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andai 8 hours ago

We have, as a civilization, two paths before us:

a) Decouple the value of human life from labour.

b) Watch as the value of human life rapidly approaches zero.

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Though I'd expand this by adding "technically alive" is not a very good standard to aim for. Ostensibly we're already heading for something like poverty level UBI + living in pod + eating the proverbial bugs. We need a level above that!

A great exploration of the pitfalls of "preserve humanity" as a reward function is the video game SOMA. I think you also need "preserve dignity" to make the life actually worth living.

(Path `a` is not without its pitfalls: what lack of survival pressure might do to the human culture and genome, I leave as an exercise for the reader! But path `b` I think we already have enough examples of, to know better...)

bluefirebrand 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> We have, as a civilization, two paths before us

You forgot C: Butlerian Jihad. mass outlaw AI research, AI usage, AI building, AI infrastructure, on penalty of death

It may not be a good option but it's there

NeutralCrane 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This will literally never happen so it is not worth considering

hollerith 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Just keep telling everyone that and hope they keep believing you.

patrick451 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly. At the very least, we should be treating AI like nuclear weapons. It can exist but it should be locked away and never used.

Throaway199999 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When the value of human labour reaches zero the economy will collapse so that will be interesting.

mitthrowaway2 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't see that as a guaranteed outcome if there's something like UBI to sustain demand, and automation to sustain supply.

Throaway199999 2 hours ago | parent [-]

UBI is only valuable if money is valuable though...what are you going to trade it for if no one has a job and everyone has access to super powerful production tools like advanced LLMs (which are at the low end of automated tooling overall)?