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Moore's Law for Everything

moores.samaltman.com

151–160 of 554 posts

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#151

As with so much Silicon Valley stuff, I think the latest evangelizing for AI is probably just laundering military and counterinsurgency tech as some kind of utopian consumer godsend. Obviously AGI will remain a pipe dream, but what we will get is autonomous robotic soldiers with no conscience (that can be counted on to put down unrest without questioning their orders), or listening software that can monitor everyone'…

My main thought after seeing Elysium was "if the robots are so advanced, why not use them to help people?" Healthcare is just a big as the military, so why would the robot makers turn down that opportunity?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize it's an allegory, right?

It's fine to reply to an allegory with "you're right, that solution doesn't work, but it doesn't preclude other solutions because of these reasons, so don't use it to make decisions".

That's very different from a comment which suggests he doesn't realize it's an allegory.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#153
post #7

> This revolution will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need We had enough wealth for everyone to have what we need a long time ago. No matter how much we have humans always want more. AI won't change that.

I've spent what is likely way too much mental energy wondering about this, and I'm no closer to an answer. Is there any limit to lifestyle inflation? Is it possible to have growth that simply outpaces what a human could possibly consume? Intuitively it seems obvious that there should be something like that, but in the 1800s our growth today would seem like it should be enough.

People can't all reliably afford food and shelter, so I don't think lifestyle inflation is the real problem.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#154
post #59

There are some really smart ideas in here, and some really smart assessments of existing policies. The thing I was most taken aback by was Sam's suggestion to tax privately held land, and capital (as opposed to labor tax). I would love to have Sam and PG go toe to toe and discuss how Sam's proposal is different from the wealth tax post PG made. I don't immediately see how Sam's idea avoids the "wealth tax compounds"…

Sam's proposal doesn't avoid the wealth tax compounds simple arithmetic that PG notes. And yes many important questions for society to answer on this, e.g. how much does is disincentivize entrepreneurs if they have half of their wealth taxed away over the decades compared to current taxation system?

Just a thought experiment: let's say we take Sam's ideas alongside something like UBI, where everyone has a baseline of income provided by the society they live in.

You succeed wildly, and get rich as an entrepreneur. Sadly, in a generation or two, your grandchildren will be back with the rest of the plebeians, despite grandpops launching YC, writing books on art and coding and creating an bunch of amazing companies. But, your grandkids are now not motivated by escaping the poverty they live in, but by a simple desire to live differently than the other normal people out there (also living on UBI).

This seems a lot like what happens in places like Russia or Venezuela or Brazil, where the best and the brightest (often from upper crust there) flee their countries to make it big in Europe, US or the Middle East, but not always because they have such horrible lives there.

Except that, unlike entrepreneurs driven by a mindset that has them feel like it is never enough, these ones are just trying to escape the ennui of boredom of suburbia, and slipping back into that isn't so awful. The alternative drive of escaping poverty does something very different and rapacious: see Tyco and Dennis Kozlowski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Kozlowski, who despite enormous wealth couldn't stop himself from having his company pay for even his rugs.

It's like the best of communism, and the best of capitalism!

Seriously, isn't there an interesting space for entrepreneurs in a new world like the one Sam is describing?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#155
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think launching sports cars into orbit is inherently any more wasteful than say the development of the Deep Blue chess computer. It may have been a vanity project, but the ultimate goal was to test a proof of concept.

I didn't say it was wasteful or make any judgments about it. It's just a fact that a level of lifestyle that allows a person to launch his personal sports car into space has been achieved.

I mean I don't think that quite qualifies as lifestyle inflation. A Roadster in Space just costs Elon $100,000 since his business planned to launch the rocket anyways. That's nothing compared to the price of a megayacht.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to reply to an allegory with "you're right, that solution doesn't work, but it doesn't preclude other solutions because of these reasons, so don't use it to make decisions".

That's very different from a comment which suggests he doesn't realize it's an allegory.

The comment directly says it's not a good analogy. Complaining that they didn't specifically say "allegory" is really nitpicky. The terms are very close and overlap.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#157

> We will discover new jobs–we always do after a technological revolution CGP grey put this well > Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900s talking about technology. One worries all these new mechanical muscles (cars etc) will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier - remember all that farm work? Remember running coast-to-coast delivering mail? Rememb…

Horses aren't the center of the economy, though.

It's fundamentally different. Horses might always want more and more things no matter how much they get. But they don't create demand in our economy, so we'll never know.

No matter how much humans get, they'll always want more. And other humans will have to come up with ways to meet that demand.

Sure - if we ever reach a time where the entire human race says "this is enough" and everything is automated, then there won't be any jobs. But we're a very far way away from that point. In 2013, 60% of people on the planet didn't even have a toilet [1].

There are obvious problems. In the Western world, it certainly seems like we don't have enough jobs for workers without certain skillsets - or at least jobs that employers are willing to pay minimum wage for.

But there are also lots of jobs available.

[1] https://slate.com/technology/2013/02/60-percent-of-the-world...

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#158
post #103

> democracy can become antagonistic as people seek to vote money away from each other. ... > We should therefore focus on taxing capital rather than labor I find it amazing that these "thinkers" don't see the irony. You are "afraid" that people are going to vote you away from your wealth via democracy; but then you feel privileged to decide how this wealth should be taxed. Since AIs are getting smarter than humans, m…

> The reality is, there is no place for humans in an AI driven world where AI is smarter than humans and robots can make stuff. You need to read more sci-fi. The Culture series by Ian Banks is a good start. Of course there is dystopic fiction too, but the point is there are many possibilities of what life post-ai may look like Nothing says it has to work out the way you think so stating that so confidently is unwarra…

But in The Culture series humans have no meaningful role and everything that humans can do machines can do better. Some extreme edge cases may apply to very specific things, but even then, it's one or two individual humans being useful contributors out of countless trillions.

I agree that The Culture is the science fiction future to aspire to - but the place for humans in The Culture is just enjoying how good society is once machines and AI do everything for you. Importantly, the AI's of The Culture like humans and want to promote human flourishing.

If human+ level AGI is achieved then I think it does have to work out the way the parent is stating. There will be no useful role for the vast majority of humans. Humans are intelligence plus the physical capabilities of our bodies. Machines can already exceed our physical capabilities in most things, and if artificial intelligence exceeds ours - what will be left for humans?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very different from a comment which suggests he doesn't realize it's an allegory.

The comment directly says it's not a good analogy. Complaining that they didn't specifically say "allegory" is really nitpicky. The terms are very close and overlap.

If someone says Animal Farm is a good story, but it wouldn't work if the animals were humans, I would say they didn't get the message.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#160

> We will discover new jobs–we always do after a technological revolution CGP grey put this well > Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900s talking about technology. One worries all these new mechanical muscles (cars etc) will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier - remember all that farm work? Remember running coast-to-coast delivering mail? Rememb…

If you could restrain those pesky humans or prevent them from reproducing then it would be a valid concern.
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