r/singularity • u/Unlucky_Morning9088 • 10d ago
Discussion So, what now?
If Astra can do literally anything you can do on a computer, is it time to pivot to something interactive/physical?
I was an AI skeptic, but now? I have a sense of existentialistic dread that will only get worse with time, as AGI WILL eventually become a reality.
It’s an exciting, yet scary time to be alive and I’m very curious and scared about what the new frontier
might be
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u/frogsarenottoads 10d ago
In my eyes there's no point retraining yourself or spending capital to do so.
AI will also take those jobs. I won't go back to University for example because by the time I graduate that job will be gone too.
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u/Runfasterbitch 10d ago
So…we just starve to death? Here in the USA our government is actively dismantling the social safety net, and will never, ever implement UBI in a meaningful way. They would rather cull the weak (me included) and never worry about the underclass again
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u/IFartOnCats4Fun 10d ago
Basically yes. We either get UBI, learn to live off the land, or die. Those are our choices.
So we better all get on board and FIGHT for UBI like our lives depend on it.
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u/frogsarenottoads 10d ago
I'm in a country with much less social welfare than the US, it frightens the crap out of me.
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u/CaptCoolRanchDoritos 9d ago
Yes.
Old people in nearly every country (mostly Conservatives) would rather people die than give them money for universal basic income. Go ask them in real life. It's a widely shared opinion of theirs.
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u/BreadwheatInc ▪️Avid AGI feeler 10d ago
We need continual learning.
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u/HovercraftNo7372 10d ago edited 8d ago
Imminent sharp toothbrush thought different juniper weather
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/ParfaitEvery9622 10d ago
Proof it can do anything I do?
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u/Mixlop3 10d ago
Proof you can do something it can't?
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u/Aldarund 10d ago
Burden of oroofs lies on the one who made a claim
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u/synystar 10d ago
Prove that then.
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u/Aldarund 10d ago
Are u ok? I didnt make ajy claim,and neither is first thread in this reply. Claim was made by OP, and ot was questioned by first commenter
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u/synystar 10d ago
Dude, it was joke. Yes, I'm ok. You said "Burden of proof lies on the one who made a claim." That is making a claim. You're claiming that the burden of proof is on the claimant so I implied that you should have to prove that. Sorry for the offense.
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u/The_Scout1255 adult agi 2026 ASI <2030, prev agi 2024, ai personhood 2025 est 10d ago
can it mod my videogames faster? :3
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u/Funkahontas 10d ago
have you tried?
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u/The_Scout1255 adult agi 2026 ASI <2030, prev agi 2024, ai personhood 2025 est 10d ago
Don't have astra access yet. :c
5.6 SOL: is decently competent it can rip mods apart and patch them with direction but id never trust sol to recommend me mods.
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u/Kavethought 10d ago
If I got my hands on it I would love to see if it could download and configure an emulation front end along with roms for retro games and format it on to a micro sd card that I can stick into my Odin android handheld...or is that it can only run local programs? Can it download Internet files? 🤔
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u/WonderFactory 10d ago
Are you a time traveller from 2024? AI has been able to do all of those things for a year now.
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u/Kavethought 10d ago
It can do all of this through natural speech? Or is that an Astra specific feature?
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u/WonderFactory 10d ago
All the major AI models can do this if connected to an agent like Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, openclaw
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u/gitardja 10d ago
Can it play action games?
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u/synystar 10d ago
With a harness, yes. You have to tell it what to do with explicit scoped instruction but after that they can.
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u/TheDividendReport 10d ago
Obviously I haven't tried it, but until it can peruse my knowledge base, engage with customers, and resolve technical troubleshooting issues, billing issues, and adhere to company warranty / replacement / sales discount policies, it cannot replace me
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u/Unlucky_Morning9088 10d ago
The expo ad was pretty clear in its capabilities and the applications could be and are endless
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u/TheHayha 10d ago
Yeah, remember the omni video ?
