4 ms·

Yeah, who am I going to trust, a few thousand years of history, or yet another blogger claiming that no, this time is different, a populist uprising would defin

Yeah, who am I going to trust, a few thousand years of history, or yet another blogger claiming that no, this time is different, a populist uprising would definitely not fail the 800th time because computers or something and we will all be pets for the AI overlord? I don’t follow this train of logic. AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. Some people will profit immensely, and society as a whole will benefit but it might be a bumpy road getting there. But if it did go wrong for some reason, Feudalism is more plausible than the other scenarios presented.

N_Lens 3mo ago
Do you usually comment rants unrelated to the post in question?
- gnabgib 3mo ago
  Can you turn off your bot?
zetalyrae 3mo ago
> Like the fact that supposedly the wealthy won’t survive the AI-pocolypse because the people will outnumber them and rise up or something. This is literally the opposite of what the article says.
- red-iron-pine 3mo ago
  but no one in HN reads the article and the 1/9/90 rule means that comments like the above will always be impactful
- alkyon 3mo ago
  This is a moot point though. Before all the jobs are replaced in 2036, shouldn't we see data centres burning? Revolutions tend to succeed with only 1% of population taking part. I think it's probably that this revolution will ultimately fail for various reasons, but still it's a valid scenario, which at the very least should be mentioned.
sixtyj 3mo ago
This. Once people become desperate enough, it will all fall apart. Money is a social construct, universally recognized, and the longer it exists, the more likely it is to continue existing. So far, many people haven’t even tried AI in any form other than chatbots. Agent-based applications are in the single digits compared to chatbot usage. Not much will change in this regard, because most people lack algorithmic or logical thinking (Hacker News is an echo chamber), so after the coming turbulent years, there will be a natural stabilization in AI usage. By the way, can you imagine what Earth would look like if AI physically wiped us out—8.3 billion people over the course of a few months or years? How much biological material would that be?
- conorcleary 3mo ago
  HN is an encho chamber shaped like a cheese grater
- piva00 3mo ago
  > How much biological material would that be? Much less than bacteria and other micro-organisms that are dying all the time :) humans are ~0.01% of Earth's biomass, bacteria are about 15% and they have quite short lifespans in comparison.
Gud 3mo ago
Strawman and ad hominem(“another blogger”). Sometimes, genius comes from the least expected places. I don’t believe the blog poster promotes a “popular uprising”, I only skimmed the article. The blog poster anyway don’t understand that the “overclass” in their understanding is wrong. The “c-level” are obviously much richer than the “underclass”(=the labour commodity), but they are not necessarily capital owners.
- varjag 3mo ago
  If you reduce a class to <10k people in the world the word loses its meaning.
  - Gud 3mo ago
    Why? The ruling class aren’t that many…
Nevermark 3mo ago
> AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. So it is different this time is it? "We" are different? Unlike the 99.9% of species that went extinct, and continue to go extinct, we can't be supplanted? Obsoleted? Out competed? [0] A few thousand years at the top of the food chain, and suddenly that few thousand years is "what can never change". Technological change already drives machine cognitive progress forward faster than any human who has ever lived. That factor alone makes competence/capability obsolescence unavoidable, outside of technological collapse. This is an unprecedented rate of real-time change, outside of instant disasters like volcanic eruptions or comet impacts, in direct competition with human capabilities. SciFi has been broadcasting the potential and risk of AI for a couple centuries. This is a spectacular moment in the universe's history, assuming we don't blow ourselves up. Not just another day for humankind. There must be a word for the inability to see the import of change. It seems to be a common disability. This seems to be a real effect: The faster things go, the less sensitive we are to the rate of change. Precisely because we can't imagine what the world will be like in a decade, our horizon shrinks, and we treat short intervals as if they were long intervals. Anything that isn't instant feels like it is barely moving. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction
- keiferski 3mo ago
  Sci-fi is science fiction. Fiction. LLMs are a useful technology. They have no relation to AI terminator bots other than being called the same name out of marketing and laziness.
  - Nevermark 3mo ago
    > Sci-fi is science fiction. Fiction. Yes, that is what "fi" means. Fiction often introduces and explores ideas about the future. Ideas. > LLMs are a useful technology. They have no relation to AI terminator bots Technology that can communicate with human language. Also relevant, other SOTA models operating in other modalities. The important thing if you reference SciFi, are the major ideas that stand on their own merits. Whereas, specific characters, such as terminators, are usually not predictive. You are actually underlining my point. The disconnect a lot of people are struggling with is real.
GeoAtreides 3mo ago
> AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. the children will rejoice, they were yearning for the mines after all. and being maimed by mechanical looms and being burned alive in sweatshops[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
- readthenotes1 3mo ago
  Well, luddites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

