_, and in each case they were greeted by similar dismissiveness. No technology guarantees a rosy future. All of it has a cost, some of those costs are very heavy, and some are permanent.
- brk 2y ago
  I think you're mixing in too many technologies. I used the examples I did because they were all things that essentially directly offset or replaced human labor. Air conditioners did not replace humans in jobs, they made indoor spaces more habitable. The internal combustion engine alone did not directly replace people, we didn't really have at that point humans turning cranks all day, the IC engine was a component of bigger machines. Several of the other examples you mentioned definitely had negative impacts as well as positive ones, but they were never really seen as creating risk to peoples ability to earn money. If anything, they created new industries and jobs. AI will definitely offset some jobs that are menial or able to be done with low cognitive effort. But historically those kinds of things have always been overtaken by the progression of human invention. Elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned lamplighters as an example. "Jobs" are frequently replaced by progression. "Careers" less so (but not totally immune).
  - sonofhans 2y ago
    I understand your point about labor replacement. Consider your POV, though: one person’s “menial” is another person’s stretch goal; one person’s “low cognitive effort” is another person’s maximum capacity. What of these people? As the efficiency of our means of production increases, so too does its ability to leave behind those who are not your so-called “productive people.” Now, we have more than enough wealth in this country to solve that problem to everyone’s benefit, and I’d like to think that we will. However, some of those most directly involved and invested in bringing on the AI-powered future are literally right now attempting to gut the social safety net for the same country. So, truthfully, I don’t believe a word of it. I think that an AI-powered future is just another ladder that the super-privileged want to climb and then pull up after themselves.
scyzoryk_xyz 2y ago
Yeah but this also doesn’t read like something that pretends to get into the underpinnings of AI. It’s about the friction that AI removes from making things and the discomfort with what that might mean. This point is fair and your take on productive people is reductive. People aren’t 1:1 factories. I’ve been watching my spouse participate in a seriously intensive prestigious typography course. It’s quite fascinating to watch how a part of the process involves slow walking through all of the tedious hand lettering stuff. Like mr. Miyagi level training. The depth and complexity of things they’re discovering and learning at a deep level by hand is quite enlightening. It would not be possible to convey other than by this process - to understand how to design typography you basically have to practically engage with how it was in every other earlier historical period. I believe this is the essence of the point of the article - that working through your ideas by hand involved lots of friction which was valuable in training you how to slow down your thinking. And now that is being done away and everyone can fart out nuanced BS and disregard anything that is more than a paragraph long.

by brk 2y ago

realce 2y ago

Eventually we will pull the black ball out of the urn. It is the responsibility of those currently alive to assess the possible harm their creations might cause. This cynical invincibility complex is becoming a tacit allowance of extreme danger. It's not some annoyance for people to act responsible, and not all technological achievements are the same as ones previously produced.

tarr11 2y ago
> Eventually we will pull the black ball out of the urn What is this reference?
- consumer451 2y ago
  Seems like it might be this? https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf
- realce 2y ago
  https://mishayurchenko.me/2019/03/27/pulling-a-black-ball-from-the-urn/ https://mishayurchenko.me/2019/03/27/pulling-a-black-ball-fr...
- zero_shift 2y ago
  In the 18th and 19th centuries, gentlemen's clubs would vote whether to accept a new member. Each man would secretly place a ball in an urn, either black or white. If your urn contained even one black ball, your membership was vetoed and your chances - ruined.
  - realce 2y ago
    I had forgotten the stem of this, thank you!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

oilkillsbirds 2y ago

I have a solid understanding of AI, and it will destroy the value of most human work, creative and non-creative. The power to do exactly what your job is with the push of a button, for free, in seconds. If it's not already here, it's coming. Ubiquity kills the value of anything. Anything short of an actual boycott on AI produced work/art will result in this.

CamperBob2 2y ago
What makes you correct, while the generations of your ancestors who said similar things weren't?
- palata 2y ago
  What makes them wrong?
- zero_shift 2y ago
  Were they incorrect? Most preventative measures were, at some stage, speculation or moral panics. For example our consumer laws emerged out of anxiety about poisonous food. Our libel laws emerged out of moral panics about misuse of the press. Etc. But were still good measures. There's also the asymmetric risk element. The social risks of the technology are larger than the material risks of putting it off. Being wary of that isn't Luddism, it's just math
- joe_the_user 2y ago
  I don't think generations of my ancestors made any predictions about AI /s. I mean, an argument that "technology" hasn't eliminated work previously so we can assume it won't do so now is ridiculously broad. I don't even think current LLMs will eliminate all jobs - I think it's limited to a particular kind of mediocre output, an output the demand for which is very elastic. But an arguments about what "AI" can do should based on it's potential, not on some "technology has always created jobs" incantation.
- notfed 2y ago
  To support the grand-post but reword it: we're on the verge of AI becoming a "great creativity equalizer". It used to be that each individual had a "skill level" on a scale from 0-100 for each practice, where very few people were above level 60. But now everyone can be a level 60+ artist, if they want to be. This lower limit will keep rising and, at a certain point (and maybe were talking 1000 years) it will be hard for anyone to differentiate any everyday media from human- vs AI-generated. Maybe equality is good? For utilities like locomotion, that sounds great. But for creativity? I think what will happen is a later generation will grow up bombarded by level-100 art and music. I guess that sounds net positive...right? As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost.

