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The Gentle Singularity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: The Gentle Singularity

#451

Post by Agentlien »

LtWorf wrote: post #393
munksbeer wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works pretty well in the UK. The nice thing is, I can pack my bags as I shop, so I don't feel stressed when I get to the checkout. I use this method of shopping whenever available.

In sweden you have to unpack and re-pack at the checkout. And if you have a backpack you can't place stuff inside it. No. You have to unpack, place everything on a scale and then place everything in your backpack again. And for items like bread or so you need to navigate a number of menus to find it. And of course you are asked if you are a member, if you'd like to become a member, if you want to do a donation, and a…

That's just self checkout. Some places, like Ica, have self scanning which works so much better. You just scan the bar code as you pick things up - which is just in one motion as you put things in your bag. No need to unpack as you pay.

Yes you do need to be a member to use the system, but that's a very small price to pay for the convenience and speed of avoiding all lines and stress of the regular checkout.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#452

Post by bigyabai »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #374
hazbot wrote: post #364

I'm feeling a bit cheated it's 2025 and I just bought a brand new car that does not drive itself and runs on dead dinosaurs.

You at least had the option of buying one that did not run on dead dinosaurs.

Dead pedestrians are not a suitable replacement.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#453

Post by xboxnolifes »

nradov wrote: post #384
grafmax wrote: post #372

> Scientific progress is the biggest driver of overall progress > There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we’ll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could before Real wages haven’t risen since 1980. Wealth inequality has. Most people have much less political power than they used to as wealth…

Real wages have risen a lot since 1980 when you include employer contributions to employee health insurance.

No, that's not a real wage increase, thats nominal wage. If i make 20k more, but health insurance costs also went up 20k, my real wage did not change. I am no richer.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#454

Post by nradov »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #453
nradov wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real wages have risen a lot since 1980 when you include employer contributions to employee health insurance.

No, that's not a real wage increase, thats nominal wage. If i make 20k more, but health insurance costs also went up 20k, my real wage did not change. I am no richer.

No, that's a real wage increase. The healthcare system can effectively treat a lot more conditions than it could in 1980. That makes you richer as measured in terms of QALYs.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#455

Post by tim333 »

ben_w wrote: post #450
tim333 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really liked "singularity" as a term. If only because I like it's actual mathematical meaning. I always thought of the main event as AI intelligence overtaking human intelligence. (you can get a mathematical singularity if you consider amount of stuff that can be produced per hour of human labour which should go infinite around the robot uprising)

> (you can get a mathematical singularity if you consider amount of stuff that can be produced per hour of human labour which should go infinite around the robot uprising) Nah, even then it's only exponential, not a mathematical singularity. Whatever the doubling period is for the e.g. von Neumann machines, but it doesn't go to infinity in finite time.

I think that one does because if you need zero hours of human labour then output/(human labour hours) goes to division by zero.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#456

Post by botverse »

I can’t seem to reconcile this with the fact that there has not been a significant improvement of the transformers since 8 years ago. None of the AGI components, in addition to those that emerged with hyper scale, have been achieved. Where is the superintelligence going to come from?

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#457

Post by ethbr1 »

hollerith wrote: post #439
ethbr1 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purchasing power parity matters a lot too.

The context here is growth and I doubt China's GDPPPP/person has grown anywhere near as much as its GDP/person because the median Chinese household of 40 years ago could still afford the essentials (food, housing, clothing) that the PPP adjustment indexes off of. (It just couldn't afford any imports .) Actually I doubt that economists even tried to calculate PPP of China 40 years ago because (even back then) the bask…

The difference now is that China makes a ton of consumer goods itself, so whereas 40 years ago Chinese PPP would have required forex, now it can be done internally.

That shift opens the possibility of GDPPPP changes in excess (or under) strict GDP per capita growth.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#459

Post by sevensor »

Teever wrote: post #433
sevensor wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never? Technical feasibility notwithstanding, nobody is ever going to sell a mass market device that defeats planned obsolescence. That’s the opposite of how our economy works. What they’d do, assuming a competent humanoid robot, is design it iphone style so that you get a good five years and then the software won’t update. At that point you scrap it and buy another one.

It sounds like it would a very useful ability for robots involved space missions. What technical challenges do you foresee with such a device?

I disagree with the entire premise that sending a whole second robot on a space mission is desirable. All that extra mass! And why humanoid? Not a reasonable form factor for a robotic space vehicle. Anyway, on a space mission, mass is everything. Why spend it on manipulators for fixing robots when you could build redundancy where you need it most? Your general purpose robot fixing robot still has to carry spares! Why do that when you can have built in spares in the first place, without the mass of a whole second robot?

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#460

Post by xigency »

nradov wrote: post #454
xboxnolifes wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not a real wage increase, thats nominal wage. If i make 20k more, but health insurance costs also went up 20k, my real wage did not change. I am no richer.

No, that's a real wage increase. The healthcare system can effectively treat a lot more conditions than it could in 1980. That makes you richer as measured in terms of QALYs.

That's a nice thought but I've only had one physical in the last 15 years. I'm sure others are sitting in the same boat.
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