It started off really interesting, but I had to stop once the "AI could lead to post-scarcity" bit came.

Sorry, no offence, but I wish that this was the "problem" with AI.

The "Problem" is actually that it turns known tractable problems into non-reproducible problems.

Giving the illusion of giving the right answer is significantly more dangerous than giving an obvious wrong answer. So we're not going to AI ourselves into post-scarcity, whitecollar work will just sleepwalk into even further absurdity. (because, the fact is, humans also suffer from this issue; the worst among us give the appearance of competence and fuck it up massively).

AI consumes resources like a motherfucker, to maybe replace white-collar work, but the bluecollar stuff isn't going anywhere. It's a harder problem so people (companies) avoid it the same way that they avoid writing native GUIs. Much more convenient to just focus on pretty things and in the digital realm, but farming? agriculture? textiles and everything that society actually relies upon?

AI isn't coming for those jobs, because it's harder and has more definite outcomes. You can't trick people into believing that a pig has been slaughtered, carved and cooked properly.

It's comparatively easy to trick people into thinking that the man behind the curtain is a wizard, however.

He never says "AI could lead to post-scarcity" in the entire piece. In fact, he says:

> Before making this argument, I want to defend the topic. Utopia is not around the corner; these issues don't have any practical urgency. But I agree with Bostrom that thinking about utopia “can serve as kind of philosophical particle accelerator, in which extreme conditions are created that allow us to study the elementary constituents of our values.” Reflecting on utopia might tell us something interesting about human nature more generally.

automation already came and went for agriculture.

a lot of agriculture is either about owning a bunch of land and machines, or owning access to a bunch of slave-ish labour. sure the slave-ish labour side isnt all that automated yet, but the up side to automating isnt very high either

>bluecollar stuff isn't going anywhere.

The 1700s called, regular mechinization already came for that.

And non-LLM AI has been moving into more blue collar stuff for years already, now with LLM logic they are becoming far more capable too.

You must be thinking of the more blue collar service industry, which may not go anywhere, but the time it takes to train, and the number of people that will go into it will ensure earning a living is difficult.

The entire idea of post-scarcity doesn't withstand the slightest scrutiny. Even if unlimited energy and matter could be summoned by magic, one would be limited by space and the speed of light, and by the threat of black hole formation if too much matter and energy is crammed into too small a region of space. In addition, one's time would be limited by the impending heat death.

> Giving the illusion of giving the right answer is significantly more dangerous than giving an obvious wrong answer.

Oh man sometimes I'm like "actually what I just said is wrong"... I have to remind myself to slow down/think over everything before saying something is done.