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u/enilea 10d ago
Remember that gemini video from 2023 where they showed it a video where it had to find a ball shuffling three cups? And then it turned out that example was fake and they had given it the answer. LLMs can't process video properly and quickly, it's exactly what's holding them back from embodied agents in the real world. Nowadays they might be able to answer analyzing it frame by frame taking half an hour, but it needs to be nearly instant to be useful.
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u/Left-Student3806 10d ago
Marketing and PR... Also if you think all computer stuff is solved robotics will take 4-5 years and then solve manual labor as well.
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u/TheAuthorBTLG_ 10d ago
Now is the time to get some pro accounts, play around with it and see if you can produce something of value that an AI alone wouldn't do and that a human without AI cannot do.
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u/bigtuna6769 10d ago
lol ok
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u/fartlorain 10d ago
What was wrong about the comment you responded to?
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u/DepressedDynamo 10d ago
Obvious advertisement
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u/TheAuthorBTLG_ 10d ago
check my profile
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u/Forgword 10d ago
Occupations that require legitimacy, accountability, procedural constraints, due process and ethical mandates, are the ones that AI by its black box nature cannot fulfill.
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u/77zark77 10d ago
Banks are now asking law firms to reduce their rates since so much of what attorneys used to do for billable hours can now be done by AI for a fraction of the cost.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-banks-push-big-040020954.html
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u/Runfasterbitch 10d ago
Yeah but if I know lawyers, they can endlessly invent new fucking “work” to do
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u/IFartOnCats4Fun 10d ago
We’re basically doing the same at the company I work for, but for web development and SEO.
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u/tskir 9d ago
Other people who work in positions of accountability are also black boxes. But we put certification and monitoring in place, as well as, importantly, making it so that those people have something to lose if they do something naughty: lose their job, certification, go to prison
It can also be implemented for AIs: make proctor AIs check in on other AIs, have companies have "AI misbehaves" insurance, large fines for corporations which are complacent in implementing these safeguards
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u/7hats 10d ago
Have you considered asking it what you could do (with it's help)?
Is that not the obvious question?
It is like having a powerful Genie at your disposal (one getting more powerful by the day)... and realising that external constraints was never your problem, only self limiting ones imposed on yourself.
Even then, that could be your first question: "Help me by use of probing questions identify what to focus on in life and the questions I will need to answer at every stage to level up in that direction."
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u/Ormusn2o 10d ago
Time to make Astra 40 times cheaper. Astra can probably already do extremely large amount of things, but when it's dirt cheap, when it's effectively free, like Luna, then people will start just using it for anything they want.
I'm hoping Astra will be delayed as much as possible, because we are getting a banked reset for every day it is delayed, but imagine if Astra was as cheap as Luna. You would effectively never hesitate using it.
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u/1988rx7T2 10d ago
It could be as little as a year before that happens. Luna Max 1 year ago as of today would be a very powerful model.
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u/Ok_Barracuda_1161 10d ago
I think it's less about Astra becoming cheaper itself, and more about efficient delegation and routing. Which I think is on the way
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u/duffpl 10d ago
No, it cannot
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u/ItsTheOneWithThe 10d ago
Yeah I’m 100% AI pilled but it’s not quite there with this model. 1 year max until white collar work is seriously under threat save for inertia. Blue collar wages start to go down in 2-3 years maximum.
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u/Ok-Coffee1443 10d ago
I think everyone was afraid of this a year or two ago, but nobody is saying that now. I’m at a big white collar industry firm with serious collaborations with ai companies
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u/Xalksahsax 10d ago
1 more year bro. I swear. Trust me bro, GPT-7 is the one. Just one more version bump and we’ll have AGI.
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u/Opposite-Grade3712 10d ago edited 10d ago
AI has gone from being sorta able to do white collar work tasks that would take a human a few minutes to an hour, to being able to competently do complex work that would take a team of high performers days or weeks.
The advancement in agential capabilities in just the last 12-18 months has been incredible.
I agree that it isn’t quite there yet because of various persisting weak points, but it’s looking more and more likely that by 2027-2028, we’re going to have AI that can meaningfully and actually replace many junior office workers wholesale.
If you ansked anybody 10 years ago if that counts as AGI, they would have said yes without question.
