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That's the story of all technology and the argument AI won't take jobs pmarca etc has been predicting for a while now. Our focus will be able to shift into ever

• ImHereToVote 1y ago
  This assumes we won't achieve AGI. If we do, all bets are off. Perhaps neuromorphic hardware will get is there.
  • sph 1y ago
    Let's achieve AGI first before making predictions.
    • dsign 1y ago
      When AGI is achieved, it will be able to make the predictions. And everything else. And off we the humans go to the reserve.
      • littlestymaar 1y ago
        Only if it can do it in an affordable fashion. If you need a supercomputer to run your AGI then it's probably not worth it for any task that a human can do, because humans happen to be much cheaper than supercomputers. Also, it's not clear if AGI doesn't mean it's necessarily better than existing AIs: a 3 years old child has general intelligence indeed, but it's far less helpful than even a sub-billion parameters LLM for any task.
        • codr7 1y ago
          A child learns from experience, something still missing in LLMs.
          • littlestymaar 1y ago
            Yep, but it won't deserve to be called AGI before it can learn too.
    • ImHereToVote 1y ago
      That doesn't seem sensible. We already have general intelligences. Let's infer possible outcomes before rushing head first.
      • horhay 1y ago
        People can't even begin to actually quantify how an "AGI" fits the world. Or define it consistently. How do you think you can hypothesize preparing for it? This is why people keep telling you that talking about it is ultimately meaningless. Leave this stuff on r/singularity, because people are talking about foreseeable productivity.
        • ImHereToVote 1y ago
          A general problem to action mapper. We have those in biological form with varying degrees of generality. We can use those to infer what synthetic ones will behave like.
          • horhay 1y ago
            You keep saying reiterating this like the people in charge of researching for this agree with this bar that you set. These qualified people can't even agree amongst themselves. Also. That second point is like the most unhelpful point I've ever seen saying that "we just need to look at us, we're the real GI, we're proof AGI can exist". What are you even talking about? You don't think people have taken that philosophy before? We're not even close to figuring out all the nuts and bolts that go into /natural/ general intelligence. What makes you think it's easier here?
            • ImHereToVote 1y ago
              It doesn't get easier. Nobody predicted LLMs. Intelligence is much easier to grow than it is to understand. This is obvious.
              • horhay 1y ago
  • risyachka 1y ago
    Id we do it will be able to grow food, build houses etc using humanoids or other robots. We won’t need jobs so we would be just fine.
    • layer8 1y ago
      How would you pay for those robots without a job? Or do you think whoever makes them will give them to you for free? Maybe the AI overlord will, but I doubt it.
      • risyachka 1y ago
        In the world of abundance you don’t have to pay for this. If theres nothing for people to do a new economy will arise where government will supply you with whatever you need at least at basic level. Or the wars will start and everything will burn. Obviously if there are no jobs no one will sit on their ass starving. People will get food , clothes, housing etc either via distribution or via force.
        • layer8 1y ago
          Who would be the government if nobody has to work? Those who want power will be the ones with the strongest incentive to be the government and to control the supply of "abundance" (plus military forces). And they will be motivated to deprive others of "free everything" in order to have more control over them. Given human nature, I'm highly skeptical that such an "abundance" utopia is possible.
  • Mbwagava 1y ago
    Is there any evidence that AGI is a meaningful concept? I don't want to call it "obviously" a fantasy, but it's difficult to paint the path towards AGI without also employing "fantasize".
    • ceejayoz 1y ago
      I mean, humans exist. We know a blob of fat is capable of thought.
      • Mbwagava 1y ago
        Sure, but what does that have to do with AGI? I don't think anyone is proposing simulating an entire brain (yet, anyway). Like you could have "AGI" if you simply virtualized the universe. I don't think we're any closer to that than we are to AGI; hell, something that looks like a human mouth output is a lot easier and cheaper to model than virtualize.
        • ceejayoz 1y ago
          Unless you believe humans have something mystical like a soul, our brains are evidence that “general intelligence” is achievable in a relatively small, energy efficient form.
          • Mbwagava 1y ago
            Ok, but very few people contest that consciousness is computable. It's basically just Penrose (and other folks without the domain knowledge to engage). This doesn't imply that at any point during all human existence will computing consciousness be economically feasible or worthwhile. Actual AGI presumably implies a not-brain involved. And this isn't even broaching the subject of "superintelligence", which I would describe as "superunbelievable".
            • Eisenstein 1y ago
              Until you can create a definition of consciousness which can be tested externally from the tested object, then the whole subject is moot.
