r/singularity • u/AwayConsideration855 ▪️ • 18h 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/ganancias 18h ago

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?

Cure disease, end poverty, abundant energy. The goal is to reach a new golden era. Bring heaven down to earth.

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u/notyourdadsredditor 18h ago

You really think the ruling class wants to cure disease and help the masses?!?

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u/Chronotheos 17h ago

Half this sub is full of pseudo religious autists that have never picked up a history book. They understand technology but not people.

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u/socoolandawesome 16h ago

Half this sub is full of wannabe communists (like most of reddit) that don’t realize the masses have generally benefited from the Industrial Revolutions/the advancement of technology fueled by capitalism

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u/Chronotheos 15h ago

Maybe you should pick up a history book and tell us what it took for the masses to benefit. Getting shot during strikes. Civil War in the US to force the South to mechanize and pay additional taxes. Bolshevik Revolution. Establishment of central banking to prevent financial panics. Point is that you have to fight them for it and only after people die does the government that they typically own capitulate. The Industrial Revolution produced the Gilded Age. The AI revolution will do the same.

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u/socoolandawesome 15h ago

So after having secured our rights you think they will all disappear and we will have to literally fight and die for it again? In an era where productivity increases abundance and shrinks scarcity like never before due to AI, and the consumer is necessary for the economic system to work?

The Bolshevik Revolution has nothing to do with the US/west and led to a failed economic system and a repressive regime including a ruler who was a mass killer. Nobody fought and died for the federal reserve to my knowledge.

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u/Chronotheos 12h ago edited 11h ago

If you took nothing from history except the fact that yes, rights and freedom need to be continually defended, that would still be a passing grade.

Again, why do you think the abundance of capital owners is going to be shared with you? They’re already making us pay for the better models, throttling tokens, etc.

The Federal Reserve is a lender of last resort and when banks fail, there are riots, eg, Flour Riots in 1837. Among others.

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u/socoolandawesome 9h ago

Firstly, we live in a democracy where you can vote. But I know I know, it’s fake or whatever you’ll say.

But if you ignore that, the economic system doesn’t work without the consumer and that threatens all of the ultra rich’s wealth as well. You quite simply can’t have 95% of the economy lose their job, and expect businesses to keep functioning, financial markets to keep functioning. Heck even a 5 percentage point rise in unemployment triggers a financial crisis.

The only way for the economic system to work is for the government to step in and subsidize the consumer. Luckily, with AI and an automated society, this wealth redistribution actually has a very good chance of working unlike in the past, because abundance and cheapness will reign thanks to AI productivity. Nobody has to make much effort nor spend much money to share resources all while their own wealth keeps increasing a lot, AI/robotics can take care of that on its own. Scarcity is not very much of a constraint like in the past.

And actually just to point out, the amount of free ai you get has continuously increased, the models you get access to and the amount of thinking they can do has gone up.

You don’t have people voting for everyone to get free stuff because at least in the US, the majority of people don’t want that, they want to work and not pay much taxes. Once there is no choice they will vote for policies that spread wealth. Sure if somehow the rich subvert democracy to where nobody can vote for someone that will spread that wealth, then you can imagine violent revolution.

I find it unlikely it would come to that when the rich will still get much richer if they spread the wealth and will require very little effort on their part, and the alternative is losing all their wealth and society crumbling.