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I have been completely shocked by the number of people in the tech industry who seem to genuinely place no value on humanity and so many of its outputs. I see i

I have been completely shocked by the number of people in the tech industry who seem to genuinely place no value on humanity and so many of its outputs. I see it in the writing of leaders within VC firms and AI companies but I also see it in ordinary conversations on the caltrain or in coffee shops. Friendship, love, sex, art, even faith and childrearing are opportunities for substitution with AI. Ask an AI to create a joke for you at a party. Ask an AI to write a heartfelt letter to somebody you respect. Have an AI make a digital likeness of your grandmother so you can spend time with her forever. Have an AI tell you what you should say to your child when they are sad. Hell. Hell on earth.

M95D 11mo ago
> no value on humanity It's practically the definition of psychopathy.
jeroenhd 11mo ago
I can't say I'm shocked. Disappointed, maybe, but it's hardly surprising to see the sociopathic nature in the people fighting tooth and nail for the validation of venture capitalists who will not be happy until they own every single cent on earth. There are good people everywhere, but bring good and ethical stands in the way of making money, so most of the good people lose out in the end. AI is the perfect technology for those who see people as complaining cogs in an economic machine. The current AI bubble is the first major advancement where these people go mask off; when people unapologetically started trying to replace basic art and culture with "efficient" machines, people started noticing.
tokioyoyo 11mo ago
If you want another side data point, most people I know both in Japan and Canada use some sort of an AI as a replacement for any kind of query. Almost nobody in my circles are in tech or tech-adjacent circles. So yeah, it’s just everyone collectively devaluing human interaction.
- vidarh 11mo ago
  I love AI, but I'm exasperated by the extent to which my fiancee uses Claude instead of search, and for everything...
  - throw-the-towel 11mo ago
    With what Google has become, I can't blame her.
  - abustamam 11mo ago
    Why? Google search kinda sucks. And I find it helpful to provide context that I can't otherwise provide to any standard search engine.
    - vidarh 11mo ago
      Because the responses are often distilled down from the same garbage Google serves up, but presented as the opinion of Claude, whom she increasingly trusts. I use Claude a lot. I have the most expensive Claude Max subscription both for my own consultancy and at client sites, separately. I'm increasingly close to an AI maximalist on many issues, so I'm not at all against extensive use of these models. But it's not quick enough to of its own accord resort to verifying things before giving answers to be suitable as a general purpose replacement for Google unless you specifically prompt it to search.
      - abustamam 11mo ago
        > unless you specifically prompt it to search. Ah, that's a good call-out. I don't use Claude aside from in Cursor; I use ChatGPT for normal queries and it's pretty good about doing searches when it doesn't think it knows the answer. Of course it'll search when prompted, but it'll often search without prompting too. I just mistakenly assumed that your fiancée's usage of Claude implied Claude was actually searching as well.
      - rerdavies 11mo ago
        Google search results: a dozen sponsored links; a dozen links to videos (which I never use -- I'd rather read than watch); six or seven pages with gamed SEOs; if you're lucky, what you actually want is far down near the end of the first page, or perhaps at the top of the second page; the other 700 pages of links are ... whatever. Repeat for our five times with variously tweaked queries, hoping that what you actually want will percolate up into the first or second page. Claude: "Provide me links to <precise description of what you actually want". Result: 4 or 5 directly relevant links, most of which are useful, and it happens on the first query. Claude is dramatically more efficient than Google Search.
cryptonector 11mo ago
> I have been completely shocked by the number of people in the tech industry who seem to genuinely place no value on humanity [...] Who do they think will make their ventures profitable? Who do they think will take their dollars and provide goods and services in exchange? If automation reaches the point where 99% of humans add no value to the "owners" then the "owners" will own nothing.
- palmotea 11mo ago
  > If automation reaches the point where 99% of humans add no value to the "owners" then the "owners" will own nothing. I don't think that's right. The owners will still own everything. If or when that happens, I think the economy would morph into a new thing completely focused on serving the whims of those "owners." There's an old Isaac Asimov book with something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_universe#Solaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_universe#Solaria (though accomplished more peacefully and with less pain than I think is realistic).
  - cryptonector 11mo ago