  • bwfan123 1y ago
    There is no point in these ill-formed hypothetical untestable assumptions. - Assuming god comes to earth tomorrow, earth will be heaven - Assuming an asteroid strikes earth in the future we need settlements on mars etc, pointless discussion, gossip, and bs required for human bonding like on this forum or in a bierhauz
    • ImHereToVote 1y ago
      We are literally talking about problem solving computers. They are goal to action mappers. It's reasonable to talk about goal to action mappers that are more general than the ones we have now. They might even become more general than the general intelligences we have now on message boards.
• api 1y ago
  Also the nature of software is that the more software is written the more software needs to be written to manage, integrate, and make use of all the software that has been written. AI automating software production could hugely increase demand for software. The same thing happened as higher level languages replaced manual coding in assembly. It allowed vastly more software and more complex and interesting software to be built, which enlarged the industry.
  • bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > AI automating software production could hugely increase demand for software Let's think this through 1: AI automates software production 2: Demand for software goes through the roof 3: AI has lowered the skill ceiling required to make software, so many more can do it with a 'good-enough' degree of success 4: People are making software for cheap because the supply of 'good enough' AI prompters still dwarfs the rising demand for software 5: The value of being a skilled software engineer plummets 6: The rich get richer, the middle class shrinks even further, and the poor continue to get poorer This isn't just some kind of wild speculation. Look at any industry over the history of mankind. Look at Textiles People used to make a good living crafting clothing, because it was a skill that took time to learn and master. Automation makes it so anyone can do it. Nowadays, automation has made it so people who make clothes are really just operating machines. Throughout my life, clothes have always been made by the cheapest overseas labour that capital could find. Sometimes it has even turned out that companies were using literal slaves or child labour. Meanwhile the rich who own the factories have gotten insanely wealthy, the middle class has shrunk substantially, and the poor have gotten poorer Do people really not see that this will probably be the outcome of "AI automates literally everything"? Yes, there will be "more work" for people. Yes, overall society will produce more software than ever McDonalds also produces more hamburgers than ever. The company makes tons of money from that. The people making the burgers usually earn the least they can legally be paid
• Mbwagava 1y ago
  Cinema created jobs though, it didn't reduce them. Furthermore the value of film is obvious. You need to extremely hedge an LLM to pitch it to anyone.
  • pimlottc 1y ago
    > Cinema created jobs though, it didn't reduce them. Is it that straightforward? What about theater jobs? Vaudeville?
    • Mbwagava 1y ago
      Fair point, but that's hardly applicable to the llm metaphor. If you're ok with shit work you can just run a program.
    • atonse 1y ago
      Tough to say how it maps but with cinema, you have so many different skill sets needed for every single film. Costumes, builders for sets, audio engineers, the crews, the caterers, location scouts, composers, etc. In live theater it would be mostly actors, some one time set and costume work, and some recurring support staff. But then again, there are probably more theaters and theater production by volume.
• littlestymaar 1y ago
  The agricultural revolution did in fact reduce the amount of work in society by a lot though. That's why we can have week-ends, vacation, retirement and study instead of working from non stop 12yo to death like we did 150 years earlier. Reducing the amount of work done by humans is a good thing actually, though the institutional structures must change to help spread this reduction to society as a whole instead of having mass unemployment + no retirement before 70 and 50 hours work week for those who work. AI isn't a problem, unchecked capitalism can be one.
  • bilsbie 1y ago
    Medical is our fastest growing employer and you could make the case that modern agriculture produced most of that demand: Obesity, mineral depletion, pesticides, etc. So in a way automation did make more work.
  • UncleOxidant 1y ago
    The agricultural revolution has been very beneficial for feeding more people with less labor inputs, but I'm kind of skeptical of the claim that it led to weekends (and the 40hr workweek). Those seem to have come from the efforts of the labor movement on the manufacturing side of things (late 19th, early 20th century). Business interests would have continued to work people 12hrs a day 7 days a week (plus child labor) to maximize profits regardless of increasing agricultural efficiency.
    • littlestymaar 1y ago
      Please re-read my comment, it says exactly the same thing as you are.
  • vunderba 1y ago
    That's not really why (at least in the U.S.) - it was due to strong labor laws otherwise post industrial revolution you'd still have people working 12 hours a day 7 days a week - though with minimum wage stagnation one could argue that many people have to do this anyway just to make ends meet. https://firmspace.com/theproworker/from-strikes-to-labor-laws-how-the-us-adopted-the-5-day-workweek https://firmspace.com/theproworker/from-strikes-to-labor-law...