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Comment by vld_chk

4 hours ago

I am not that worried, but rather just observing. Humanity is about to enter the phase when we will be using things based on ideas no human ever properly understands. This thought … disturbing, somehow?

It is perfectly valid counterpoint to say that we already do it. We everyday use myriad of things, tools, and software we have 0 clue how it operates. But for us as humans it was reassuring that we know that at least there are a few other alive humans who know it, who create it and who can explain it.

With AI soon that comforting zone will be gone.

>Humanity is about to enter the phase when we will be using things based on ideas no human ever properly understands. This thought … disturbing, somehow?

This is just normal though. We were building sophisticated bronze and steel tools long before any complex understanding of metallurgy or chemistry. Medicine is still the wild west.

  • I first wanted to say fire, even though it's a cliche, but then I thought that in antiquity we used like everything without anything that would qualify today as understanding. Also now we have a lot of stuff that we "know" it works based on complicated numerical simulation.

    I think the most "understanding" we ever had was in the 40s-50s designing nuclear bombs with slide rules. It was the culture that produced the idea of psychohistory.

    > Medicine is still the wild west.

    Reminder that we have no idea how anesthesia works.