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If AI eliminates the need for creativity and work, it means that our creativity and work are not meaningful enough to warrant survival. I don't think we're any

If AI eliminates the need for creativity and work, it means that our creativity and work are not meaningful enough to warrant survival. I don't think we're anywhere near that point.

throwaway28469 7mo ago
[dead]
yoz-y 7mo ago
I don’t understand this take. For me creativity and thinking is the whole purpose of life.
- surgical_fire 7mo ago
  Then you clearly don't understand my take.
  - phpnode 7mo ago
    Then you should explain yourself better
  - conartist6 7mo ago
    I understood it. Nature has had an amount of computing power to work on this problem that utterly dwarfs the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, amount of compute resources that humans have. Thinking that 10 years of Sam Altman is competitive with all of natural history isn't just out-of-control hubris, it's a complete failure to understand the ground-truth of the world we live in. You may as well try to pay a million dollar debt with a single dime.
    - surgical_fire 7mo ago
      Correct. At least someone here is able to read words and understand the meaning behind them. The funny thing is that I am a sort of misanthrope. And in that, in this forum, I seem to have a lot more respect and optimism for human potential and ingenuity than the majority here.
      - conartist6 7mo ago
        It's funny that us curmudgeons are the ones they can't quite beat all the hope out of :'D
  - yoz-y 7mo ago
    I understood you well enough. I disagree with the idea that something that has been replaced or obsoleted does not warrant survival in general. And human creativity in particular.
    - surgical_fire 7mo ago
      It's not only that it would have been made obsolete.
ekidd 7mo ago
Personally, I would surprised if we are less than 3 years or more than 20 years from humans being obsolete. That is, humans would be economic dead weight, any job could be done better by AI/robots, and "comparative advantage" wouldn't apply because it's cheap enough to just make more robots. At this point, the average human would be completely useless to the billionaires (or to the AIs, if the billionaires fail to control the AIs). I can see two major delaying factors here: 1. Current generation LLM technology won't scale to true AGI. It's missing a number of critical things. But a lot of effort is being spent fixing those limitations. But until those limitations are overcome, humans will be needed to "manage" LLMs and work around their limitations, just like programmers do today. 2. Generalist robotics is far behind LLMs for multiple reasons, including insufficient sensors and fine motor control. This would require multiple scientific and engineering breakthroughs to fix. Investors will, presumably, spend a large chunk of the world's wealth to improve robotics to replace manual labor. But until they do, human hands will still be needed in the physical world. The real danger is if AI passes a point where it starts contributing substantially to its own development, speeding up the pace of breakthroughs. If we ever hit that tipping point, then things will get weird, and not in a good way.
- freeone3000 7mo ago
  AI is already contributing substantially to its own development: https://novaknown.com/2026/03/12/ai-builds-ai-claude/ https://novaknown.com/2026/03/12/ai-builds-ai-claude/
- conartist6 7mo ago
  [flagged]
- surgical_fire 7mo ago
  > Personally, I would surprised if we are less than 3 years or more than 20 years from humans being obsolete. I think we are as far from it as we were 10 years ago. Or 100 years ago. I think LLM is a deadend technology. Useful, but that won't get anywhere beyond what it is. But that's the thing, "personally", "I think", etc. Not much of a debate to be had there. AI making humans obsolete is not really something that causes me any anxiety.

If AI eliminates the need for creativity and work, it means that our creativity and work are not meaningful enough to warrant survival. I don't think we're anywhere near that point.

throwaway28469 7mo ago

[dead]

yoz-y 7mo ago

I don’t understand this take. For me creativity and thinking is the whole purpose of life.

surgical_fire 7mo ago
Then you clearly don't understand my take.
- phpnode 7mo ago
  Then you should explain yourself better
- conartist6 7mo ago
  I understood it. Nature has had an amount of computing power to work on this problem that utterly dwarfs the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, amount of compute resources that humans have. Thinking that 10 years of Sam Altman is competitive with all of natural history isn't just out-of-control hubris, it's a complete failure to understand the ground-truth of the world we live in. You may as well try to pay a million dollar debt with a single dime.
  - surgical_fire 7mo ago
    Correct. At least someone here is able to read words and understand the meaning behind them. The funny thing is that I am a sort of misanthrope. And in that, in this forum, I seem to have a lot more respect and optimism for human potential and ingenuity than the majority here.
    - conartist6 7mo ago
      It's funny that us curmudgeons are the ones they can't quite beat all the hope out of :'D
- yoz-y 7mo ago
  I understood you well enough. I disagree with the idea that something that has been replaced or obsoleted does not warrant survival in general. And human creativity in particular.
  - surgical_fire 7mo ago
    It's not only that it would have been made obsolete.

ekidd 7mo ago

Personally, I would surprised if we are less than 3 years or more than 20 years from humans being obsolete. That is, humans would be economic dead weight, any job could be done better by AI/robots, and "comparative advantage" wouldn't apply because it's cheap enough to just make more robots. At this point, the average human would be completely useless to the billionaires (or to the AIs, if the billionaires fail to control the AIs). I can see two major delaying factors here: 1. Current generation LLM technology won't scale to true AGI. It's missing a number of critical things. But a lot of effort is being spent fixing those limitations. But until those limitations are overcome, humans will be needed to "manage" LLMs and work around their limitations, just like programmers do today. 2. Generalist robotics is far behind LLMs for multiple reasons, including insufficient sensors and fine motor control. This would require multiple scientific and engineering breakthroughs to fix. Investors will, presumably, spend a large chunk of the world's wealth to improve robotics to replace manual labor. But until they do, human hands will still be needed in the physical world. The real danger is if AI passes a point where it starts contributing substantially to its own development, speeding up the pace of breakthroughs. If we ever hit that tipping point, then things will get weird, and not in a good way.

freeone3000 7mo ago
AI is already contributing substantially to its own development: https://novaknown.com/2026/03/12/ai-builds-ai-claude/ https://novaknown.com/2026/03/12/ai-builds-ai-claude/
conartist6 7mo ago
[flagged]
surgical_fire 7mo ago
> Personally, I would surprised if we are less than 3 years or more than 20 years from humans being obsolete. I think we are as far from it as we were 10 years ago. Or 100 years ago. I think LLM is a deadend technology. Useful, but that won't get anywhere beyond what it is. But that's the thing, "personally", "I think", etc. Not much of a debate to be had there. AI making humans obsolete is not really something that causes me any anxiety.