Terr_ 2y ago

Like leaded gasoline and subprime CDOs? The dangerous interactions were already known, the risk-level was criticized, but there was money to be made...

joe_the_user 2y ago

Generative AI accelerates the productivity of productive people, and potentially replaces the efforts of button-pusher types adding minimal value or creative input to a process. I've seen this rough formula applied to earlier tech. But it's hard to see how, if AI/LLM usage consists of mainly in simple commands ("prompts"), it won't be about making people into "button-pusher types" or just empowering exactly those types. Indeed, one of the draws of generative AI is that it allows managers/marketers to get default mediocre illustrations for a text without having to consult with an artist or even a stock-photo agency (which peddled things made by artists - up until now).

brk 2y ago
You are correct in those examples, but I think it also opens up new avenues for creation. I can design reasonably decent PCBs (up to 4 layers), I can hack together not-terrible code in a handful of languages from embedded-C (eg: ESP32 stuff) up to Windows or linux apps. But I absolutely suck at graphic design and basic layout. Many of my creative projects stall at the UI level, and rarely are they worth paying someone to help. I've been using genAI tools to help with design, layout, etc. things. I can also see the inverse, someone who may be good at design and can craft something that just oozes "use me", but perhaps they struggle with coding, genAI tools might allow them to use robust components, like ESP32's with attached touchscreens, to build things previously out of reach to them. This seems to me like something that can propel things forward, but potentially at the cost of a person whose previous job was mostly editing powerpoint slides on the corporate template.

notfed 2y ago

> This reads like someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of the underpinnings at generative AI. They're talking about the future, though. You are correct that they, nor you or I, have a solid understanding of technology in the future.

trescenzi 2y ago

I'm not sure we read the same piece. The title is hyperbolic, they all are these days, but the content is much more measured. And I suspect you might even agree with the second to last paragraph: > In my own practice, I’m learning to use AI not as a tool of compression, but one of expansion. Prompts become not endpoints but starting points. They create new voids to explore, new territories for my mind to inhabit.

sonofhans 2y ago

The examples you cite — PCs, robots, locomotives, printing presses — each caused various clear harms. LLMs will do the same. Waving off these harms as lack of understanding on someone else’s part doesn’t make them go away. Some of the things you haven’t listed — air conditioning, internal combustion engines, car-centric cities — are busy causing so much harm that our biosphere is showing the strain. Other things you haven’t listed — government-subsidized sugar production, sedentary lifestyles due to constant PC use — are busy causing so much harm to out bodies that humans are dying of simultaneous over-indulgence and despair. People warning about these harms were _right_, and in each case they were greeted by similar dismissiveness. No technology guarantees a rosy future. All of it has a cost, some of those costs are very heavy, and some are permanent.

brk 2y ago
I think you're mixing in too many technologies. I used the examples I did because they were all things that essentially directly offset or replaced human labor. Air conditioners did not replace humans in jobs, they made indoor spaces more habitable. The internal combustion engine alone did not directly replace people, we didn't really have at that point humans turning cranks all day, the IC engine was a component of bigger machines. Several of the other examples you mentioned definitely had negative impacts as well as positive ones, but they were never really seen as creating risk to peoples ability to earn money. If anything, they created new industries and jobs. AI will definitely offset some jobs that are menial or able to be done with low cognitive effort. But historically those kinds of things have always been overtaken by the progression of human invention. Elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned lamplighters as an example. "Jobs" are frequently replaced by progression. "Careers" less so (but not totally immune).
- sonofhans 2y ago
  I understand your point about labor replacement. Consider your POV, though: one person’s “menial” is another person’s stretch goal; one person’s “low cognitive effort” is another person’s maximum capacity. What of these people? As the efficiency of our means of production increases, so too does its ability to leave behind those who are not your so-called “productive people.” Now, we have more than enough wealth in this country to solve that problem to everyone’s benefit, and I’d like to think that we will. However, some of those most directly involved and invested in bringing on the AI-powered future are literally right now attempting to gut the social safety net for the same country. So, truthfully, I don’t believe a word of it. I think that an AI-powered future is just another ladder that the super-privileged want to climb and then pull up after themselves.

scyzoryk_xyz 2y ago

Yeah but this also doesn’t read like something that pretends to get into the underpinnings of AI. It’s about the friction that AI removes from making things and the discomfort with what that might mean. This point is fair and your take on productive people is reductive. People aren’t 1:1 factories. I’ve been watching my spouse participate in a seriously intensive prestigious typography course. It’s quite fascinating to watch how a part of the process involves slow walking through all of the tedious hand lettering stuff. Like mr. Miyagi level training. The depth and complexity of things they’re discovering and learning at a deep level by hand is quite enlightening. It would not be possible to convey other than by this process - to understand how to design typography you basically have to practically engage with how it was in every other earlier historical period. I believe this is the essence of the point of the article - that working through your ideas by hand involved lots of friction which was valuable in training you how to slow down your thinking. And now that is being done away and everyone can fart out nuanced BS and disregard anything that is more than a paragraph long.