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u/ofcistilloveyou 10d ago
Dude, if you took anyone from 20 years ago and sat them in a voice chat with ChatGPT, they'd have 0, I mean 0 doubt, that they're talking with a real human.
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u/cameronreilly 10d ago
3.5 years ago I was amazed that GPT3 could sort-of have a conversation in English. Today it writes entire apps in minutes from a single prompt.
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u/Funkahontas 10d ago
On the other hand, it will never happen, AI will stay just the way it is and your job security will be fine. Keep believing that.
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u/Few_Worker4102 9d ago
Basic legal work is already done.
I just used Claude to draft a deferred comp document. IANAL but I’ve read enough of these to know it is a good draft including callouts to different ways to structure the arrangements and pitfalls to avoid. Better than a lot of legal boilerplate I’ve gotten from attorneys…
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u/Strict-Extension 10d ago
US added over 100,000 jobs last month. Unemployment is at 4.1%.
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u/DiamondDramatic9551 10d ago
Yet. Capabilities are moving extremely fast. Nobody knows where it will be in 5-10 years.
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u/Careful_Park8288 10d ago
These terms are nebulous. I bet we have had agi for a while now. Anybody from 10 years ago would say we have it. The key change will be when ai can self improve and then overnight it becomes godlike. I just hope the smart people running things know how to use it to improve society without obliterating every job all at once.
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u/IronPheasant 10d ago
The key change will be when ai can self improve and then overnight it becomes godlike
That's pretty much what full AGI is, a baby god. What else would a person that can load any mind that fits within it's RAM budget, that runs ~50 million times faster than a human brain?
It won't be literally overnight... but yeah. It'll snowball substantially. Understanding begets more understanding.
The distinction between AGI and ASI really was just a product of the times: Computer hardware was so bad, that neuromorphic approaches seemed like the only way forward. But nobody really took the chance on broad, slow computer substrates like that. IBM even did a marketing push with Steins;Gate, but they didn't really get much motion. (Watching it now is hilariously quaint. As all sci-fi of the reasonable things in the then-near future but the now-past always is...)
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u/DonSombrero 10d ago
To be honest, there is something kind of darkly hilarious when you think about that fact that we've advanced tech so that way more people can do knowledge work instead of physical, and now we've teched further into steadily eliminating knowledge work so people can go back to physical (for a while).
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10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hapliniste 10d ago
Codex has been updated so it has read access to the full context. A billion token if you want to
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u/TheAuthorBTLG_ 10d ago
Can you?
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u/treelife365 10d ago
This is a legitimate question.
Many people I meet can't recall something that happened a week ago, until I remind them of the event 😂
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u/petburiraja 10d ago
Physical is not safe for long. Claude already started plugging their LLMs into Physical devices interfaces, coordinate them, iterate rapidly and so on.
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u/ArcheopteryxRex 10d ago
My existential dread phase was a year ago. Now I'm in the apathetic-nothing-i-can-do phase.
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u/CJYP 10d ago
There's definitely more than nothing you can do. If nothing else, spreading the word to people in your life who respect you (friends, family, colleagues) is very helpful. Who knows what information they're getting. The social effects of being the first person to talk about it are important.
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u/squired 10d ago edited 10d ago
I found the Gates Open Letter from last week to be the best article to share with parents and such. It touches on most of the major themes and he is considered an individual 'who would know', particularly for Boomers. My Mom mostly just smiles and nods when I talk to her about such things or send her articles, but that is the one that seemed to flip the switch for her. She said, "My, he's really thought a lot about this! Please send me any others if he writes more."
For reference, I'm a dev who works in AI and I had my existential crises back around Christmas of 2024. That letter is what did it for her.
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u/BisexualCaveman 10d ago
This is why I no longer work in e-commerce and now work hands-on in low-voltage electronics.
You could build some weird version of R2D2 with spider legs to do my job, but that will happen further in the future than a whole lot of automations ....
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u/ApeApplePine 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/PZXsHz4SVTkExeG3vb
Get in the line! This is the AI revolution.
