Live data from Hacker News

Moore's Law for Everything

moores.samaltman.com

171–180 of 554 posts

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on what reason they gave. If they misunderstand something about humanity, that's a great jumping point toward discussion. But if they said "yes, those politics would happen in humans, but some of these other factors are more important toward the eventual outcome[...]" then that's perfectly compatible with understanding the story. And that's roughly what the earlier commenter did! They accepted the argument th…

Fair, I'm sure it doesn't seem like it but I really don't want to argue. We're obviously reading that comment differently.

Cheers.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#172
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily disagree but that's really not a good analogy. Horses aren't people. When their jobs disappear no one gives a fuck. No one speaks up for their interests. People will not go so easy. They are able to create amazing things if given the opportunity. No one wants mass human unemployment.

We already have mass human unemployment. What's the average daily wage? It's not that low because everyone is gainfully employed.

Pre-covid, Global wages and employment levels have never been higher. Global poverty levels have never been lower. Either way, I don't disagree that AI will replace some jobs, I'm just not sold on the horse story.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#173
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…

> Since AIs are smarter than humans, why bother teaching humans at all? Unless there is a point where a developed human brain could outsmart the AI, it seems to be a waste and emotionally guided.

The obscurity for the definition of AI is precisely what drives this. The term AI is so vague among tech circles that I find the term basically laughable at this point.

If we're talking about sentient AI, then none of these concepts matter. We'll have WAY more interesting problems to deal with.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one hoard wealth? Am I made poorer because Bezos owns 9% of his own company?

His workers are poorer because his company's enormous valuation comes from the surplus value they produce but do not receive as compensation. You might be poorer if you own a small business those workers would frequent if they had more money. Edit: You might also be poorer if you tried to compete with Amazon and were crushed like a bug by their anti-competitive practices.

Wrong mode of thinking. The problem is that there aren't enough alternatives. If you want an economy that is fair for workers then you need more jobs per worker so the worker can choose the best offer. That also means you want more employers, including the Jeff Bezos types.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#175

> 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 e…

I can't get myself to agree with this.

Indeed, it's true, horses don't create demand, but neither do unemployed humans.

Our economy isn't centred around humans, it's centred around capital. Unemployable humans are as useless to it as horses, as they can't exchange their labour with capital owners (or become capital owners themselves).

Unemployable people might want more, but will they get more? No, they won't.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If that was the point parent was making then I agree as well, there would indeed be no useful role for humanity.

> Importantly, the AI's of The Culture like humans and want to promote human flourishing

Yes, perhaps this was what I wanted to highlight, that even if we are to end up in such a situation, it could be beneficial.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#177
It's a bummer that while he starts out talking about a global revolution that will profoundly affect all human beings, he smoothly transitions into tax policy opinions and suggestions that, in a best case scenario, will affect about 3.5% of human beings (Americans).

Most of the world is not American, and for every American, there are around 19 people who are not.

> If everyone owns a slice of American value creation, everyone will want America to do better:

Americans say "everyone" when they mean "Americans". "Everyone" is actually 20x larger. (In a section on inclusivity, no less!)

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#178
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

I think this is a good take- Having things be better for horses was never the point of the economy. In fact horses were probably the main driver for developing mechanical solutions since horse ownership is expensive and time consuming. There was no incentive to make life/jobs better for horses, and as soon as a better replacement was available horses were not necessary for most people. So you cant swap out horses for…

But having things be better for humans was never the point of the economy either. The actual point has always been making things better for a subset of humans, everywhere throughout history.

I don't see why an unemployable horse would be considered any differently from an unemployable human to the cold profit motive.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#179
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

I think this is a good take- Having things be better for horses was never the point of the economy. In fact horses were probably the main driver for developing mechanical solutions since horse ownership is expensive and time consuming. There was no incentive to make life/jobs better for horses, and as soon as a better replacement was available horses were not necessary for most people. So you cant swap out horses for…

What's the incentive to make life/jobs better for humans?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#180
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…

I have decided to replace AI (and robots) with Orcs in your comment.

> 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 Orcs are getting smarter than humans, maybe we should let them decide?

> and Orc teachers that can diagnose and explain exactly what a student doesn’t understand.

Since Orcs are smarter than humans, why bother teaching humans at all? Unless there is a point where a developed human brain could outsmart the Orcs, it seems to be a waste and emotionally guided.

> We could do something called the American Equity Fund.

Any solution that is not universal is bound the fail. These companies can move overseas to cut their tax bill. It also easier than moving now since all they need to move is data; electronics being already made in Asia.

The reality is, there is no place for humans in an Orc driven world where Orcs are smarter than humans and Orcs can make stuff. Realizing that is the first step to move forward in this new world.

Now try replacing humans with your nationality (e.g. Americans) and Orcs with people of a different nationality from yours to get even closer to reality.

Post reply on HN