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RabidHexley t1_j5onv6d wrote

Reply to comment by LeIAmNeeson in Can humanity find purpose in a world where AI is more capable than humans? by IamDonya

My interpretation of "life has no purpose" is that we make our own purpose. There is no prescribed purpose native to the universe in an of itself, we make it. As the world changes around us we change the things we find purpose in, a lot of that being a means of adapting to the lives we live (whether we chose to live that life or not).

My point about technology overtaking us is that humans still partake in activities that could objectively be performed better or far more easily through the assistance of machines. We willingly forgo machine assistance in pursuit of a lived experience.

Just look at /r/mightyharvest. These folks aren't providing for anyone from the fruits of their labor, and practically speaking a small home garden for produce is inefficient to the highest degree, but joy is still found from the mere pursuit. Should they instead use that time to try and become doctors, scientists, athletes or paradigm shifting artists of renown? Would that be a truer pursuit of purpose?

This kind of stuff wouldn't go anywhere.

AI won't replace our experience of life, nothing can. What it can do is hopefully create a future in which more people can choose what they want their purpose to be based on the life they want to live.

Edit: The problem with AI art for instance isn't that it replaces artists. It's that it makes it economically less feasible to be an artist, because it's harder to use your art to provide for yourself. It's not because it makes replaces the human desire to create art.

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LeIAmNeeson t1_j5or9dn wrote

Very well spoken. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what the differences are between each of our arguments, but I think we share more in common than it might seem.

In response to r/mightharvest, it seems like we both see that there is a sort of simple and poetic beauty in the undertaking of an activity like that. Where there is no possibility for eventual payoff, just the pleasure of being in tune with nature.

I was atheist for basically my whole life (29 years), and it always seemed like the Universe was a cold, lifeless, desolate place, and that life on Earth was just an anomaly. That is what science and logic seems to show. But that viewpoint has changed for me over the last few years. It might sound phoney, but my thinking has genuinely shifted to a place where atheism no longer makes sense to me. Going back to my first comment, the odds just seem so incredibly small that we just happen to be lucky enough to be alive as humans right now and that it's all just a near-infinitesimally small coincidence.

It feels like we truly do matter and we have purpose beyond simply what we happen to imagine up for ourselves (even though I agree that is an innate feature of humans). It feels bigger than coincidence that we happen to be alive at exactly the moment of the singularity and the climate crisis. When everything seems to be converging together all at once.

Anyways, sorry to ramble, but at this point the difference between our arguments is simply opinion. There aren't any flaws in logic, just a difference in worldview.

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