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The Gentle Singularity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: The Gentle Singularity

#471

Post by psalaun »

Teever wrote: post #361
walleeee wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really cool to hear a public figure seriously talk about self-replicating machines. To me this is the key to unlocking human potential and ending material scarcity. You are a self-replicating machine running on top of a massive web of other self replicating machines. You are fundamentally constrained by the energy and materials available to you, as is your entire operating stack. You are a petal on a fractal f…

The industrial revolution brought about the development of fabulous innovations like the mass production of standardized and interchangeable parts which has been instrumental in achieving the level of economic production, scientific advancement and quality of life that we enjoy. But I think that there are limitations on these kinds of techniques and we can see them with the changing economics of our most advanced tec…

You assume there are enough trees on the desertic island to build the ship that will allow us to reach the brave new world full of resources.

We don't know that. It seems to be a leap of faith, based on the possibility of numerous successive achievements (IA, then fusion, then robots, then interplanetary mining, etc.) where each new step is always reachable. Like in a video game.

Maybe the necessary amount of oil (or whatever) required to reach the next key milestone towards unlimited resources has never existed. Maybe it'd have required 1 billion more years before humankind reached the industrial age.

Maybe the trees on our island are just enough to build a raft, not a brig, and we should have used them to build a shelter and make the inevitable end more comfortable.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#472

Post by tartoran »

seydor wrote: post #105

ok ok, i m holding my breath! "Rich" is a relative term, the existence of the rich requires the existence of the poor, and according to the article the rich will get richer much faster than the poor. There's nothing gentle about this singularity

The veil is gently drawn over the minds of the masses.

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#473

Post by michaelbarton »

slibhb wrote: post #181
michaelbarton wrote: post #158

Regarding a super intelligence creating new cures: a million plus people die from malaria and AIDS combined each year. We have effective treatments for both, yet the USAID was recently shut down. I enjoy technology but less and less so each year, because it increasingly feels like there’s some kind of disconnect with the real world that’s hard to put my finger on

> a million plus people die from malaria and AIDS combined each year These are political problems not technological problems.

yeap! that was exactly my point, it was I reference to sama’s point in the article about super intelligence creating new cures

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#474

Post by LtWorf »

theptip wrote: post #402
LtWorf wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the android/apple appstores have taught me compared to the old symbian appstore is that we don't need more apps, we need decent ones. The current appstores have more.

Discovery definitely becomes more important in this world. Fortunately AI helps with that too.

Why do you think it will not soon be biased as search is?

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#475

Post by michaelbarton »

imgabe wrote: post #201
michaelbarton wrote: post #158

Regarding a super intelligence creating new cures: a million plus people die from malaria and AIDS combined each year. We have effective treatments for both, yet the USAID was recently shut down. I enjoy technology but less and less so each year, because it increasingly feels like there’s some kind of disconnect with the real world that’s hard to put my finger on

USAID is not the sole source of administering AIDS and malaria treatments. No doubt many more people were successfully treated because those treatments exist. I don't think I understand your point. We shouldn't develop new treatments because one country won't supply them to the entire world for free? Why is it the US's responsibility to treat every disease everywhere in the world? Do these countries not have their ow…

I don’t disagree with your point. It’s not the US’s responsibility to supply malaria drugs. My point was that it is not for lack of an existing cure that people are dying of malaria or AIDS, in reference to the article.

Personally speaking I wish the US was drastically more involved with providing aid because it can help reduce the impact of individual catastrophies happening everyday.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/02/04/beyond-rescue-why-huma...

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#476

Post by LtWorf »

Agentlien wrote: post #451
LtWorf wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah there's like 15 places in sweden which have this, and it's "the norm"?

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#478

Post by skeaker »

0xffff2 wrote: post #442
skeaker wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed, my understanding was that housing prices are being driven up by real estate owners/agencies buying tons of property to either rent at extortionary prices or sit on until they sell for a higher price to the next sucker. Also stuff like the RealPage scandal where they simply illegally collude: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41330007 I think the idea of a law that only allows a limited number of o…

Housing prices are being driven up by the fact that we don't build enough housing. That should be the end of the discussion. What you describe is just a symptom of not having enough housing. If we just built more housing then there wouldn't be any business angle for the corporations buying up housing.

The obscenely rich entities that buy up tons of property without actually using it do so because they only stand to gain even more money on it later. Making more housing would help in the long term for sure, but these entities would still buy up most of it as it becomes available. Remember that as long as they hold the vast majority, they essentially have a captive audience and can set whatever outlandish prices they want (especially when they collude as they have done). Something to restrict the number of unused properties a person can own would still be beneficial either way.

This also goes without mentioning the restrictions on "just" building new housing (land, time, and space, particularly space located near job sites).

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#479

Post by actuallyalys »

theptip wrote: post #401
actuallyalys wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I'm only saying the unit is correct, not whether the number of watt-hours is accurate or (assuming it is correct) that it's a good amount to spend on each query.

Fair, I was trying to make a broader point without being clear about it :)

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying!

Re: The Gentle Singularity

#480

Post by skeaker »

greenie_beans wrote: post #377
antihero wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Datacentre operators want to keep energy costs down and also have capital to make it happen.

weird i didn't know they could build nuclear power plants (surely you are being sarcastic?) also this is weird i thought electricity prices only get cheaper? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610

Yes, tech corps have actually have been investing in nuclear. See some recent discussion:

Microsoft: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443

Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840769

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