Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

[deleted] t1_itvew2p wrote

LOL climate change, resource depletion, environmental toxicity, deforestation, mass extinction. Better than ever! Stop reading Pinker bud.

1

ActuaryGlittering16 t1_itvlo3x wrote

And yet your quality of life is objectively better than it would have been 100 years ago. And you are objectively safer from harm. More educated. More free-thinking and independent. Free to express extreme dissent publicly. Able to connect with people all over the world. Statistically you will live much longer. Etc.

Who do you have to thank for all that? Who do you have to thank for the fact that no one can stroll into your house and take whatever they want and do whatever they want with you, free of consequence? The forests? Polar bears? Seems like you’re a thoroughbred doomer who shits all over humanity from the vantage and safety that humanity has afforded you.

Also why wouldn’t a super intelligence be able to solve those issues? How specifically will technological progress towards said superintelligence be thwarted in the next 50 years?

3

[deleted] t1_itwuo3r wrote

Yes our (material, not social) quality of life is better than ever right now, and it is exactly because of that that we are in global ecological overshoot. We are taking more from the earth than it can sustainably supply. It can't last. I enjoy our modern lifestyle while I can, but I recognize that this period is an historical fluke.

>How specifically will technological progress towards said superintelligence be thwarted in the next 50 years?

For starters, computers need power, and 82% of our global primary energy comes from fossil fuels that are depleting (and it is far from certain that renewable can ramp up to replace them). Next, will programmers still be working when they are starving due to climate-induced famine? No, they will be searching for food.

Global risks are increasing, and everything has to go right and nothing go wrong for your fantasy to come true. Realistically not gonna happen.

1

ActuaryGlittering16 t1_itx2gz2 wrote

These catastrophes aren’t going to happen in time doomerbro. Tech bros hunting for food in 2045? Not a chance. Worst case scenario, where everything you say happens, rich people will simply move to habitable areas and continue right along while the rest of us get fucked. As always the rich will survive and they’ll employ the best minds to continue striving for LEV, AGI, ASI, and the rest. You think wealthy elites don’t have alternatives in motion for every single thing you’re suggesting?

Your best bet is a Covid variant that kills 80 percent of the people it infects. Even then people will adapt, survive, and keep innovating.

Long term I’m not downplaying what you’re saying. I agree with a lot of it. I just don’t think it’s going to destroy our world before these advancements get here. I also am not sure why these tools wouldn’t solve a lot of the problems you bring up.

3