    What would they get from the plebs? Suppose we went through The Phools and so the plebs were exterminated, then what? Perhaps we'd finally have Star Trek economics, but only for them, the "owners". Better be an "owner", then.
    - palmotea 11mo ago
      > What would they get from the plebs? I think the right question is: what would they want from the plebs? And the answer will be nothing. Right now they want the plebs' labor, which is why things work the way they do. > The Phools and so the plebs were exterminated, then what? Is that a reference to this? https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168319/phishing-for-phools https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168319/ph... > Perhaps we'd finally have Star Trek economics, but only for them, the "owners". Better be an "owner", then. I don't think we'll have Star Trek economics, because that would be fundamentally fair and egalitarian and plentiful. There will still be resource constraints like energy production and raw materials. I think it will be more like B2B economics, international trade, with a small number relevant owners each controlling vast amounts of resources and productive capacity and occasionally trading basics amongst themselves. It could also end up like empires-at-war (which actually may be more likely, since war would give the owners something seemingly important to do, vs just building monuments to themselves and other types of jerking off).
Faark 11mo ago
Making predictions on how it will turn out VS designing how it should be. Up til now, powerful people needed lots and lots of other humans to sustain their power&life. Thus that dependency gave the masses leverage. Now I'd like a society we're everyone is valued for being human and stuff. With democracies we got quite far in that direction. Attempts to go even further... Let's just say "didn't work out". And right now, especially in the US, the societal system seems to go back to "power" instead rules. Yeah, I see a bleak future ahead. Guess that's life, after all.
- smallmancontrov 11mo ago
  > didn't work out In the "learn to love democracy and freedom" sense, sure, but in the economic sense? "Didn't work out" feels like a talking point stuck in 1991. Time has passed, China is the #2 economy in the world, #1 if you pick a metric that emphasizes material or looks to the future. How did they get there? By paying the private owners of our economy to sell our manufacturing base to them piece by piece -- which the private owners were both entitled and incentivized to do by the fundamental principles of capitalism. The ending hasn't been written, but it smells like the lead-up to a reversal in fortune. As for our internal balance of power, we've been here before, and the timeline conveniently lines up to almost exactly 100 years ago. I'm hoping for another Roosevelt. It wasn't easy then, it won't be easy now, but I do think it's fundamentally possible.
Slava_Propanei 11mo ago
[dead]
luckman212 11mo ago
"Hell on Earth" - I don't think there is a more succinct or accurate way to describe the current environment.
martin82 11mo ago
[flagged]
- fooblaster 11mo ago
  why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man? Do you need god in your life to want to love your children? I think this is not quite right. I don't expect that the desire to create these tools independent of outcome in the valley is simply about greed , and for companies like anthropic, the ability to use AGI fear as a means to drive investment in themselves from VC class that lives the idea of obliterating human labor. We need less money in tech - we'll probably get it soon enough.
  - DeusExMachina 11mo ago
    > why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man? Because that is not a given, as shown by the entirety of human history. Without God, the only arguments for love, or what is right, is just what people think/feel/agree on at a certain time and place, which has a lot of variations and is definitely not universal. > Do you need god in your life to want to love your children? Most people don't need God to love their children, and the ones that don't might not be convinced otherwise by God. That said, what do you do exactly for that love? Do you cheat and steal to guarantee their future over others? If not because of some "benefit to society" logical argument that would convince no-one, why would one even care about that and not exploit society for their own benefit? Almost everyone loves themselves and their family above all others. Only God can tell you to love your neighbors and even your enemies. There are still many societies around the world where most people are mostly self centered and you can see the results. You are taking for granted many values you have, as if you arrived to them logically and indipendently instead of learning them from your parents and a society that derived them from God for centuries.
    - arunabha 11mo ago
      Doesn't that only shift the question to what God wants you to do and in turn who interprets God's will? Said another way, how would you conclude with any certainty that you are indeed following God's will with any action you take?
estimator7292 11mo ago
That's what unfettered capitalism gets you
jimbokun 11mo ago
Those nerds can now develop an AI robot to make love to their wives while they get back to blogging about accelerationism with all the time they freed up.

