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When cars made horses obsolete, it didn't go so well for horses. In the short term, AI is disempowering the vast majority of people in favor of a very small su

When cars made horses obsolete, it didn't go so well for horses. In the short term, AI is disempowering the vast majority of people in favor of a very small subset. In the also way too short term, AI is disempowering all people.

user43928 21d ago
I have a more optimistic outlook on the abilities of our governments as well as the motivations of rich people. I believe we will distribute the fruits of AI's labor at the very least to the extend where everyone can live comfortably. No one has an interest in putting large parts of society on the streets in some sort of dystopia.
- JoshTriplett 21d ago
  You are assuming that people remain in control.
  - Marha01 21d ago
    And you are assuming they don't remain in control. Which of you is right? We don't know yet, but I don't find the arguments of card-carrying doomers any more convincing that those of card-carrying singularitarian utopians. Historically though, technological improvement has lead to large increases of living standards for the overwhelming majority of people, so I think that past trends support the utopian view more than the doomer view.
    - JoshTriplett 21d ago
      The anthropic principle applies here: anyone warning about an existential risk will by necessity never have precedent to point to. I am not assuming humans don't remain in control, but rather, I am not axiomatically assuming there's any inherent reason we will.
      - Marha01 21d ago
        > The anthropic principle applies here: anyone warning about an existential risk will by necessity never have precedent to point to. We have precedents of people warning about existential risks in the past, when the warnings turned out to be false, or overblown. In some cases, such overblown warnings led to serious negatives for society (demonization of nuclear power).
        JoshTriplett 21d ago
        Yes, that is precisely my point. Any timeline with humans flourishing will never have a past history of a correct prediction of existential risk, unless you're willing to pay attention to the counterfactuals. Those counterfactuals are important, though. We do have a history of averted disasters, albeit not as large. Ozone hole, Y2K, think about things that seemed overblown at the time, and consider whether they were actually overblown or whether there was a concerted effort to successfully avert them.
      - stale2002 21d ago
        Awfully convenient isn't it? To invent a whole class of arguments that by definition can't be falsified. You can argue for basically anything if you then tack on the excuse of "Well the world would have ended already if it came true, so by definition I won't have evidence for it"
        pocksuppet 21d ago
        Your argument is basically "humanity can't be destroyed by anything, because I said so"
        stale2002 21d ago
        > "humanity can't be destroyed by anything, because I said so" No, the argument is instead that the person claiming that humanity is going to be destroyed is making a fairly extraordinary claim and that requires fairly extraordinary evidence. Or, in other words, we have tons of evidence already as for why the world ended is a fairly far out there prediction, given all the crazy people making these predictions keep turning out to be wrong. So, you can make your extraordinary claim if you want, but really the burden is entirely on you to prove your extraordinary claim, and everyone else is free to remain on the default and completely normal end of the prediction spectrum, of believing that the world isn't going to end. And when people do tricks like this, they are running away from the fact that they are making a wild completely out-there prediction, and hiding behind that by trying to come up with reasons as for why evidence doesn't matter and actually the burden of proof is shifted to those who have the default and boring prediction of the world not ending.
- fn-mote 21d ago
  > I have a more optimistic outlook on the abilities of our governments as well as the motivations of rich people. Wow. Only on HN. Also apparently not from the US? Or Russia? This does not reflect what I see in my government.
eru 21d ago
> When cars made horses obsolete, it didn't go so well for horses. I'd guess horses today have on average a better life than back then.
- JoshTriplett 21d ago
  The comparatively few that still exist, perhaps.

user43928 21d ago

I have a more optimistic outlook on the abilities of our governments as well as the motivations of rich people. I believe we will distribute the fruits of AI's labor at the very least to the extend where everyone can live comfortably. No one has an interest in putting large parts of society on the streets in some sort of dystopia.

JoshTriplett 21d ago
You are assuming that people remain in control.
- Marha01 21d ago
  And you are assuming they don't remain in control. Which of you is right? We don't know yet, but I don't find the arguments of card-carrying doomers any more convincing that those of card-carrying singularitarian utopians. Historically though, technological improvement has lead to large increases of living standards for the overwhelming majority of people, so I think that past trends support the utopian view more than the doomer view.
  - JoshTriplett 21d ago
    The anthropic principle applies here: anyone warning about an existential risk will by necessity never have precedent to point to. I am not assuming humans don't remain in control, but rather, I am not axiomatically assuming there's any inherent reason we will.
    - Marha01 21d ago
      > The anthropic principle applies here: anyone warning about an existential risk will by necessity never have precedent to point to. We have precedents of people warning about existential risks in the past, when the warnings turned out to be false, or overblown. In some cases, such overblown warnings led to serious negatives for society (demonization of nuclear power).
      - JoshTriplett 21d ago
        Yes, that is precisely my point. Any timeline with humans flourishing will never have a past history of a correct prediction of existential risk, unless you're willing to pay attention to the counterfactuals. Those counterfactuals are important, though. We do have a history of averted disasters, albeit not as large. Ozone hole, Y2K, think about things that seemed overblown at the time, and consider whether they were actually overblown or whether there was a concerted effort to successfully avert them.
    - stale2002 21d ago
      Awfully convenient isn't it? To invent a whole class of arguments that by definition can't be falsified. You can argue for basically anything if you then tack on the excuse of "Well the world would have ended already if it came true, so by definition I won't have evidence for it"
      - pocksuppet 21d ago
        Your argument is basically "humanity can't be destroyed by anything, because I said so"
        stale2002 21d ago
        > "humanity can't be destroyed by anything, because I said so" No, the argument is instead that the person claiming that humanity is going to be destroyed is making a fairly extraordinary claim and that requires fairly extraordinary evidence. Or, in other words, we have tons of evidence already as for why the world ended is a fairly far out there prediction, given all the crazy people making these predictions keep turning out to be wrong. So, you can make your extraordinary claim if you want, but really the burden is entirely on you to prove your extraordinary claim, and everyone else is free to remain on the default and completely normal end of the prediction spectrum, of believing that the world isn't going to end. And when people do tricks like this, they are running away from the fact that they are making a wild completely out-there prediction, and hiding behind that by trying to come up with reasons as for why evidence doesn't matter and actually the burden of proof is shifted to those who have the default and boring prediction of the world not ending.
fn-mote 21d ago
> I have a more optimistic outlook on the abilities of our governments as well as the motivations of rich people. Wow. Only on HN. Also apparently not from the US? Or Russia? This does not reflect what I see in my government.

eru 21d ago

> When cars made horses obsolete, it didn't go so well for horses. I'd guess horses today have on average a better life than back then.

JoshTriplett 21d ago
The comparatively few that still exist, perhaps.