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The whole "AI revolution" feels distopian opposite from what I'd naively thought it would do. My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc

by berkes 1y ago

The whole "AI revolution" feels distopian opposite from what I'd naively thought it would do. My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc work is replaced by machines. Giving humans time and opportunity to pursue creative, fun, stimulating or intellectually challenging tasks. In which only legit people, and never spammers or scammers get me on the phone. Where I don't have to juggle appointments, pdfs, portals, dossier-codes to have my drivers license renewed. In which I can write software and all the boring stuff is taken care of so I need to only do the creative and fun parts. In which I can go surfing, and AI takes care of my taxes, my home, my income and my dishes. In which tasks like labelling art, driving a taxi, or annotating pdfs is done by machines. So that the humans have time to make art, get transported anywhere for virtually free, or write stories. But alas, it's the complete opposite. AI companies promise to replace the people that make art, demand ever more humans to stare at screens in order to "generate useful training data" rather than those humans spending time with each other, or spend time in inspiring surrounding. AI increases robo calling a hundred fold. AI generates more email, content, slop, and other noise that I manually have to wade through to get the actual info.

loloquwowndueo 1y ago
“I want my AI to do dishes and laundry so I can draw, code, write. Not for it to draw, code, write so I can do dishes and laundry”.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Pretty wishful thinking to think software and hardware is advanced enough to figure out very advanced materials science and physics to do those tasks requiring manipulation of objects in the real world. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t, but manipulating digital output seems like a step that would come before manipulating real world objects.
  - skeeter2020 1y ago
    I think you need to get past the literal examples to the concept that they are saying "I wanted AI to free me from the mundane, not imprison me with it". This has long been the promise from the same people who now appear to be quite happy to turn us into the Matrix-style feedstock for AI (again, not literal - but maybe literally?). Natural extrapolation: they may be the last to go, but it won't need them either. How can so many smart people all be Wile E. Coyote?
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      > How can so many smart people all be Wile E. Coyote? Money. A whole lot of money. They won't live in the dystopian reality of most people in the near future, they'll buy their way out and live their comfortable lives.
      - ryandrake 1y ago
        That explains the ultra-wealthy, who likely will be able to buy their way out and live their comfortable lives. But how do you explain the non-elites who are cheering on this dystopian reality? Some of them here in the HN comment section? If this thing that you are cheering for comes true, you'll be just as out of work and underclass as everyone else! Do people really think the measly $2M 401(k) they got from their tech job is enough to buy them a ticket to the Elysium space station?
        wiseowise 1y ago
        > Do people really think the measly $2M 401(k) they got from their tech job is enough to buy them a ticket to the Elysium space station? Move to a low cost area and live like a king.
        lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Not having to live in a low cost area is a defining feature of kings.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >I want my AI to do dishes and laundry You mean a washing machine and a dish washer?
JKCalhoun 1y ago
I get where you're coming from — the naively thought part. You may though just have to get a good deal more cynical. Perhaps you already are. Tech fascinated me as a kid—and, because of my age, we're talking Apollo-era tech, promises of a moon base, the introduction of the Metric system is U.S. schools, elementary school libraries full of science books for kids on chemistry, electricity, model rocketry, etc. I have come around to see, as I get older, that tech for tech's sake is often a hollow thing. Its biggest cheerleaders are (of course) the ones that stand to make a lot of money from it. Change for change's sake follows in stride—is disruptive, unasked for, often benefits a few. I dislike my modern cynicism on tech but it has also served me well.
- intended 1y ago
  Hell, tech used to be.. it still is.. the thing I am interested in. It meant a cool future to look forward to. This for sure isn’t that.
  - nativeit 1y ago
    To quote several other people who have made thoughtful pieces around this in the past: the futurism espoused by people like Elon Musk seeks to engage with the aesthetics of Star Trek, whilst ignoring entirely the post-scarcity socialism that Roddenberry’s worlds very clearly represented. That’s not quite as apt today, as it seems he’s just as happy to engage with the aesthetics of Blade Runner while also cheerfully engaging with the fascist dystopia of Blade Runner…
    - cindyllm 1y ago
      [dead]
- wiseowise 1y ago
  Completely agree with every word except for > tech for tech's sake what we're seeing is tech for greed's sake, not tech's sake.
- computerthings 1y ago
markus_zhang 1y ago
I always believe technological advance eventually bring us to the point that 1) the elites have total control of all resources, and 2) impossible for ordinary people to rise up and clean the slate. We are very close to it.
- wiseowise 1y ago
  > impossible for ordinary people to rise up and clean the slate Already is. Look at Russia, China and other authoritarian states. Hell, even most democratic ones.
  - markus_zhang 1y ago
    What? I don’t think ordinary people are rising up in China at least.
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      Would they be able to if they wanted?
mikkupikku 1y ago
> My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc work is replaced by machines. Giving humans time and opportunity to pursue creative, fun, stimulating or intellectually challenging tasks. I can't quite square people seriously believing such things, it seems like it must be wishful thinking crossed with denial. We have more than 200 years of technology taking away the hard and dangerous jobs and it hasn't been playing out that way at all, so why should the latest kind of automation have a dramatically different effect on society? A hydraulic excavator can do the work of dozens of men with shovels, dozens of times faster too, but that hasn't lead to easy lives of luxury for the sort of men that would have been breaking their backs with shovels. They all had to get other manual labor jobs, because they weren't the capital that got to own and profit from the new machines. The best we can hope for is that when all the women manually spinning thread get replaced by factories, that at least some of them will get to have new factory jobs and the rest will at least be offset by society at large benefiting from clothing so cheap that even the poorest people can own more than one outfit.
- zeroonetwothree 1y ago
  This is pretty wrong. We went from 90% of the population working in agriculture in ~1800 to (now) 80% working in services. Most services jobs are much nicer (and require far less manual labor) than those in agriculture.
  - mikkupikku 1y ago
    Farming sucks, therefore common laborers will profit and live luxurious when technology takes their jobs is a hell of a stretch. And even saying those displaced farm workers who had to migrate to crowded and dirty cities just to continue to survive personally benefited is a stretch too. As a whole we're better off now, but trying to pretend that you're doing somebody a favor by eliminating their job seems like peak techie cope.
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    > Most services jobs are much nicer (and require far less manual labor) than those in agriculture. We tell ourselves that because none of us have ever done agriculture. But I'm not so sure that it's true. Yes, far less manual labor. But manual labor isn't a bad thing. Technology has made our lives _easier_, no question about it. It could also make our lives _better_, but I'm not sure that it is anymore (I feel like the curve has flattened, except for the few who are reaping nearly all the benefits of increased technological "progress").
coldtea 1y ago
>My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc work is replaced by machines. Giving humans time and opportunity to pursue creative, fun, stimulating or intellectually challenging tasks. That didn't happen at any previous industrial revolution step either. Instead work for humans became more mechanical and soul-crushing. Farmers ended up having to work on some factory line for 12 hours. Small store owners and employees were turned into huge chain cogs. People "freed" from household work, were send to the cubicle.
ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
Funny. I don't claim to be a person of extraordinary intellect or a tech-visionary. However, the very first time in my life I heard the argument "robots are bad because they will take all the jobs" I immediately realized "oh, so 'who will own the robots' is the question we have to think carefully about". This was in the mid-nineties and I was about 10.
indymike 1y ago
Usually boring and dangerous are harder problems that easy work.