M95D 11mo ago

> no value on humanity It's practically the definition of psychopathy.

jeroenhd 11mo ago

I can't say I'm shocked. Disappointed, maybe, but it's hardly surprising to see the sociopathic nature in the people fighting tooth and nail for the validation of venture capitalists who will not be happy until they own every single cent on earth. There are good people everywhere, but bring good and ethical stands in the way of making money, so most of the good people lose out in the end. AI is the perfect technology for those who see people as complaining cogs in an economic machine. The current AI bubble is the first major advancement where these people go mask off; when people unapologetically started trying to replace basic art and culture with "efficient" machines, people started noticing.

tokioyoyo 11mo ago

If you want another side data point, most people I know both in Japan and Canada use some sort of an AI as a replacement for any kind of query. Almost nobody in my circles are in tech or tech-adjacent circles. So yeah, it’s just everyone collectively devaluing human interaction.

vidarh 11mo ago
I love AI, but I'm exasperated by the extent to which my fiancee uses Claude instead of search, and for everything...
- throw-the-towel 11mo ago
  With what Google has become, I can't blame her.
- abustamam 11mo ago
  Why? Google search kinda sucks. And I find it helpful to provide context that I can't otherwise provide to any standard search engine.
  - vidarh 11mo ago
    Because the responses are often distilled down from the same garbage Google serves up, but presented as the opinion of Claude, whom she increasingly trusts. I use Claude a lot. I have the most expensive Claude Max subscription both for my own consultancy and at client sites, separately. I'm increasingly close to an AI maximalist on many issues, so I'm not at all against extensive use of these models. But it's not quick enough to of its own accord resort to verifying things before giving answers to be suitable as a general purpose replacement for Google unless you specifically prompt it to search.
    - abustamam 11mo ago
      > unless you specifically prompt it to search. Ah, that's a good call-out. I don't use Claude aside from in Cursor; I use ChatGPT for normal queries and it's pretty good about doing searches when it doesn't think it knows the answer. Of course it'll search when prompted, but it'll often search without prompting too. I just mistakenly assumed that your fiancée's usage of Claude implied Claude was actually searching as well.
    - rerdavies 11mo ago
      Google search results: a dozen sponsored links; a dozen links to videos (which I never use -- I'd rather read than watch); six or seven pages with gamed SEOs; if you're lucky, what you actually want is far down near the end of the first page, or perhaps at the top of the second page; the other 700 pages of links are ... whatever. Repeat for our five times with variously tweaked queries, hoping that what you actually want will percolate up into the first or second page. Claude: "Provide me links to <precise description of what you actually want". Result: 4 or 5 directly relevant links, most of which are useful, and it happens on the first query. Claude is dramatically more efficient than Google Search.

cryptonector 11mo ago

> I have been completely shocked by the number of people in the tech industry who seem to genuinely place no value on humanity [...] Who do they think will make their ventures profitable? Who do they think will take their dollars and provide goods and services in exchange? If automation reaches the point where 99% of humans add no value to the "owners" then the "owners" will own nothing.

