You ever play a video game with god mode cheats enabled, so you can unlock all the unlocks, get all the best gear, and be an unstoppable force with unlimited money?
Yeah, it's fun for 30 minutes.
You ever play a video game with god mode cheats enabled, so you can unlock all the unlocks, get all the best gear, and be an unstoppable force with unlimited money?
Yeah, it's fun for 30 minutes.
On the other hand, exploring any of your interests without needing to calculate how it can cover rent means you have more time and opportunities to actually do things you're interested in.
Working all day, then not wanting to do much else after because you're tired, is also fun for all of 30 minutes.
Right!? Like imagine we could use this stuff to solve world hunger, develop robots to clean up the oceans, or colonize space?
People are all “shucks how am I going to be able to justify my career at $job” and are missing the bigger opportunity. Such a lack of imagination I see…
There is no lack of imagination here, there is realism. You think you display "imagination" by just regurgitating all the tired tropes of old science fiction? Oh wow! Robots to clean the ocean! How novel! Nobody has ever thought about this!
The reality is nobody is going to build robots to clean the ocean because there is no money to be made. There will be robots to clean rich people's pools, sure. And it will put pool boys out of a job, great.
I can see (given that you've responded to a few of my points here), that you care about this enough to respond.
What if money wasn't a thing? What if that wasn't the only incentive in the economy? What if there were other ways to balance supply and demand curves (which is basically the principle use for money) so we could reduce shortages, etc.
Dream big man, I'm serious! And who cares if there is no money to be made? Like, what are you (individually you) doing to create the world you want to live in? What world do you even want to live in?
"let's slow everything down because we haven't figured out the resource appropriation aspect, yet"
there will always be disruption and frictions, 頑張って ください
Exactly, a lot of people keep attacking me as anxiety for losing my livelihood. It’s not that.
It’s just depression that another avenue for human craftsmanship has been taken over by the machines. Humans are not just infinite consumers. If AI solves all of humanity problems, it’s like living in a zoo, not a life worth living imo.
This has always been the case though that "another avenue of human craftsmanship has been taken over by the machines."
It's good if we can have robots building things instead of having humans slumped over a workbench in a sweatshop piecing things together. It's good if we can have LLMs spitting out code rather than CS grads working 15 hour days at fintech startups or whatever. The conditions were never (ever) good before.
And, it won't be like a zoo - you'll be able to go wherever you want, do more or less whatever you want. Think about living in The Culture, or the Star Trek universe or whatever. There are options beyond "I'm a pet to the machines." Think big, dream big, then help make it a reality!
Like, out in space you're still going to need a human to make decisions because you can't wait 30min for the tight-beam signal to get back to earth. Also, we're pretty good at soaking up rads and still being "useful" - at least so far I don't see that being a major advantage to the robots. Maybe our place is to be the deep space mechanics that keep the robots alive? I don't know, regardless, you should dream big. What kind of world do you want to live in? Ok, how do we make that world happen?
My big (somewhat unspoken and somewhat immature dream) is that advances in regenerative health tech fix my optic nerves and I can get into the cockpit again one day, then maybe later I can fly some space vehicle like I wanted to since I was a 12 year old. Immature I know, but I miss flying still.
Is that world possible without AI? Probably/maybe? But it's a lot more plausible in a world where we have folded every protein, we have robot surgeons doing robotic procedures, AI generated research, etc.
Surgeons too now? Another avenue for human skill destroyed.
I actually want to exit. I want to live in a society where humans flourish not AI.
Actually one just needs to walk the streets of Japan and compare that to US. Tokyo has hundreds of small shops with humans doing specific niche stuff, perfecting their arts. That’s all so beautiful.
America has massive warehouses and supermarkets, with completely uninterested and bored out of their mind humans working and I suppose now we will replace them with robots. Great I guess. Maybe all Americans should just sit at home and consume Netflix and Doritos ig.
I want technology to increase human flourishing, not turn us into WallE humans. I am only interested in technological progress when it is done by humans who trained their whole lives for it, as it is a display of human excellence and that can be a beautiful thing. I’m not interested in it if some AI builds it.
Then, you know, build that world locally, at least for yourself.
Like, I'm building a cabin in the woods (original, I know), but you can build things and do things. You can be that kind of human if you want. But, if Americans could sit at home and consume netflix and doritos I suppose some would, but many would decide to start doing other things too.
I don't think the worlds we want to live in are that far apart to be honest. If I could make a living doing it, I'd try to build wooden sailboats for a living. That would be awesome. I would love it! In a world where I don't have to work to win capitalism tokens, I would probably spend a few years just building wooden sailboats to sail around the bay by my cabin.
What you write is what's profoundly depressing.
The only way you see people flourishing is through coercion, by society or by the world. You'd explicitly rather prolong this codependency for your aesthetic preferences even, as per your own words. We're already just circus monkeys in your world.
You cannot fathom people pursuing self-improvement because e.g. developing or being capable is inherently enjoyable. You only see a world where such activities are a must, or a manufactured must. That's your measuring stick and that's the entire pie for you.
I mean this in the least combative way possible, but it sounds like you have things to sort out on your end first, before charting a course for the world to follow.
I admire the naivety. I'm sure CS grads are delighted...
Why the ad hominem? I mean, seriously, you think I haven't been "in the trenches?"
Dude, I'm nearly 40. I've seen the shit. When I was flying for a living, literal close friends died because of the results of avarice.
Dream big dude! This constant "doom and gloom" narrative is toxic to your ability to flourish. I have been there, I understand the urge to doom and gloom, but we make the world we want to live in. We do. We choose it.
What world do you want to live in? What is your "optimal" version of the future? How do we get there? What steps would we have to take to make it a reality?
If your vision of the future is "oh, like 10 years ago before $problem_du_jour" then you're already off to a bad start because we ain't going back. There's no regulation that will actually change anything materially (seriously, you think the people getting rich off all this stuff in Congress will voluntarily shoot themselves in the foot?), there's no way to go but forward, so how do we proceed?
I want to live in The Culture, or something like it if it's possible. So, let's start building it and ask permission later.
what's getting built is more like Asimov's Spacers/Solarians, though. (Vastly reduced population wielding thousands of robots each)
I mean, birth rates are crashing hard here in the US so this might be decent future?
Maybe average human lifespan gets kicked up to 200 years or whatever and we make do with robots to fill in the gaps in labor with robots?
I don’t know? But this kind of seems to track with how we’re trending now?
I play the game for a manufactured challenge
People in the real world all having god mode cheats is good, actually
yeah! Like can you imagine a world where you could just effectively "conjure" new furniture for your house and robots would assemble it in a few hours? Or molecular assemblers would grow it while you slept?
Or imagine a world where we could basically cure every disease? Or a world where people could assume any form factor that they wanted? I don't know, the list goes on and on in a post-scarcity world... and we're seeing how we basically live in a sort of digital post-scarcity now and it is really cool.
If I need a software tool these days I don't buy it, I tend to see if I can make it. Now imagine that for physical things? What a time to be alive.
The rub is that we already live in that world relative to people who lived 1000 year ago, and yet somehow we aren't bursting with euphoria 24/7.
We also have humans who essentially live post scarcity lives on the back of a monetary windfall, yet their stories are strangely quite often depressing ones.
I think their is good reason to believe most human desires are illusions.