Comment by WarmWash
1 day ago
You ever play a video game with god mode cheats enabled, so you can unlock all the unlocks, get all the best gear, and be an unstoppable force with unlimited money?
Yeah, it's fun for 30 minutes.
1 day ago
You ever play a video game with god mode cheats enabled, so you can unlock all the unlocks, get all the best gear, and be an unstoppable force with unlimited money?
Yeah, it's fun for 30 minutes.
On the other hand, exploring any of your interests without needing to calculate how it can cover rent means you have more time and opportunities to actually do things you're interested in.
Working all day, then not wanting to do much else after because you're tired, is also fun for all of 30 minutes.
Right!? Like imagine we could use this stuff to solve world hunger, develop robots to clean up the oceans, or colonize space?
People are all “shucks how am I going to be able to justify my career at $job” and are missing the bigger opportunity. Such a lack of imagination I see…
There is no lack of imagination here, there is realism. You think you display "imagination" by just regurgitating all the tired tropes of old science fiction? Oh wow! Robots to clean the ocean! How novel! Nobody has ever thought about this!
The reality is nobody is going to build robots to clean the ocean because there is no money to be made. There will be robots to clean rich people's pools, sure. And it will put pool boys out of a job, great.
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Exactly, a lot of people keep attacking me as anxiety for losing my livelihood. It’s not that.
It’s just depression that another avenue for human craftsmanship has been taken over by the machines. Humans are not just infinite consumers. If AI solves all of humanity problems, it’s like living in a zoo, not a life worth living imo.
This has always been the case though that "another avenue of human craftsmanship has been taken over by the machines."
It's good if we can have robots building things instead of having humans slumped over a workbench in a sweatshop piecing things together. It's good if we can have LLMs spitting out code rather than CS grads working 15 hour days at fintech startups or whatever. The conditions were never (ever) good before.
And, it won't be like a zoo - you'll be able to go wherever you want, do more or less whatever you want. Think about living in The Culture, or the Star Trek universe or whatever. There are options beyond "I'm a pet to the machines." Think big, dream big, then help make it a reality!
Like, out in space you're still going to need a human to make decisions because you can't wait 30min for the tight-beam signal to get back to earth. Also, we're pretty good at soaking up rads and still being "useful" - at least so far I don't see that being a major advantage to the robots. Maybe our place is to be the deep space mechanics that keep the robots alive? I don't know, regardless, you should dream big. What kind of world do you want to live in? Ok, how do we make that world happen?
My big (somewhat unspoken and somewhat immature dream) is that advances in regenerative health tech fix my optic nerves and I can get into the cockpit again one day, then maybe later I can fly some space vehicle like I wanted to since I was a 12 year old. Immature I know, but I miss flying still.
Is that world possible without AI? Probably/maybe? But it's a lot more plausible in a world where we have folded every protein, we have robot surgeons doing robotic procedures, AI generated research, etc.
Surgeons too now? Another avenue for human skill destroyed.
I actually want to exit. I want to live in a society where humans flourish not AI.
Actually one just needs to walk the streets of Japan and compare that to US. Tokyo has hundreds of small shops with humans doing specific niche stuff, perfecting their arts. That’s all so beautiful.
America has massive warehouses and supermarkets, with completely uninterested and bored out of their mind humans working and I suppose now we will replace them with robots. Great I guess. Maybe all Americans should just sit at home and consume Netflix and Doritos ig.
I want technology to increase human flourishing, not turn us into WallE humans. I am only interested in technological progress when it is done by humans who trained their whole lives for it, as it is a display of human excellence and that can be a beautiful thing. I’m not interested in it if some AI builds it.
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I admire the naivety. I'm sure CS grads are delighted...
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I play the game for a manufactured challenge
People in the real world all having god mode cheats is good, actually
yeah! Like can you imagine a world where you could just effectively "conjure" new furniture for your house and robots would assemble it in a few hours? Or molecular assemblers would grow it while you slept?
Or imagine a world where we could basically cure every disease? Or a world where people could assume any form factor that they wanted? I don't know, the list goes on and on in a post-scarcity world... and we're seeing how we basically live in a sort of digital post-scarcity now and it is really cool.
If I need a software tool these days I don't buy it, I tend to see if I can make it. Now imagine that for physical things? What a time to be alive.
The rub is that we already live in that world relative to people who lived 1000 year ago, and yet somehow we aren't bursting with euphoria 24/7.
We also have humans who essentially live post scarcity lives on the back of a monetary windfall, yet their stories are strangely quite often depressing ones.
I think their is good reason to believe most human desires are illusions.