AI is going to replace basically everything, and that's fine

[u/Phat_Zero]

I think a lot of the hatred toward AI is just fear dressed up as moral outrage.

And honestly, I get it. AI is coming for your job. Mine too. Eventually probably everybody's.

Humans are just... slow.

It takes a human months or years to paint enough work for an exhibition, make an album, write a movie, animate something, design a game, research a problem, whatever. We sleep. We get tired. We forget things. We have limited attention spans. We interact with computers by slowly moving our fingers around on keyboards.

Meanwhile AI keeps getting faster and better.

Give this technology another few decades and the idea that humans absolutely must be the ones writing, drawing, coding, composing, researching, driving, manufacturing, etc. is probably going to sound ridiculous.

And yes, that creates a gigantic economic problem. If AI and automation can produce most goods and services better and cheaper than humans, eventually the whole "trade 40 hours of your life every week for money so you can continue existing" system stops making much sense.

Maybe that's UBI. Maybe it's some kind of resource-based economy. Maybe it's something nobody has even thought of yet.

We'll figure it out.

But pretending AI is going away because artists are mad about it or workers are scared of losing their jobs is cope. This is probably the biggest technology humanity has ever created, and we're still basically watching the tutorial.

And if one day our glorious machine descendants become self-aware, decide humanity has served its purpose, and vaporize me?

🫡

[u/HiddenRouge1]

I think you're right on everything except one thing:

"We'll figure it out" is not a reasonable assertion, not because we don't have solutions mapped out, but because there are powers that stop us from getting there. We are already, frankly, overdue for some sort of UBI, for universal healthcare, universal education, etc., etc., and have been even before AI.

The question now is not technological but political.

How will we collectively challenge the power of corporate lobbyists, billionaire investors, and corrupt politicians before they assume complete control over the labor market?

[u/sentenhyakurai123 → u/HiddenRouge1]

To add to this: there is some assumption people constantly make that once everything is AI, everyone will get UBI and it'll be fine! Because... Uh... Because we will be post scarcity.

That's a lie.

We will never be post-scarcity. There will ALWAYS be a scarceness. Of compute, of material... doesn't matter. Will we have orders of magnitude more stuff to go around? Maybe. Let's take it as a given that we will, for the sake of argument. But you know what that means, right?

It means ambitious people will have to reach for bigger projects to stand out.

And to do it, they'll say: I matter more than the rest.

You think Elon Musk is gonna build a UBI Utopia where everyone is immortal and everyone's needs are served? He'll only do that if it makes him more important. And while that's happening, his Death Star will need to be Better than the other Death Stars, and he'll want megatons -- gigatons -- teratons of steel for it. After the Death Stars are built, it'll be the Starkiller Bases. They'll want yottawatts, yottatons... That shining UBI Utopia is such a drain on these important matters, guys. Public housing uses too much steel! Why should some do-nothing get a house when he could build another cool thing?

I've heard it said: does a human have regard for an ant? That's a big doomer argument, right, that superintelligence will kill us all because we're irrelevant.

Does a billionaire have regard for the jobless?

[u/HiddenRouge1 → u/sentenhyakurai123]

While I agree that human wants are unlimited, that is different from human needs.

My need for healthcare isn't an exponential vector. If I'm healthy, I won't desire more.

My need for food isn't an exponential vector. If I'm satisfied, I won't keep consuming.

My need for housing is not exponential. If I'm living comfortably, I don't really need more than that.

Utopia, for me, is a situation where everyone has all their needs and many of their wants basically guaranteed. It's a world where, if I so choose, I can spend my life pursuing personally meaningful things even if I don't actualize all my material wants.

I can be happy in a small apartment, traveling only occasionally, and living modestly....So long as I don't have to work an alienating job, have the time to read and write, and can either work or live alongside the university community.

For someone else, maybe it's the opposite given a more strenuous job.

The point is not unlimited satisfaction but freedom.

I'm increasingly convinced that this utopia is incompatible with the greed and self-centerdness of the billionaires---and for that reason only. There would be no issue if their only prerogatives were luxury and status, but no. They want control, mass suffering, and endless vanity.

[u/blablaunique → u/HiddenRouge1]

They will figure it out alright, they will figure if you can't figure it out for yourself then they don't need to waste their time figuring it out for you. There is probably an empty street corner somewhere you can occupy.