palmotea 11mo ago
> If automation reaches the point where 99% of humans add no value to the "owners" then the "owners" will own nothing. I don't think that's right. The owners will still own everything. If or when that happens, I think the economy would morph into a new thing completely focused on serving the whims of those "owners." There's an old Isaac Asimov book with something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_universe#Solaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_universe#Solaria (though accomplished more peacefully and with less pain than I think is realistic).
- cryptonector 11mo ago
  What would they get from the plebs? Suppose we went through The Phools and so the plebs were exterminated, then what? Perhaps we'd finally have Star Trek economics, but only for them, the "owners". Better be an "owner", then.
  - palmotea 11mo ago
    > What would they get from the plebs? I think the right question is: what would they want from the plebs? And the answer will be nothing. Right now they want the plebs' labor, which is why things work the way they do. > The Phools and so the plebs were exterminated, then what? Is that a reference to this? https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168319/phishing-for-phools https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168319/ph... > Perhaps we'd finally have Star Trek economics, but only for them, the "owners". Better be an "owner", then. I don't think we'll have Star Trek economics, because that would be fundamentally fair and egalitarian and plentiful. There will still be resource constraints like energy production and raw materials. I think it will be more like B2B economics, international trade, with a small number relevant owners each controlling vast amounts of resources and productive capacity and occasionally trading basics amongst themselves. It could also end up like empires-at-war (which actually may be more likely, since war would give the owners something seemingly important to do, vs just building monuments to themselves and other types of jerking off).

Faark 11mo ago

Making predictions on how it will turn out VS designing how it should be. Up til now, powerful people needed lots and lots of other humans to sustain their power&life. Thus that dependency gave the masses leverage. Now I'd like a society we're everyone is valued for being human and stuff. With democracies we got quite far in that direction. Attempts to go even further... Let's just say "didn't work out". And right now, especially in the US, the societal system seems to go back to "power" instead rules. Yeah, I see a bleak future ahead. Guess that's life, after all.

smallmancontrov 11mo ago
> didn't work out In the "learn to love democracy and freedom" sense, sure, but in the economic sense? "Didn't work out" feels like a talking point stuck in 1991. Time has passed, China is the #2 economy in the world, #1 if you pick a metric that emphasizes material or looks to the future. How did they get there? By paying the private owners of our economy to sell our manufacturing base to them piece by piece -- which the private owners were both entitled and incentivized to do by the fundamental principles of capitalism. The ending hasn't been written, but it smells like the lead-up to a reversal in fortune. As for our internal balance of power, we've been here before, and the timeline conveniently lines up to almost exactly 100 years ago. I'm hoping for another Roosevelt. It wasn't easy then, it won't be easy now, but I do think it's fundamentally possible.

Slava_Propanei 11mo ago

[dead]

luckman212 11mo ago

"Hell on Earth" - I don't think there is a more succinct or accurate way to describe the current environment.

martin82 11mo ago

[flagged]

fooblaster 11mo ago
why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man? Do you need god in your life to want to love your children? I think this is not quite right. I don't expect that the desire to create these tools independent of outcome in the valley is simply about greed , and for companies like anthropic, the ability to use AGI fear as a means to drive investment in themselves from VC class that lives the idea of obliterating human labor. We need less money in tech - we'll probably get it soon enough.
- DeusExMachina 11mo ago
  > why exactly do you need a deity to tell you to love your fellow man? Because that is not a given, as shown by the entirety of human history. Without God, the only arguments for love, or what is right, is just what people think/feel/agree on at a certain time and place, which has a lot of variations and is definitely not universal. > Do you need god in your life to want to love your children? Most people don't need God to love their children, and the ones that don't might not be convinced otherwise by God. That said, what do you do exactly for that love? Do you cheat and steal to guarantee their future over others? If not because of some "benefit to society" logical argument that would convince no-one, why would one even care about that and not exploit society for their own benefit? Almost everyone loves themselves and their family above all others. Only God can tell you to love your neighbors and even your enemies. There are still many societies around the world where most people are mostly self centered and you can see the results. You are taking for granted many values you have, as if you arrived to them logically and indipendently instead of learning them from your parents and a society that derived them from God for centuries.
  - arunabha 11mo ago
    Doesn't that only shift the question to what God wants you to do and in turn who interprets God's will? Said another way, how would you conclude with any certainty that you are indeed following God's will with any action you take?

estimator7292 11mo ago

That's what unfettered capitalism gets you

jimbokun 11mo ago

Those nerds can now develop an AI robot to make love to their wives while they get back to blogging about accelerationism with all the time they freed up.