6 ms·
I have a more depressing theory. I think class is part of it, but I'm starting to suspect that a shockingly large number of people lack the critical thinking sk
by overgard 5mo ago
I have a more depressing theory. I think class is part of it, but I'm starting to suspect that a shockingly large number of people lack the critical thinking skills needed to think out the implications of this stuff. I say that because I've met so many people of the managerial class that seem to think it's going to replace the annoying people they have to pay, but somehow they don't think it's going to come for them. It's like we have some sort of society-wide main-character syndrome where a bunch of people just think that somehow the machine can replace every other job, and yet after ingesting all of human knowledge it somehow won't be able to compete with someone with "domain expertise"? Shit, even the cynical people that think their wealth is going to protect them are probably ignoring that if unemployment hits 50+%, society is just going to stay stable and they're going to be safe? I don't think this doomsday scenario is going to happen, but I think the people that are cheering for it need to really consider what they're cheering for.
- rootusrootus 5mo agoSome get it, though. When I quipped that Claude may eventually replace me, my manager was visibly shaken as he mentioned it would probably come for him first. I feel better about it than I did a few months ago. Still seems like there’s something missing that is going to be hard to make happen. I forsee humans being necessary for a long while yet.
- energy123 5mo ago> Still seems like there’s something missing that is going to be hard to make happen. I think part of the negative societal response to AI is the uncertainty of it all. AI killing me, taking my job, augmenting me, curing me of old age, all seem like viable futures within my lifetime given the information I have. People want to know it's going to be okay and even the smartest experts can't credibly promise them that.
- supriyo-biswas 5mo agoRealistically, I've only seen evidence about AI taking people's jobs, as is the case with LLMs, and in the case of robotics, killing people. Augmentation has always been something that gets talked about in research labs but I've never seen an actual product; and curing disease and old age is the domain of more traditional ML methods. I know Altman has been going around selling visions of curing cancer and the like, but when he talks about standing up new DC or getting a new investment most of that is going towards LLMs, not cancer research.
- energy123 5mo agoI meant augmentation in an abstract way, like making you more productive and freeing up your time from drudgery. This is the sales pitch that AI labs have started to pivot towards in their communication with the public after realizing the public don't want the creation of Skynet. There's a tension there because they want to sell the other vision (full replacement of labor) to investors so they can raise capital for DC builds at reasonable financing costs.
- suzzer99 5mo agoThe billionaires building doomsday bunkers get it.
- cluckindan 5mo ago”We drop the bomb ourselves.”
- mazurnification 5mo agoNo they do not - sheltering make sense only if there is anything worth waiting for on the other side.
- reverius42 5mo agoYeah, seems like a big downgrade to go from being a billionaire in society to a nobody in a bunker with no society waiting for you outside the bunker.
- GCUMstlyHarmls 5mo agoOh imagine some society will be outside the bunker, waiting.
- dclowd9901 5mo ago"Ingenuity" is what I think is missing. The sheer _want_ of solving a problem that is distinctly a living creature's concern. The irony is if we ever taught machines how to have this, they'd probably not want to work for us anymore.
- mmilunic 5mo agoPerhaps this is a form of Gell-Mann Amnesia (but kinda inverted) where everyone views AI as too inaccurate for their own niche, but perfectly fine for every other field that they know comparably little about.
- beng-nl 5mo agoI’ve been thinking about this, or a variant of it. Hypothetically, I’m scared and sad that AI can replace me (it currently can’t, not literally, but a lot of my skill and expertise, built up over say 30 years, that used to be valuable and rare is now cheap to get from an AI). Let’s try to see the upside. How ‘powerful’ would it make me if, at the cost of my own edge being dulled, can access everyone else’s edge? I am still my own expert. Now with AI I have a minor expert in everything else as well. What is the best way to use that? don’t have an answer but it’s an aspect I haven’t seen discussed much and I think it is worth bringing up.
- kqr 5mo agoAs of today, "minor expert" is the wrong way to phrase it. The flagship LLMs today are at best at an initiate or apprentice level in every field.[1] This is not meant as a derisive remark – having something at hand that is initiate level in every field is remarkable and useful. But it's nowhere near expertise anywhere. [1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/stop-using-junior-and-senior https://entropicthoughts.com/stop-using-junior-and-senior
- brabel 5mo agoYou seriously think current LLM is just at apprentice level in programming? It can write stuff one shot that I’d expected even some experts to struggle to do even with ample more time allowed.
