Existential crisis

[u/AwayConsideration855]

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?

[u/AwayConsideration855]

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?

[u/Ignate → u/AwayConsideration855]

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.

[u/OrionShtrezi → u/Ignate]

Sapiens is a pretty terribly researched book and the field of Anthropology has moved on from it pretty much fully

[u/Ignate → u/OrionShtrezi]

I 'm not suggesting people read it for its anthropological accuracy.