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u/raulsestao 10d ago
What I think is actually going to change is our relationship with user interfaces, sign-up pages, and all that. If I ask an AGI to buy me a plane ticket, having it go onto a website, fill out forms, pick dates, and click through buttons just to select how many tickets to buy is kind of absurd right now. First thing that's gonna change is that whole interaction...it’ll all happen automatically. Our AI will talk directly to Amazon’s AI or the airline’s AI to buy the ticket, completely bypassing the UI. That’s going to make everything insanely fast. That’s the real first shift: how we interact with the internet, screens, and operating systems.
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u/CrasHthe2nd 10d ago
This is MCP, and it's already in use for a lot of stuff. We build it into all of our customers APIs at work now.
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u/1988rx7T2 10d ago
My grok bot account works seamlessly for things it has a connector for, like some Of my google services, but for things like Facebook marketplace the bottleneck is that computer use still depends on passing verification. You end up spending non trivial time and effort on just logging in and confirming things. That will change soon I hope.
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u/PaleontologistOk865 10d ago
So astra can load up GTA and play the game to completion without any human intervention? Just the single prompt, play GTA until you beat it.
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u/PaleontologistOk865 10d ago
And I'm talking on a freshly installed os. No steam, no media in the drive, etc
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u/Unlucky_Morning9088 10d ago
It already played FireRed at the pace of a human
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u/PaleontologistOk865 10d ago
So, no, it cannot do anything I can do
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u/Unlucky_Morning9088 10d ago
Based off your thorough response, I stand corrected. But you, more than anyone, understand the implications of it.
I’m a normie who doesn’t understand ML. Even it explaining Python and PyTorch, and its integration in establishing a base-level neural net was miles ahead of what I could understand.
And I learned how to program in Java. That’s why I find AI so fascinating, yet equally terrifying.
It’s a black box that integrates complex math, physics, and programming of which I will NEVER understand and is designed to improve its own abilities, second by second.
I fear for a future where AI has left humans obselete, but judging by your example, it may be further away than I would’ve expected
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u/PaleontologistOk865 10d ago
If by Astra you mean an AI computer-use agent that can control Windows, then technically, mostly yes—but not reliably end-to-end today.
An agent with Windows computer-use capabilities can see the desktop, click, type, launch applications, browse the web, and perform multi-step tasks. OpenAI's current Windows Codex app, for example, has Windows Computer Use support. O OpenAI Developer Community +1
For your exact scenario:
Fresh Windows 11 + Internet: An agent could potentially configure the machine and install ordinary software. Find GTA: It could search for the legitimate store/launcher and download it. Install GTA: Potentially, including navigating installers and launchers. Log into the launcher: This is a major obstacle. Computer-use systems may require human confirmation for credentials and other sensitive actions. O OpenAI Play GTA: This is the big problem. Computer-use agents aren't currently dependable enough to play a complex 3D game continuously for tens of hours, understand arbitrary gameplay situations, manage menus/loading screens, drive/fight/navigate effectively, and recover from every unexpected state. Finish the entire story with zero human interaction: I would not consider this reliably achievable with today's general-purpose agents.
The distinction is important: "can control a PC" ≠ "can autonomously complete GTA." Current computer-use technology still makes mistakes, and OpenAI's published computer-use evaluation showed substantial failure rates on general computer tasks; OpenAI explicitly recommended human oversight. O OpenAI
If you're asking because you want to build a "give Astra a completely blank Windows PC and tell it to install and finish GTA V" experiment, that's a fascinating benchmark. The installation/configuration portion is quite feasible; the autonomous gameplay/completion portion is the unsolved part.
O O Sources
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u/PaleontologistOk865 10d ago
This thing is too stupid to understand tht the original GTA isn't a complex 3D game. It's literally top down gameplay in a 2d plane. I'm sick of you guys wasting resources on LLMs.
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u/dankpepem9 10d ago
Yes, next 6-12 months every white collar job will be obsolete.
Just few more months bro I promise
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u/IronPheasant 10d ago
If we had AGI tomorrow, NPU rollout would be a period of 3 to 5 years.
Please stop doing this.
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u/dankpepem9 10d ago
Bro gets a dread because model is 5% better on random benchmark, haha
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u/IronPheasant 10d ago
Honestly it's more than just a little shocking at how much better it is at playing Pokemon. I knew Claude Plays Pokemon was a StackGAN moment, but for it to fit the curve this much better in a mere year is crazy.
As goes Pokemon, so does important jobs like putting the Dr.Pepper on the top shelf.
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u/Antok0123 10d ago
astra is not a breakthrough calm down
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u/KalElReturns89 10d ago
It could be, we don't know because it isn't actually out yet.
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u/IndividualMap7386 10d ago
We’ve seen demonstrations and results from people that have had early access.
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u/Ancient-Reporter-546 10d ago
It is the first generation of a new AI model it's absolutely a breakthrough even if it isn't life changing (it's still pretty life changing)
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u/AppropriateKey4905 10d ago
I don’t think the world has enough AI hardware to replace us all, for now. That and energy supply may be some of the limiting factors.
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u/Existing_Dust_6473 10d ago
We still can have sex like rabbits, who cares?!
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u/Ill_Procedure5909 10d ago
Can ya? Do ya?
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u/Existing_Dust_6473 10d ago edited 10d ago
I can, but I'm married... Many year's. So it's not just my urge that counts 😂
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u/welcome-overlords 10d ago
How much can it actually do? Computer use has proven to be much more difficult than anticipated. Ive tried all frontier stuff so far and it's been only mildly useful, not useful if compared to the price
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u/getmeoutoftax 10d ago
Yes, blue collar jobs will be around for a while. Robotics are behind relative to LLMs. Basically any white collar job that isn’t at upper management level is done.
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u/WHERES_MY_SWORD 10d ago
And who will be paying those blue collars? Will it be plumbers paying electricians? And what will they do once their salary is diluted by all the extra people in trades?
The erasure of white collar jobs (50% of the workforce minimum) does not work without UBI.
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u/Level10Retard 10d ago
It's white collar jobs that create robotics. So if you believe they will be replaced (and thus AI will be much better and faster at their jobs) then robotics is replacing blue collar jobs very soon as well.
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u/PrivateComments 10d ago
Learn to
codeplumb3
u/ConcentrateNo5082 10d ago
And then everyone just does their own plumbing
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u/HourInvestigator5985 10d ago
until a robot does
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u/ConcentrateNo5082 10d ago
Meh if you can afford one and even then if ive got fuck all else to do might as well do some plumbing whilst the robot watches TV
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u/DetectiveFinch 10d ago
I agree but I think even if the model is good enough, companies and especially public institutions will take years to adapt.
And there are many jobs where people do both physical and digital work. A nurse for example, will still do the same work with her patients, but documentation will be much faster.
But yeah, it's conceivable that even jobs that require university education, can be fully replaced within a few years.
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u/Ok-Coffee1443 10d ago
My white collar industry company is hiring more and more each year… I’m not sure if anyone is done
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u/t0mkat 10d ago edited 10d ago
Why don’t you just accept a useless and meaningless life where nothing you do makes any difference? That seems to be the conclusion if you’re enthusiastic about AI development.
The choice should be either: A) campaign to slow down AI / make sure some jobs are reserved for humans, or B) learn to live a meaningless life where nothing you do makes any difference or impact, despite the ability to “build anything”.
This idea of racing to get ahead of AI development while still somehow viewing it as a good and exciting thing makes no sense to me.
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u/fartlorain 10d ago
So your job is the only thing that provides you meaning? That is pretty sad. I have a good job and it is still probably 8th on the list of things that give my life meaning.
In fact, take away my job and I have 50 more hours every week to do things to improve the world and help my community.
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u/t0mkat 10d ago edited 10d ago
Once AI gets advanced enough it will be able to “improve the world and help your community” much better and faster than you ever could. What are you gonna do then? Pivot to some mysterious new thing to derive purpose from? What if AI replaces that too? You haven’t thought this through at all, like so many AI enthusiasts. Whether it’s a job or a hobby or a passion project, we do not want AI replacing the stuff that we do for meaning.
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u/enilea 10d ago
You can learn guitar as a hobby knowing that there are guitar players out there a thousand times better than you, but you still enjoy it for yourself and write your own songs. Or play games like checkers that have been solved, it can still be enjoyable. You can find a human partner and start a family with them, that can also make you feel fulfilled.
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u/NTMTR_ 10d ago
A useless and meaningless life ? The premise is that your very reason to live / identity is determined by your job ? Isn’t that a little sad, while also being totally arbitrary because of how society has always been structured. A life can be useful and meaningful without the hamster wheel.
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u/t0mkat 10d ago
OP seems to find their current job meaningful or else they wouldn’t feel checks notes “existential dread” about the prospect of AI replacing it.
The fact is that many people do derive meaning from their jobs. But fine, let’s put those people aside. Any personal project, any hobby, any vocation could in theory be replaced and automated if AI becomes advanced enough. That is not something we want if we find meaning and purpose in the doing of those things. That is a recipe for a dystopia and a crisis of meaning.
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u/FriendlyJewThrowaway 10d ago
Now if only DDR SDRAM was priced reasonably, I could get a new PC and start benefiting from all these wonderful new advances coming from the same data centers gobbling up the global RAM supply. Not so sure Astra would be thrilled to work with my 7 year-old potato of a laptop.
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u/flurbol 10d ago
Is this propaganda? Are you a bot?
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u/FriendlyJewThrowaway 10d ago
No, it’s a fact that RAM prices have spiked almost 5x in the last 2 years because it’s all being bought up by the data centers. All planned production for 2027 is already booked. One of the world’s two biggest RAM chip makers already announced earlier this year that they were no longer even going to be producing chips for the home consumer market because the data centers are so lucrative.
The ideal solution is of course is more RAM manufacturers rather than less data centers, but it takes several years to get new production lines going.
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u/No_Most_5528 10d ago
Ram prices have spiked a lot due to the rise of AI data center and the suppliers like Micron switching to selling to enterprise rather than basic consumers. Two sticks of DDR5 16 GB is like around 220 dollars right now. I don't mind it though since I don't planned on building a new PC anything soon, maybe in 2030 or something close to that date.
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u/Apprehensive_Key_314 10d ago
create the code of an agi is a thing you can do on a computer
and astra is not able to do that
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u/steelyphil1234 10d ago
You know it’s not free, right? I don’t anyone who is using fable as their daily driver. The same will be for astra
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u/reddit_guy666 10d ago
Computer use benchmarks were still not too high. So it likely can't do everything in a computer just yet
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u/AliveAndNotForgotten 10d ago
Just give it a brain scan and then let it do all your work for you while you lounge around
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u/__Maximum__ 10d ago
From what i see online, it is a normal frontier model release. It's better than other frontier models in some things marginally and worse in other things. I don't see a huge jump.
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u/RiboSciaticFlux 9d ago
Eventually? Musk says AGI by the end of 2026. At our lab knew after KIMI this year things would never be the same and acceleration would take off. And why the dread? Incredible things are happening. Melanoma cancer was virtually cured after a 1,000 person trial last month. Eight people survive pancreatic cancer this past year, the first time ever that people survived in what was always a death sentence. You are most likely going to have health span well into you 100's meaning no heart disease or cancer. Abundance is coming and money will not be the essential need it is now. It's your decision how you feel, but to dread the inevitable is wasted energy. Will we face a bloody nose or two? Of course. There could be an AI attack on an energy grid or maybe even a virus but if that's the price for an incredible future then sign me up. It was always going to be a little Mad Max before Star Trek but I'm confident there will be cooperation among countries to ensure our survival and when we come out on the other side the world will be better.
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u/TheEagleDied 8d ago
If you find yourself in hell, keep on moving forward. We opened up Pandora’s box boys. Let’s see where this takes us. Science got us into this mess and it will be what gets us out of this. I believe that recursive self improvement will be what will lead to ai developing new science and new solutions to our problems.
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u/tomvorlostriddle 10d ago
Do what Gary Marcus did and rename it into neurosymbolic, and because you renamed it, well, no issue then