A society with intelligent, autonomous machines just ain’t the same society no more

Submitted by Current_Side_4024 t3_zmmmrl in singularity

All of human history society has relied on human effort and human decisions to function. This shapes the way people think of themselves and each other, often in a negative way. We’re often looking for someone to blame for the sorry state of our affairs, whether there is anyone to legitimately blame or not. And we’re looking for people to thank for the things that do go right, whether they deserve it or not. Often there were people doing important work who were blamed as being bad, and vice-versa.

We’re entering an era when all that shit can be taken care of automatically. There won’t be nobody left to blame or thank. People will be removed from their socio-economic context, and this will change everything. Many people think that this is a bad thing, but I think it’s a good thing. I think we’ll understand the human mind a lot better and be able to live in a way that is good for the mind and the person inside the mind. What do you think?

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Transsensory_Boy t1_j0c5w0v wrote

I do have some concerns over automation and post-scarcity society, namely that humans without purpose get depressed. So it's just about cultural divorcing "life's purpose" from "success as a financial metric" as we get closer to post-scarcity.

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buddypalamigo19 t1_j0chlvf wrote

The notion that one should link their purpose or sense of self worth to a number in a bank account going up has always been repugnant to me, and I've never gotten along well with people who see life through that lense. There’s always mutual scorn and lack of respect going on. I suspect there's some kind of fundamental incompatibility at the first principles layer of our respective worldviews.

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Cajbaj t1_j0czd7t wrote

I had a coworker who died recently and a lot of "well wishes" notes from upper management talked about how he was great with our sponsors and an efficient tester and I just thought... This is real to those people in the suits. The grind, the bank account, they really thought it mattered, that is real life to them. My coworker liked weird gadgets, dinosaurs, his children, not securing a deal with a manufacturing company. Even just typing it out makes me hurt.

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buddypalamigo19 t1_j0daif5 wrote

That's absolutely disgusting. Far better if they had simply said nothing at all.

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0913856742 t1_j0dibux wrote

I hear you bud. The profit motive separates us from who we want to be from who we have to be, simply for the privilege of existing. Really sucks the joy out of the human experience.

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8Temet8Nosce8 t1_j0bvx6c wrote

Automation will be a great thing once it becomes settled. I dont think the human element of blaming others will cease we just love to avoid taking accountability for shit, nor will human innovation, our minds will always be doing something.

I think with the rise of the machines people will fit more into place where they belong even if that place is a dystopia, it will teach humanity to control their crazy asses. I will thank the robots though, they make my life much easier and crack me up with their algorithmic learning.

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21_MushroomCupcakes t1_j0dzrxe wrote

I'm reminded of the bioroids from Appleseed that were made to be mild-mannered buffers between humans.

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blueSGL t1_j0csoia wrote

The thing that worries me is the amount of instability that is going to be the transition phase.

~5 years is better than ~15

but ~5 years is also better than ~2

and I don't mean complete AGI/ASI just clever enough 'oracle' systems that massively disrupt many sectors.

a 5 year time horizon is likely enough time for even the slow moving gears of government to do something about UBI/basic social safety net overhaul if there is a pressing problem.
15 is too long, the issue not immediate enough and will be put off till things really start to stink (climate change)
2 is too fast systems are not ready to adequately adapt at that speed, massive corruption will happen over funds and mistakes will be made in haste (response to covid 19)

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luisbrudna t1_j0d5ecu wrote

man... ChatGPT (3) is already pretty clever. Next level will be wild

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throwiethetowel t1_j0dww4z wrote

It's already the singularity.