by berkes 1y ago

loloquwowndueo 1y ago

“I want my AI to do dishes and laundry so I can draw, code, write. Not for it to draw, code, write so I can do dishes and laundry”.

lotsofpulp 1y ago
Pretty wishful thinking to think software and hardware is advanced enough to figure out very advanced materials science and physics to do those tasks requiring manipulation of objects in the real world. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t, but manipulating digital output seems like a step that would come before manipulating real world objects.
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  I think you need to get past the literal examples to the concept that they are saying "I wanted AI to free me from the mundane, not imprison me with it". This has long been the promise from the same people who now appear to be quite happy to turn us into the Matrix-style feedstock for AI (again, not literal - but maybe literally?). Natural extrapolation: they may be the last to go, but it won't need them either. How can so many smart people all be Wile E. Coyote?
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    > How can so many smart people all be Wile E. Coyote? Money. A whole lot of money. They won't live in the dystopian reality of most people in the near future, they'll buy their way out and live their comfortable lives.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      That explains the ultra-wealthy, who likely will be able to buy their way out and live their comfortable lives. But how do you explain the non-elites who are cheering on this dystopian reality? Some of them here in the HN comment section? If this thing that you are cheering for comes true, you'll be just as out of work and underclass as everyone else! Do people really think the measly $2M 401(k) they got from their tech job is enough to buy them a ticket to the Elysium space station?
      - wiseowise 1y ago
        > Do people really think the measly $2M 401(k) they got from their tech job is enough to buy them a ticket to the Elysium space station? Move to a low cost area and live like a king.
        lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Not having to live in a low cost area is a defining feature of kings.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>I want my AI to do dishes and laundry You mean a washing machine and a dish washer?

