> We are entering a golden age in which all computer science problems seem to be tractable, insomuch as we can get very useful approximations of any computable function.

Alternatively, we are entering a dark age where the billionaires who control most of the world's capital will no longer need to suffer the indignity of paying wages to humans in order to generate more revenue from information products and all of the data they've hoarded over the past couple of decades.

> the real kicker is that we now have general-purpose thinking machines that can use computers and tackle just about any short digital problem.

We already have those thinking machines. They're called people. Why haven't people solved many of the world's problems already? Largely because the people who can afford to pay them to do so have chosen not to.

I don't see any evidence that the selfishness, avarice, and short-term thinking of the elites will be improved by them being able to replace their employees with a bot army.

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Centigonal 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't understand why you're being downvoted. This is a topic worth discussing.

Like every previous invention that improves productivity (cf. copiers, steam power, the wheel), this wave of AI is making certain forms of labor redundant, creating or further enriching a class of industrialists, and enabling individuals to become even more productive.

This could create a golden age, or a dark age -- most likely, it will create both. The industrial revolution created Dickensian London, the Luddite rebellion & ensuing massacres, and Blake's "dark satanic mills," but it also gave me my wardrobe of cool $30 band T-shirts and my beloved Amtrak train service.

Now is the time to talk about how we predict incentive structures will cause this technology to be used, and what levers we have at our disposal to tilt it toward "golden age."

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sunsunsunsun 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Considering the usage of LLMs by many people as a sort of friend or psychologist we also get to look forward to a new form a control over people. These things earn peoples "trust" and there is no reason why it couldn't be used to sway peoples opinions. Not to mention the devious and subtle ways it can advertise to people.

Also, these productivity gains arent used to reduce working time for the same number of people, but instead to reduce the number of people needed to do the same amount of work. Working people get to see the productivity benefits via worsening material conditions.

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beeflet 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unlike every previous invention that improves productivity, It is making every form of labor redundant.

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zozbot234 an hour ago | parent [-]

AIUI, in most lines of work AI is being used to replace/augment pointless paper-pushing jobs. It doesn't seem to be all that useful for real, productive work.

Coding may be a limited exception, but even then the AI's job is to be basically a dumb (if sometimes knowledgeable) code monkey. You still need to do all the architecture and detailed design work if you want something maintainable at the end of the day.

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munificent an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> It doesn't seem to be all that useful for real, productive work.

Even the most pointless bullshit job accomplishes a societal function by transferring wages from a likely wealthy large corporation to a individual worker who has bills to pay.

Eliminating bullshit jobs might be good from an economic efficiency perspective, but people still gotta eat.

	▲	uoaei 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The logic of American economic policy relies on a large velocity of money driven by consumer habits. It is tautological, and it is obsolete in the face of the elite trying to minimize wage expenses.

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beeflet an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

real productive work like what? What do you think all this hubub with robotics is about?

I mean, I know what you are getting at. I agree with you on the current state of the art. But advancements beyond this point threaten everyone's job. I don't see a moat for 95% of human labor.

There's no reason why you couldn't figure out an AI to assemble "the architecture and detailed design work". I mean I hope it's the case that the state of the art stays like this forever, I'm just not counting on it.

	▲	zozbot234 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Robotics is nothing new, we had robots in factories in the 1980s. The jobs of modern factory workers are mostly about attending to robots and other automated systems. > There's no reason why you couldn't figure out an AI to assemble "the architecture and detailed design work". I'd like to see that because it would mean that AI's have managed to stay at least somewhat coherent over longer work contexts. The closest you get to this (AIUI) is with AI's trying to prove complex math theorems, where the proof checking system itself enforces the presence of effective large-scale structure. But that's an outside system keeping the AI on a very tight leash with immediate feedback, and not letting it go off-track.

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keybored 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People fought back. Who is fighting back now?

Capitalists have openly gloated in public about wanting to replace at least one profession. That was months or years ago. What are people doing in response? Discussing incentive structures?

SC coders paid hundreds of thousands a year are just letting this happen to them. “Nothing to be done about another 15K round of layoffs, onlookers say”

	▲	zozbot234 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Capitalists have openly gloated in public about wanting to replace at least one profession. That was months or years ago. What are people doing in response? Great, let them try. They'll find out that AI makes the human SC coder more productive not less. Everyone knows that AI has little to nothing to do with the layoffs, it's just a silly excuse to give their investors better optics. Nobody wants to admit that maybe they've overhired a bit after the whole COVID mess.
	▲	AndrewKemendo an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		This is exactly it, nobody is going to do anything about it
	▲	CamperBob2 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Buggy-whip makers inconsolable!

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denkmoon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A labouring proletariat with bread and circuses is a distracted proletariat. Billionaires are still flesh and blood, much like Louis XVI and Charles I.

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AndrewKemendo an hour ago | parent [-]

Are you actually doing anything in that direction or is this “tough guy on the internet?”

I see literally zero people doing the equivalent of “breaking the factories” like the luddites attempted

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denkmoon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

We're not there yet. The luddite movement formed and acted over decades not years.

Do you not see the overwhelmingly negative response to AI produced goods and services from the average westerner?

	▲	AndrewKemendo 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		So, no then. Like I said upstream, nobody is going to anything about it. At a certain point it’s too late.

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tejohnso 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I think we'd need a lot more suffering before we have enough people to start that kind of action. If we see 35% unemployment over the next 5 years with insufficient time to adjust, then maybe the pitchforks come out.

	▲	AndrewKemendo 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		So then we should just go slightly slower? What if it’s over 10 years?

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measurablefunc 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What you fail to understand Bob is that as long as we let the billionaires do what they want then we all automatically win. That's just how the system is designed to work, we can't lose as long as Musk & his buddies are at the helm.

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munificent 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Gazing up at them adoringly, mouth open, waiting for it all to trickle down on my face.

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measurablefunc 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's the only thing us plebeians can hope for. When all is said & done the people at the top are the only ones that can truly create wealth w/ their innovative genius. The rest of us should just shut up & follow their orders for our own good.

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drdaeman an hour ago | parent [-]

That would be a thing if wealth would correlate with innovation. I’m afraid the correlation is inverse in way too many cases.

	▲	munificent an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This comment thread is being sarcastic.