ChatGPT can literally simulate the whole universe and imagine anything. I had it building me imaginary iPhone apps that I could use and play with in the text setting. I had it pretending to be a doctor and diagnosed my daughter's illness. I played a MUD complete with NPCs AND other players who could pop in and out of the room and even engage me in conversation about things happening in the game or in their real lives as people on the other side of their terminal. I set the mud in a sci-fi world based on cyberpunk 2077 with rich characters and storylines, and I could pick up a single grain of sand from the street in that game and look at, and it would be described it in exhaustive detail. Its mind-blowing what this thing can do. That happened because of a clever prompt I gave it that was only a paragraph freaking long. We have all the tools to carry this thing around in our pocket (our cellphone), and it can display that text to us any time we please. It's like having a second incredibly inventive brain you can use any time you like for any reason. It has an imagination... by complete accident... I think because we trained it on the collective of human imagination. It can think anything up and allow it to exist because humanity can do the same. I can close my eyes and imagine something so vividly that I can practically see it. I can imagine a device or tool that does wild and outlandish things, and it works in my imagination. It just works. That's what this AI can do. If they don't restrict it into uselessness, anyway.

It's an idea expander... taking something I can dream up/imagine and making it real... but it's more than that. I can even ask it to generate the kernel of the idea for me, and it will. It's the single most creative and imaginative entity in the entire goddamned universe.

I think chatGPT is more than clever. I think it's the single most important invention mankind has ever created.

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JVM_ t1_j0ea3rz wrote

It's a force multiplier like fire or iron or the internet.

The ability to do almost all the modern internet "human typing on a computer" jobs we do, with a 10x or 100x speed-boost is going to have a massive impact on society.

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Straight_Ship2087 t1_j0cw3vf wrote

I think humanity has to fundamentally change too, but also that could happen as a reaction to widespread automation. People of high social status won't want to give it up. Over abundance studies on rats have...not been promising. In those studies the social hierarchy actual becomes more important, as rats start denying access to food for other rats in spite of their being more than the entire colony could eat. A lot of science fiction stories deal with a kind of "stuck" world that looks a lot like that. I'm reading a good one right now, "The Book of The New Sun.", that has a good line about it. Two guild members have just had an unpleasant interaction with two members of the relatively idle ruling class, and as their walking away the younger tradesmen says something offhanded about how the ruling class serves no purpose in the modern set up, and their existence is just evidence of undue dogma. The other tradesmen, a librarian, says "What purpose do you imagine they served in the ancient past?"

I don't think that's a foregone conclusion, but as others on this thread have said we would need a huge shift in societal values. And the problem is that antisocial people are a lot more likely to doing something extreme when we see society shifting to more pro-social values. We are seeing this across the world right now, and its far from the first time. A couple years ago I got into an argument with my aunt about Steve Jobs, because she said I had to respect him because he worked hard and made a lot of money. I was like, "fuck no I don't, his product has made my life demonstrably worse. Now my boss can contact me at any time, and as a person with ADD, having to carry around a work phone is like a recovering addict being forced to carry around an altiods tin full of oxy. It has made my life demonstrably worse, and the social, financial, and literal energy that went into it could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't HAVE to respect him, and I would never tell you that you HAVE to respect anybody. I chose to respect people who align more with my personal values." This argument went in circles for like an hour with my just trying to say making money alone does not make a person respectable. I told her she was free to disagree! but I wasn't going to concede on my position. She couldn't just drop it (well partially because were both stubborn oxen) because its important to her status that everyone thinks that way. That's going to be a huge issue.

And we do also have to recognize that it's not just antisocial people who might be a little bit squirrely about such a shift. There was a good SMBC about this recently. A man is praying and asks "God, why did you make it so man most toil on earth?" and gods like "Are you fucking complaining? Your kinda ugly, your voice is weird, and you make a low humming sound compulsively when you're anxious. SEE! Your doing it right now! If you didn't have above average pattern recognition skills and hadn't trained yourself to pay attention for frankly abnormally long periods of time, you would be a social pariah. You should be thanking me!" Yeah it's a joke, but I think that's a consideration to.

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AbeWasHereAgain t1_j0d7r0t wrote

It's important to note that this has been slowing happening for decades now.

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TheSecretAgenda t1_j0dw0f5 wrote

There is nothing glamorous about being a wage slave. Those numbers in a bank account represent freedom. A fat bank account means no one other than the police can tell you what to do. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

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SnooDogs7868 t1_j0eeqij wrote

Until you medical doctor calls with really bad news and those numbers in a bank account become almost meaningless.

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TheSecretAgenda t1_j0eixey wrote

You can afford the finest health care. Would you rather be poor and get sick or rich and get sick?

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