N_Lens 3mo ago

Do you usually comment rants unrelated to the post in question?

gnabgib 3mo ago
Can you turn off your bot?

zetalyrae 3mo ago

> Like the fact that supposedly the wealthy won’t survive the AI-pocolypse because the people will outnumber them and rise up or something. This is literally the opposite of what the article says.

red-iron-pine 3mo ago
but no one in HN reads the article and the 1/9/90 rule means that comments like the above will always be impactful
alkyon 3mo ago
This is a moot point though. Before all the jobs are replaced in 2036, shouldn't we see data centres burning? Revolutions tend to succeed with only 1% of population taking part. I think it's probably that this revolution will ultimately fail for various reasons, but still it's a valid scenario, which at the very least should be mentioned.

sixtyj 3mo ago

This. Once people become desperate enough, it will all fall apart. Money is a social construct, universally recognized, and the longer it exists, the more likely it is to continue existing. So far, many people haven’t even tried AI in any form other than chatbots. Agent-based applications are in the single digits compared to chatbot usage. Not much will change in this regard, because most people lack algorithmic or logical thinking (Hacker News is an echo chamber), so after the coming turbulent years, there will be a natural stabilization in AI usage. By the way, can you imagine what Earth would look like if AI physically wiped us out—8.3 billion people over the course of a few months or years? How much biological material would that be?

conorcleary 3mo ago
HN is an encho chamber shaped like a cheese grater
piva00 3mo ago
> How much biological material would that be? Much less than bacteria and other micro-organisms that are dying all the time :) humans are ~0.01% of Earth's biomass, bacteria are about 15% and they have quite short lifespans in comparison.

Gud 3mo ago

Strawman and ad hominem(“another blogger”). Sometimes, genius comes from the least expected places. I don’t believe the blog poster promotes a “popular uprising”, I only skimmed the article. The blog poster anyway don’t understand that the “overclass” in their understanding is wrong. The “c-level” are obviously much richer than the “underclass”(=the labour commodity), but they are not necessarily capital owners.

varjag 3mo ago
If you reduce a class to <10k people in the world the word loses its meaning.
- Gud 3mo ago
  Why? The ruling class aren’t that many…

Nevermark 3mo ago

> AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. So it is different this time is it? "We" are different? Unlike the 99.9% of species that went extinct, and continue to go extinct, we can't be supplanted? Obsoleted? Out competed? [0] A few thousand years at the top of the food chain, and suddenly that few thousand years is "what can never change". Technological change already drives machine cognitive progress forward faster than any human who has ever lived. That factor alone makes competence/capability obsolescence unavoidable, outside of technological collapse. This is an unprecedented rate of real-time change, outside of instant disasters like volcanic eruptions or comet impacts, in direct competition with human capabilities. SciFi has been broadcasting the potential and risk of AI for a couple centuries. This is a spectacular moment in the universe's history, assuming we don't blow ourselves up. Not just another day for humankind. There must be a word for the inability to see the import of change. It seems to be a common disability. This seems to be a real effect: The faster things go, the less sensitive we are to the rate of change. Precisely because we can't imagine what the world will be like in a decade, our horizon shrinks, and we treat short intervals as if they were long intervals. Anything that isn't instant feels like it is barely moving. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

keiferski 3mo ago
Sci-fi is science fiction. Fiction. LLMs are a useful technology. They have no relation to AI terminator bots other than being called the same name out of marketing and laziness.
- Nevermark 3mo ago
  > Sci-fi is science fiction. Fiction. Yes, that is what "fi" means. Fiction often introduces and explores ideas about the future. Ideas. > LLMs are a useful technology. They have no relation to AI terminator bots Technology that can communicate with human language. Also relevant, other SOTA models operating in other modalities. The important thing if you reference SciFi, are the major ideas that stand on their own merits. Whereas, specific characters, such as terminators, are usually not predictive. You are actually underlining my point. The disconnect a lot of people are struggling with is real.

GeoAtreides 3mo ago

> AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. the children will rejoice, they were yearning for the mines after all. and being maimed by mechanical looms and being burned alive in sweatshops[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

readthenotes1 3mo ago
Well, luddites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite