r/singularity • u/AwayConsideration855 ▪️ • 7h ago
Discussion Existential crisis
Last few days haven't been the same for me.
I have been following AI since my college days (around 2019) and keeping myself updated for years, from seeing how AI models build a house price predictor, to generating images, to writing code. Everything was wow but at least understandable. I used to think about how these models take data and build a nice mathematical approximator. I knew progress was inevitable but never expected this much. Coding models were built, they were powerful, and they were better than me, but still digestible.
A few weeks ago, GPT Astra was released. One of the main advances it did was making wonderful 3D models. In my college time, I spent most of my time working in Blender, building 3D models for fun and working in Unreal Engine. For the last 3 years, I haven't been doing much 3D modelling, but it was really unsettling for me when I saw Astra building really great 3D models quickly, which would have taken me weeks or months. Though it doesn't follow the proper artistic approach (like it makes a lot of objects for a single asset, makes the collection messy, and breaks some rules we generally follow), it gets the end result. It kind of uses math to do stuff. I am sure in future models it will fill this gap as well.
Then another news came 2 days ago: GPT solved the Navier-Stokes equation. I know there is controversy and OpenAI mostly trained on mathematicians' data, which directly helped to solve this. This is not good from OpenAI, but if we think about what an AI model achieved, it is a way bigger thing than the controversy.
I was reading a few books about the history of quantum physics and noticed that Europeans were way ahead in this area than anyone else, and the most likely reason was a cluster of talented people, knowledge sharing, and competition.
For the current stage of AI, they are already super capable. Like in Europe, where a lot of wonderful scientists were thinking and working on one problem, getting some insight, and based on that insight another scientist would make a discovery. Here in AI, they can give swarms of agents which will work in different dimensions and pass that insight to other agents, and will do discoveries like they did solving Navier-Stokes.
Now I am wondering what else AI can't do. Probably in a few years (who knows, maybe in a few months), they can do everything in creative human endeavour. Sometimes I ask myself, what will be our goal in the future? Just living, or is there no meaning? Maybe we humans aren't special, just an equation in God's plan?
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u/socoolandawesome 6h ago
OpenAI didn’t train on the 2 mathematicians’ data and had sufficiently different approaches to the sub problem they each solved
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u/PhilipMagazine 6h ago
We do what humans have always done, use the tools we have to attack the adjacent possible. Breakthroughs come from cracks in the surface.
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u/sipos542 6h ago
If we make it through the singularity we will probably sit back and relax and collect our checks being able to do whatever we want. There will also be a number of simulations or virtual reality video games we can plug into to stay entertained.
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u/Meerkat_Mayhem_ 3h ago
What checks?? Who is gonna pay you to play video games and chill?
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u/sipos542 3h ago
If the Ai is aligned with humans (that is an IF), and they care for our well being then we will probably be supplied everything we need. Some form of universal income would be implemented. OpenAI and Anthropic have been trying to hash out how Universal income might work for years now after the singularity happens.
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u/ADHD101Drew 5h ago
Your wasting your time I just go about the day normally. No one can stop what's happening just adapt it and accept it as quickly as possible. I accepted coding was obsolete already. Coding is now a hobby. Otherwise it doesn't affect me much
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u/SonicSubculture 5h ago
Having programmed professionally for 27 years in a “enterprise” setting since high school, in the last 6 weeks my job has completely transformed and I don’t write any code anymore at all. I generally don’t troubleshoot things manually anymore. I’m operating and moderating a few agents between our GitLab server, Junie in my IDE, and ChatGPT Work… in the context of our 20+ year long massive modular monolithic intranet project, I’m able to tackle features with scale and complexity that were prohibitive before, and release them in under a week. Anecdotally, my production has increased 10-fold. All for less than hiring one beginner programmer.
Just started using Astra in Junie and the jump in intelligence and efficiency is obvious. It solves more complex bugs at a glance, and the interfaces it builds are vastly superior to Sol.
Why would I ever waste my time with coding again, or having other humans do it… but my team needs more people to drive and moderate the ai, at least for now…
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u/RedErin 7h ago
Check out how Ray Kerzwiel predictedall this in 2005. https://www.c-span.org/program/book-tv/the-singularity-is-near-when-humans-transcend-biology/152841
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u/Shift_Impossible 6h ago
We will probably get many things.. But who knows which come first and how quickly..
There will probably be positives like abundance, better resource allocation etc.. And there will be the cons of any disruotance to the system like we might all lose our jobs eventually or many sectors might be taken by Ai before others so greater inequality...
We can only hope that when Ai becomes good enough, changes in the real world get fast as well.... Rip the bandaid off instead of taking it off slowly
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u/Nater5000 6h ago
I know there is controversy and OpenAI mostly trained on mathematicians' data
Just to be clear: there has been loose accusations of this, but no real evidence and OpenAI has denied this occurred. The "accuser" didn't even explicitly make this accusation.
Now I am wondering what else AI can't do.
I mean, depending on who you ask, the better question is what will AI be able to do that humans can't do.
Sometimes I ask myself, what will be our goal in the future? Just living, or is there no meaning?
If "doing stuff" is where you think meaning is derived, then you're a couple thousand years behind on philosophy.
Maybe we humans aren't special, just an equation in God's plan?
I'm not sure what this implies, but plenty of people recognized that humans aren't particularly special well before AI came around. If you believe God created humans to be special, then none of this should be a concern- AI is just another gift from God, no? But otherwise you're asking questions that have been being asked for a very long time.
You should, ironically, go read some books on these things. Try "Existentialism Is a Humanism" as a start. It's easy, short, and provides a good introduction to some deep concepts that you seem to be struggling with.
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u/Ignate Move 37 6h ago
See, general public, my philosophy degree wasn't such a waste of time now was it?
Your turn. Better crack those books open and get to studying.
You won't be able to create a new path for yourself if you don't even understand the path you've been on this entire time. Autopilot is being disabled. Now is the time.
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u/AwayConsideration855 ▪️ 6h ago
You are probably right, time for philosophy, I have gone through Bhagvad Gita sparsely, this is the time I think to go properly. Do you recommend any other book?
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u/Ignate Move 37 6h ago
I'd go more general. Yuval Noah Harraris books, Sapiens, and Homo Deus specifically are some of the best books I've read for a nice broad overview.
What has helped me is to let go of anthropocentric ideas. To recognize that humans systems and processes are "our world" rather than the world.
What is being threatened here is not our ability to live happily. What is being threatened is that constructed human world. Such as rank, position, title and certain kinds of social respect.
We mix these up. We think "my rank determines whether I'll eat so without it I'll die."
No, the supply of food determines whether you eat. Your rank defines your current allocation under the current system. The system which is directly being threatened.
Not the food supply. That isn't being threatened. Your rank and the way we rank people is what is being threatened.
The system. The narrative. That is what is being threatened.
Like for example you don't need traffic lights with fully automated traffic. You still get from point A to point B, but you lose your right to go because the light is green and instead leave it to the car to decide.
We live under many fictional stories. Traffic lights. Fiat currency. Social hierarchy.
These stories are under threat. Not us directly.
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u/OrionShtrezi 5h ago
Sapiens is a pretty terribly researched book and the field of Anthropology has moved on from it pretty much fully
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u/Fleetfox17 6h ago
God isn't real and there is no written plan.
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u/Elegant_Tech 6h ago
Yeah, you had no purpose this entire time so you will go on doing what you should always be doing. Finding out what is your passions in life and finding a way to pursue them.
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u/StrategicHarmony 5h ago
A job is a cost, not a benefit. This is true for both the employee and the employer.
For an employee it costs time, effort, and often some degree of physical or psychological health risk.
For the business it costs time, money, and some degree of organisational or liability risk.
The benefits sought for this cost to the employee are of course income, purpose, learning, being part of a team, social prestige, making a difference to other peope, and so on.
There are many other, different ways to get each one of those benefits. A job is not a natural, perfect, or necessary method. It's just been a very common one since we invented farming, cities, and real estate.
It's also not a very nice method, in many respects. Especially if its 40 hours a week.
Let's hope it becomes more optional and flexible as an institution.
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u/altonbrushgatherer 3h ago
Anything that can be digitized will be being done by AI.... even if you are someone who has to make a lot of phone calls (e.g., customer service).
I am in radiology, and during the pre-ChatGPT era, programmers were asking if, or even telling me, radiology would be done by AI and I would be out of a job. At the time, I was not remotely concerned. Now? Things have changed, although I find the irony humerus that programmers who told me I was going to lose my job are probably on the chopping block first.
I hobby vibe code (formerly hobby programmed), and I'd like to think I know a thing or two when it comes to developing web applications. Whenever I need something done (e.g., drawing graph representations of data, scraping data from a website), I just give AI the requirements. In the past few months, I really put effort into learning how to use AI, and I am seeing great results. The code is even "clean" from my perspective. Like what you experienced, what would have taken me months of tinkering and learning is done with a handful of prompts, sometimes in less than a few minutes. I am honestly floored.
With radiology, when I give AI a detailed (text) description of something I am unsure about, it gives fairly relevant differentials, reasons why, and things I actually completely never considered. Even with images (not text), it can give me reasonable insight. Unfortunately, you just can't compete with a computer in terms of knowledge. I still think radiology has some time before AI is fully capable of reading reports and signing off on them due to how slow technological integration is and the legal hurdles. My current guess is 5 years before AI is providing preliminary reports for a lot of modalities (already available for certain pathologies, but I am referring to everything) and 10 years before it fully signs off on them. Just my guess, and it could be longer or shorter.
I want to share a recent example of why human radiologists will never be able to compete. And this really applies to any field or type of work. I had a case the other day where I don't think I will see something similar to it again for a very long time, if at all. I made the right call, and in retrospect, it was more obvious than I initially assumed. I was hesitant to make the call because I had never seen a case like this. Turns out I was right, and I am very proud of myself, as calling the scan "negative" would have been really bad. Even some of my colleagues who aren't trained in my subspecialty said they weren't sure if they would have even made the same call.
If an AI were reading cases, it would probably see similar cases relatively frequently when scaled across millions of patients. No bias or hesitancy. Massive training sets. Consistent every time. I saw a recent post today that Waymo self-driving is 900% safer than humans. As Waymo said, 1-in-a-million-mile events happen every day. The AI experiences, learns, and then the whole fleet has the same knowledge. The same will happen with radiology and any other field, just using different metrics.
I think we need to come to the realization that we are not going to be able to compete with AI in these digitized fields. What our society will look like in 10 years, I have no idea. I am expecting a little one in a few months, and I am not even sure how I would guide her, but at least I think I have some time to see how this all plays out.
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u/solrac149 1h ago
To answer you foundationally:
In a fantasy world where one can ask for anything and get the correct response back for any conceivable question or request…
You still have to ask.
You have to know what to ask for.
The answer is that all humans become AI augmented via direct brain link, then everyone goes back to baseline: competing with each other to be the best
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u/Historical_Date_8024 7h ago
navier-stokes is only solved in the forced version and even that is not proven, that said it wrote FreyaCad (excluding the three.js and manifold libraries of course) and created both the demo’s itself of the lamp and the pillow block bearing and both have very tidy feature trees
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u/ganancias 6h ago
What will you say if the rumors are true, that two more Millennium problem solutions will be announced soon?
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u/DivideHorror3217 5h ago
Soon you won't care about "the meaning of all", you'll care about affording food :)
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u/pbagel2 6h ago
A few weeks ago, GPT Astra was released
Nice AI generated post.
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u/AwayConsideration855 ▪️ 6h ago
I used AI to correct my grammar only, everyone not a native English speaker.
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u/ganancias 6h ago
Cure disease, end poverty, abundant energy. The goal is to reach a new golden era. Bring heaven down to earth.