JKCalhoun 1y ago

I get where you're coming from — the naively thought part. You may though just have to get a good deal more cynical. Perhaps you already are. Tech fascinated me as a kid—and, because of my age, we're talking Apollo-era tech, promises of a moon base, the introduction of the Metric system is U.S. schools, elementary school libraries full of science books for kids on chemistry, electricity, model rocketry, etc. I have come around to see, as I get older, that tech for tech's sake is often a hollow thing. Its biggest cheerleaders are (of course) the ones that stand to make a lot of money from it. Change for change's sake follows in stride—is disruptive, unasked for, often benefits a few. I dislike my modern cynicism on tech but it has also served me well.

intended 1y ago
Hell, tech used to be.. it still is.. the thing I am interested in. It meant a cool future to look forward to. This for sure isn’t that.
- nativeit 1y ago
  To quote several other people who have made thoughtful pieces around this in the past: the futurism espoused by people like Elon Musk seeks to engage with the aesthetics of Star Trek, whilst ignoring entirely the post-scarcity socialism that Roddenberry’s worlds very clearly represented. That’s not quite as apt today, as it seems he’s just as happy to engage with the aesthetics of Blade Runner while also cheerfully engaging with the fascist dystopia of Blade Runner…
  - cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
wiseowise 1y ago
Completely agree with every word except for > tech for tech's sake what we're seeing is tech for greed's sake, not tech's sake.
computerthings 1y ago

markus_zhang 1y ago

I always believe technological advance eventually bring us to the point that 1) the elites have total control of all resources, and 2) impossible for ordinary people to rise up and clean the slate. We are very close to it.

wiseowise 1y ago
> impossible for ordinary people to rise up and clean the slate Already is. Look at Russia, China and other authoritarian states. Hell, even most democratic ones.
- markus_zhang 1y ago
  What? I don’t think ordinary people are rising up in China at least.
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    Would they be able to if they wanted?

mikkupikku 1y ago

> My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc work is replaced by machines. Giving humans time and opportunity to pursue creative, fun, stimulating or intellectually challenging tasks. I can't quite square people seriously believing such things, it seems like it must be wishful thinking crossed with denial. We have more than 200 years of technology taking away the hard and dangerous jobs and it hasn't been playing out that way at all, so why should the latest kind of automation have a dramatically different effect on society? A hydraulic excavator can do the work of dozens of men with shovels, dozens of times faster too, but that hasn't lead to easy lives of luxury for the sort of men that would have been breaking their backs with shovels. They all had to get other manual labor jobs, because they weren't the capital that got to own and profit from the new machines. The best we can hope for is that when all the women manually spinning thread get replaced by factories, that at least some of them will get to have new factory jobs and the rest will at least be offset by society at large benefiting from clothing so cheap that even the poorest people can own more than one outfit.

zeroonetwothree 1y ago
This is pretty wrong. We went from 90% of the population working in agriculture in ~1800 to (now) 80% working in services. Most services jobs are much nicer (and require far less manual labor) than those in agriculture.
- mikkupikku 1y ago
  Farming sucks, therefore common laborers will profit and live luxurious when technology takes their jobs is a hell of a stretch. And even saying those displaced farm workers who had to migrate to crowded and dirty cities just to continue to survive personally benefited is a stretch too. As a whole we're better off now, but trying to pretend that you're doing somebody a favor by eliminating their job seems like peak techie cope.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  > Most services jobs are much nicer (and require far less manual labor) than those in agriculture. We tell ourselves that because none of us have ever done agriculture. But I'm not so sure that it's true. Yes, far less manual labor. But manual labor isn't a bad thing. Technology has made our lives _easier_, no question about it. It could also make our lives _better_, but I'm not sure that it is anymore (I feel like the curve has flattened, except for the few who are reaping nearly all the benefits of increased technological "progress").

coldtea 1y ago

>My ideal would be a world in which boring, heavy, dangerous, etc work is replaced by machines. Giving humans time and opportunity to pursue creative, fun, stimulating or intellectually challenging tasks. That didn't happen at any previous industrial revolution step either. Instead work for humans became more mechanical and soul-crushing. Farmers ended up having to work on some factory line for 12 hours. Small store owners and employees were turned into huge chain cogs. People "freed" from household work, were send to the cubicle.

ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago

Funny. I don't claim to be a person of extraordinary intellect or a tech-visionary. However, the very first time in my life I heard the argument "robots are bad because they will take all the jobs" I immediately realized "oh, so 'who will own the robots' is the question we have to think carefully about". This was in the mid-nineties and I was about 10.

indymike 1y ago

Usually boring and dangerous are harder problems that easy work.