Futurology CMV - We are probably never going to see the changes envisioned by AI enthusiasts.

Submitted by dja_ra t3_1278dqy in Futurology

So it seems we are all in thrall of the upcoming AI, post-scarcity, UBI world on this sub, and it strikes me that this is so much like the happy young christians trying to imagine what life will be like when jesus comes back.

Is there really any evidence at all that a post scarcity world is going to happen? Because we seem to be on the path of extinction (global warming, peak oil, etc.). And AI, it may never be capable of doing more than it is doing now. UBI is not a thing. No one is going to pay for it. I've seen math in the trillions trying to estimate the cost of implementing it. But every other post is: "do you think we will have to work anymore when AI takes all of our jobs." What evidence do you have that this is even a thing?

I just don't see these things happening, but am happy to have my view changed if there are any legitimate scientific or economic studies that would show me better.

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Closetpunkrocker t1_jed4nrn wrote

Did we know where the iPod would take society in the beginning? Nope. Look at us now. The question is, are we on the verge of another technology revolution that changes life as we know it? A lot of people think “yes.”

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nemotiger t1_jedcky3 wrote

I was born in the 80's I knew exactly what the ipod meant. It meant I can finally get rid of my skipping portable cd player!

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thehourglasses t1_jedi5hk wrote

Comparing super intelligent AI to a fucking iPod. Good fucking lord.

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Closetpunkrocker t1_jegwcfp wrote

You miss the point. Were you around when Apple products first came to market? The internet? Did you say to yourself, “wow this will change life as we know it - it will reshape how we live our lives, the job market, the world economy” If you did, I hope you’re a billionaire by now. The point is, we are just on the cusp Al. As with past Technology revolutions, from where we sit today, the vast majority of people can’t possibly imagine what the possibilities will become. OP doesn’t think AI is a massive disruptor. I do.

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dja_ra OP t1_jed55yc wrote

I know that they do. But I think they are too enthusiastic about the where this will ultimately lead. I think that societies' problems will lead us to a hard stop at some point, and none of these questions will matter then.

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flyingmoose1314 t1_jedfbw9 wrote

I had a very smart, tech executive, friend tell me that self-driving cars will put truckers out of a job within 10 years. He makes 5x what I make and is much more informed on technology than I am, so who am I to doubt him?

Thing is, he told me this 12 years ago.

You’re absolutely right that people get carried away with this stuff way too early. We can all hope for a post-scarcity future but keep saving in that 401k for now.

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confused_vanilla t1_jedkt2m wrote

I choose to be an optimist with most things. This is not because I am naive and assume extinction won't happen. It's because I want to enjoy the moment without stressing about something I have no control over. If society collapses or if we all die from climate change, or mass genocide, at least I'll have lived a good life with the time that I had.

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agaperion t1_jed4zu1 wrote

It depends what kind of conversation you want to have. If you want to talk about what's possible then I believe all that great stuff is on the table. If you want to talk about what's likely or what it just so happens to seem is going to happen from where we stand right now then I admit that things often appear pretty bleak. But then again, we've got to be mindful of our negativity biases and availability biases and the limitations of human attention and imagination. In learning about history, I've noticed that fearing it's the end of the world is a common occurrence for nearly every human generation. The current one's no more or less millenarianist than any of the others. Here's a bit of light reading on that, if you like.

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dja_ra OP t1_jed5i2q wrote

It's true that Europe's most fruitful years happened after the black death. I did post this because I have been in a r/collapse type funk and find myself irritated at all the "AI is going to bring Utopia" type posts.

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agaperion t1_jed840r wrote

If you've ever read Intuition Pumps And Other Tools For Thinking by Daniel Dennett then you may recall his idea of the Surely Alarm. Basically, when somebody speaks the word surely, they're usually implicitly asking you to grant them an assumption on which the rest of their argument rests. I've extended this notion to a number of other concepts for which I've set other mental alarms and the word utopia is one of them. When I encounter it, there's a little voice in the back of my mind reminding me that the word means "no place" - i.e. it doesn't exist.

Achieving a perfect society is impossible and it's foolish to think of perfection as anything other than an ideal. Just as with personal growth, so too is social progress a perpetual process. There's no final solution. No finish line. There will always be room for improvement. That's why we've evolved practices like reformism and incrementalism, as opposed to radicalism or revolutionism. Because real progress - meaningful, lasting progress - happens gradually. A discovery here. An innovation there. A social program there. And all these things compound and interact to create new discoveries and innovations and reforms. Over and over until, eventually, we take a step back and notice how much better off things are. Like going to the gym every day but not noticing the progress for weeks or months at a time.

