Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Raising Children on the Eve of AI

juliawise.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 237 posts

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#111

Post by valine »

archsurface wrote: post #74

I'm curious to know what people are going to be like when they've grown up in a world of things that are not comprehensible. Eg, I grew up easily understanding how films were made, but I wonder how a child's character will develop when growing up with "films" made by something called a neural net - will there be eg a sense of detachment from the world around them? Will there be an extended period of life during which…

The math behind diffusion models is entirely comprehensible. People will always ask why they need to learn calculus and when they will use it in the real world. Here’s another great answer.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#112

Post by teekert »

A lot trying to predict the future. But kids need love and attention. And if you teach them to think for themselves there is not much more you can do.

As for the “should I even have kids” argument? Sure don’t have kids. Your line ends here while others will potentially live among the star. I’m sorry I’m an optimist.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#113

Post by lewhoo »

moltar wrote: post #80
alumic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drove around today listening to the most recent Lex Fridman podcast, in which the founder of Boston Dynamics was describing replacing human labor with machines that were capable of learning by seeing. I have family in the trades. I pursued tech and fell in love with the field. Listening to the interviewee, I began to feel sick to my stomach at the glib description of what amounts to ripping away peoples' livelihood…

Could have said the same about the use of tractors. People used to farm by hand. All those people were replaced. Yet here we are doing just fine.

If your passion was to plow the field by hand then I agree. Otherwise it is definitely not an equivalent.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#114

Post by vasco »

ben_w wrote: post #106
keiferski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws of physics and the material cost of creating robots still exist. Real life isn’t a sci fi movie.

If robots actually replaced all human labour and left nothing for humans to be employed at, then the robots necessarily can do their own resource extraction. The current cost of a Boston Dynamics Spot is around a year's income, give or take whose income you're measuring against. If it were able to do any human task at the same rate as a human — and yes, I know it isn't, this is just a anchoring point for the discussi…

These robots can also teleport and charge anywhere or do you predict an expedition to some mine in Africa when they are at the stage where they need some cobalt?

I'm just finding it funny thinking of 15 Spots queuing for a flixbus / greyhound bus because they need to go get some raw material across the continent.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#115

Post by kmmlng »

j4yav wrote: post #56

I feel like the future pretty much has to be more local, in person, and human, and as much as you can interact with the internet as a utility rather than as the main source of interaction in your life it is for the best. That’s probably the best lesson you can teach your kids if you don’t want them to be part of society that just sort of permanently falls into the internet, always plugged in via goggles or brain impl…

While I agree that moving all human interaction to the internet is likely to be a net negative, there is only so much you can do as an individual. It takes two to tango, you need a sufficient number of other people with the same mindset to resist this move to the internet. As someone whose parents kept them away from certain forms of technology, media, etc., all it really did was alienate me from others. At the end of the day, I'd rather connect with others through the internet than not at all.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#116

Post by vasco »

rjsw wrote: post #107
keiferski wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will still take decades, if not a century. Manufacturing and developing millions of robots that walk around and do repairs (not to mention making them economically affordable) is not something that’s going to happen soon. What’s more likely is that robots replace human factory workers first.

If the robots have a longer working life than the humans they replace then they don't have to be cheaper. Doing physical work breaks down your body relatively quickly.

Yeah but humans expect return on investment before they die.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#117

Post by unsigner »

This feels incredibly detached from my reality. In my reality, there’s a brutal land war two countries over, and I’m agonizing whether I’m dooming my children by not teaching them battlefield first aid, trench digging and FPV drone piloting.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#118

Post by djokkataja »

alumic wrote: post #62
bbor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two. I’m gonna say there’s a very very selective “we” in use here. I’m sure you’re accurately reporting your surroundings, but many people outside America (and a few within it!) are very much already there. Plus, like, isn’t that kinda depressing? What are disabled people “worth”? If I choose to be an unpopular niche…

It is depressing. I think that this might just be the whole picture. Look, I spent a long while studying evolutionary biology in school (detour into pre-med) and came away with a fairly bleak picture of our place in the universe. I use "worth" in precisely that context. Nature gives us a world in which "he who does not work, does not eat" is a rule of law. Human beings--especially modern ones--assign worth quite diff…

> Nature gives us a world in which "he who does not work, does not eat" is a rule of law.

Which is why no child has ever survived until adulthood.

And TBH I find this an appropriate metaphor because the promise of AGI is that every adult human will be infantile by comparison--but there are also potential technologies that could allow humans to ... "upgrade" themselves and become a mature ... whatever. Sadly brain-computer-interfaces seem like a technology that works best when enabled by AI (to help with interpreting brain signals), so it seems quite unlikely that any biological humans are going to keep up with AI over the medium term.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#119

Post by lewhoo »

teekert wrote: post #112

A lot trying to predict the future. But kids need love and attention. And if you teach them to think for themselves there is not much more you can do. As for the “should I even have kids” argument? Sure don’t have kids. Your line ends here while others will potentially live among the star. I’m sorry I’m an optimist.

> Sure don’t have kids. Your line ends here while others will potentially live among the star.

That's a weird take. This isn't house Lannister vs house Stark you know. To keep the bloodline going really shouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind while considering having a child imho.

Re: Raising Children on the Eve of AI

#120

Post by bbor »

rjsw wrote: post #108
RandomLensman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rich person not working is worthless? Historically, humans have not acted that way, nor have such persons had nothing to eat. Wealth can substitute for work.

Apex predators never have to "work" particularly hard.

It’s too late to argue philosophy but I can argue some biology. Based on my extensive experience watching the nature show on the Samsung TV service, cheetahs, lions, and gorillas all have a very hard time getting enough to eat. The fact that they spend most of the day lazing around is more about recovery time and calorie expenditure than it is about leisure.
Post reply on HN