- dminik 5mo agoKind of, yeah. LLMs are hyperoptimized for one-shotting. But all of their code is like that. It's poison for the long term health of the codebase.
- dyauspitr 5mo ago[flagged]
- goatlover 5mo agoOne would hope progress directly benefits more than the tech CEOs and investors. They're the ones going around heralding fully automated societies and god-level AIs. Open minded people also recognize the dangers of technological disruption. Let us not forget how social media went from being viewed as utopian to dystopian in a decade.
- dyauspitr 5mo agoSocial media offered no value. If LLMs get about 5x better at what they do they offer a lot in terms of medical discoveries, governance, dirt cheap labor, fully automated raw material to end product pipelines, automated farming and the list goes on and on.
- overgard 5mo agoYou should read a book on how LLMs actually work on a technical level. Saying they just need to get "5x better" and suddenly they're performing miracles is just nonsense hyperbole
- dyauspitr 5mo agoI’m very aware of how they work and pretty much everything they do is emergent.
- goatlover 5mo agoDirt cheap labor doesn't sound good for the working class. At best they get a livable UBI, while the capital class becomes even richer and more powerful. I don't know where you're getting governance and manufacturing stuff that sounds like advanced robotics out of LLMs.
- weatherlite 5mo ago
- ciconia 5mo ago> society is just going to stay stable and they're going to be safe? I think this ties in with the rise of racism over the last two decades. Historically, antisemitism has been instrumentalized by the elites in order to deflect animosity from the lower classes: "look, it's not us that are robbing you blind, it's the Jews!" I see the same thing happening today in the Western world. The elites are squeezing more and more of our countries' wealth, turning governments them into hollow sources of rent, while at the same time backing corrupt politicians who tell us our misery is all because of (illegal) immigrants. > the people that are cheering for it need to really consider what they're cheering for. Indeed. To me if there's one reason to oppose the use of AI technology, it is political. Sadly, the SWE class (if it can be called that), being better off than the majority of humans on earth, seems to care very little for class issues and inequality in general, maybe out of self-interest. But as you said, the machine will be coming for them too, it's just a question of when, not if.
- fny 5mo agoI don't think its entirely class. I've met many people who have convinced themselves they have some special sauce--even in software! And even those who are insulated like doctors and plumbers don't realize they're still at risk from second order effects. What happens when half of their customers are broke? That possibility is not an exaggeration. Even if everyone re-skills over night, people will default on their mortgages at a scale greater than the '08 financial crisis. And that's just one devastating outcome. There will be far more, and for some reason, no one is talking about them.
- Gigachad 5mo agoEven if you are a plumber and we don’t automate plumbing, you’ll have half the population displaced and switching to plumbing. Everything that isn’t automated will be over saturated.
- red75prime 5mo agoCorrect me if I wrong, up to 40% of Roman citizens were on "welfare". This, at least, shows that it's not impossible to have a functioning society with a large percentage of people who only contribute political activity.
- killingtime74 5mo agoYou mean they were slaves right
- red75prime 5mo agoNah. It was welfare for Roman citizens: cura annonae.
- thrance 5mo agoThese people weren't completely idle for one, and Rome was subsidized by the rest of the Empire, from which it extracted wealth and resources.
- csomar 5mo agoWealth is largely distributed by luck, though it has become more concentrated over the last 30 years or so. Most wealthy people aren't particularly smart in the intellectual sense but they tend to think they are, because what other explanation do they have? Admitting you were just lucky, rather than exceptionally hardworking or talented, is something very few people are willing to do. In all my years, I've met almost no one who genuinely attributes what they have to luck rather than their own effort. > Shit, even the cynical people that think their wealth is going to protect them are probably ignoring that if unemployment hits 50+%, society is just going to stay stable and they're going to be safe? Most people can't see two steps ahead. Most people believe the mainstream narrative and think they are outsmarting everyone else in the process. See how Trump tweets still work despite proving time and again that he's full of s**. These people will keep doing what they were doing until they are completely emptied out.
- thrance 5mo agoI believe you're simply (correctly) identifying the lack of class consciousness that is rotting our civilization. If everyone believes they are smarter than everyone else, and will be able to come up ahead in the rat race, then there's no one left to organize and take the collective actions needed to smoothen the AI transition.