Frankly, you'll do yourself a favor staying away from cynics and doomers like the people who hang out in places like r/collapse. Run with the dogs and you're gonna get fleas. Take control of your information diet. Be selective about the things you put in your head and the mental habits you cultivate. In the motorcycle world, there's a saying that you go where you look. If you fixate on the pothole or swerving car then you're going to ride into it and crash. Focus on the route you want to ride.

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bluntisimo t1_jed5a8d wrote

Jobs are just going to get more non-essential. I bet during every big change in tech people think we will not have anything to do but we will innovate and create a job market even if there is not a need for one.

I think people are just surprised it is doing so well, it was supposed to be self-driving cars, VR and robotics that were on the horizon, but these language models kind of caught everyone with their pants down but there is nothing to support this tech even if it does become useful soon.

Most of the fear I have heard has been about developing the tech too fast and not so much about job loss because I think that would take a lot of time to even evaluate what this thing is capable of replacing let alone build the structure for it to exist in.

Think touch screens in mcdonalds and how long that took to roll out.

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thehourglasses t1_jediefr wrote

Are you kidding? There are already prompt engineering consultants making huge stacks teaching organizations how they can augment or even replace their knowledge workers with language models. Everyone is very underprepared for how quickly things are going to change.

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dja_ra OP t1_jegjs2i wrote

Except that right now, language models are generating plausible, but inaccurate output. It can only work with the data its given. Maybe it will never get better than that. The alchemists kept thinking that they were going to get gold from lead if they worked at it long enough. We are still waiting.

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thehourglasses t1_jegkole wrote

If you understood what you were talking about, you wouldn’t comment. So far, I’ve seen entire web apps designed and built by ChatGPT, among a whole host of other insanely impressive things. Obviously it’s not a perfect system but far from useless as you’ve implied.

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Longjumping-Tie-7573 t1_jeeoi1g wrote

And AI, it may never be capable of doing more than it is doing now.

Maybe. But I for sure know it's been a hella-long time since the human species had to compete with intelligence comparable to its own; and never against intelligence greater than its own. Let's ask the Neandertals their advice.

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maskedpaki t1_jegep7s wrote

I swear to god every fucking ai breakthrough theres that one guy that says "yh but it wont get any smarter than this"

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why ? what could possibly lead you to think that this exact moment is the moment ais stop getting smarter.

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dja_ra OP t1_jegj6vu wrote

Because AI doesn't exist yet. These machines are not "smart" ,they mimic speech based on probability and patterns found on the web. The whole point of this post was to ask if anyone knew of peer reviewed scientific evidence that we will ever break through to AI, and all the other things that people think will come from that.

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maskedpaki t1_jegq50m wrote

How do they learn chess from patterns in language ?

Stop pretending like you know anything. You can't play chess after being trained on next token prediction if you aren't ACTUALLY forming real representations and world models inside your neural net. You can memorise the SAT. But memorising a bunch of text on chess doesn't allow you to predict board states because there are too many board states. Only modelling actual representations of the outside world would do that.

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Suolucidir t1_jedaiok wrote

Think about the practical aspects of AI "taking all jobs", assuming that happens before society is prepared to regulate UBI or other mitigating post-scarcity policies. People will still need to eat, wear clothes, be housed, etc.

People provided those things for themselves before any form of automation, and they can always go back to doing it again.

Unless AI is going to prevent farming the land and refining its resources, society will carry on at least with these fundamental economics.

At minimum, people will work to provide the essentials for people at the price point they can both afford the essentials and afford the time to participate themselves in the production of those essentials.

So don't worry so much about it because it's not going to benefit you in the short term, nor in the long term if your fears turn out to be reality(which I doubt, personally).

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kushal1509 t1_jeds4sh wrote

>and it strikes me that this is so much like the happy young christians trying to imagine what life will be like when jesus comes back.

Majority of the predictions for AI (good or bad) are backed by proper analysis by many experts in different fields. Please don't compare this to predictions from religious dumbfucks.

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Lomotpk3141 t1_jef7fa9 wrote

1950 - Nuclear tech was going to revolutionize....everything.

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kushal1509 t1_jef8g99 wrote

In 1950s computers were said to revolutionise everything and they did.

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