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AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

thealgorithmicbridge.com

71–80 of 694 posts

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#72
A bit tangent, but is there anyone working on something for “what if AI pans out?” world? I’m not sure how to explain it, but if in the next 5 years a lot of jobs get displaced because of AI, obviously we’ll have big problems. Is there anyone working on analysis, outcomes, strategies and etc.? I think about it a lot, and would be cool to help and contribute.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#73
post #22
post #3

The author seems to have some cognitive dissonance. For a piece saying that you cannot justify violence, there sure seems to be an awful lot of justifying violence in here.

You should probably read up on cognitive dissonance, because this ain't it. Here's what the author actually wrote: > Nothing that Altman could say justifies violence against him. This is an undeniable truth. But unfortunately, violence might still ensue. I hope not, but I guess we are seeing what appears to be the first cases.

I think you're going to be killed for the side you've taken here. No no, I'm not saying you deserve it! In fact, I actually agree with you, you said nothing wrong. I'm just speculating on outcomes I think are likely and I think it's likely that somebody will look you up and track you down and take out their unjustifiable but completely understandable frustration on you. Please understand, I don't support this, I'm just talking about the possibility!

Of course, by talking about the possibility, despite asserting my disapproval of it, I am sowing seeds, but I assure you that's certainly not my intention!

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#74

Humans have been successfully using violence for conflict-resolution for tens of thousands of years. We’ll be fine, it’s not our first rodeo.

The ugly truth indeed. It sucks to die for the world you won't enjoy, but sometimes it's the only viable solution. Much of our progress has been to minimise casualties and human suffering in order to sustain the world most can agree is better (than the alternatives), but it seems the period of the wave just hits the troughs farther apart, but when it hits them it's like taking breath before the water swallows you, and without training it's quite the panic and suffering (and prospect of death). We know it's in our bones but we want to forget because our bodies are made to interpret pain in the most direct and literal sense -- re-conditioning is always painful too. Strong people create weak people who create strong people, etc.

So yeah _we_ will be fine, but some of us definitely won't, and with the growth in our numbers on Earth, the proportion of martyrs may be growing. Quantifying personal suffering is not possible, especially if the prospect is death.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#75

A lot of the magic of LLMs, I think, has been tarnished by these CEOs and other FAANG companies. It might have been a far more interesting world if they didn't bring "AI" or "AGI" into the conversation in such a politicized way.

No it’s tarnished by becoming too popular. Just like how people hated nickelback, if you remember.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#76
post #2

> Every time I hear from Amodei or Altman that I could lose my job, I don’t think “oh, ok, then allow me pay you $20/month so that I can adapt to these uncertain times that have fallen upon my destiny by chance.” I think: “you, for fuck’s sake, you are doing this.” And I consider myself a pretty levelheaded guy, so imagine what not-so-levelheaded people think. Conversely, The Loudest Alarm Is Probably False[0]. If th…

Related, I've been surprised that we haven't had more violence against corporations and/or their leadership in the vein of Luigi Mangione. E.g., suppose that 1,000,000 persons believe that a corporation's evil acts destroyed their happiness [0]. I would have guessed that at least 1 person in that crowd would be so unhinged by the experience that they'd make a viable attempt at vengeance. But I'm just not hearing of t…

Litigation—the hope or fantasy to make a buck—soaks up a lot of the million-man animus I’d guess.

If that’s accurate, Luigi Mangione would be the exception that proves the rule. The “unwashed masses” generally want money more than they want to effect change in the world.

A lot of people spend mental energy fantasizing about getting rich off lawsuits. Like, a lot.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#77
post #54

A lot of the magic of LLMs, I think, has been tarnished by these CEOs and other FAANG companies. It might have been a far more interesting world if they didn't bring "AI" or "AGI" into the conversation in such a politicized way.

Magic or no, ultimately "AI" leads to labour displacement and it's just a continuation of the much broader trend of automation driven by computers. Labour displacement leads to an erosion of standards of living and in a world that ties purpose to work is an existential threat on a very practical level. It was always going to be met with violence once it became more than a curiosity for tinkerers.

> in a world that ties purpose to work is an existential threat on a very practical level.

I don't disagree that we tie purpose to work and severing that tie will have negative societal consequences, but it is far more impactful that we tie the ability to continue to exist to work (for anyone not lucky enough to already be wealthy).

If I suddenly became unemployable tomorrow I'm positive I could find alternate purpose in my life to fill that gap, I already volunteer for various causes and could happily do more of the same to fill in the gaps left by lack of work. What I couldn't do is feed myself, keep myself housed, and get medical care (especially in the US, where this is very directly tied to work).

The really big fuckup we are committing as a society in the US (may or may not apply to each person's country individually) isn't just this looming threat of massive labor displacement due to AI, it is that instead of planning for any sort of soft landing we are continually slashing what few social safety nets already exist. We are creating the conditions for desperation that likely will result in increasing violence as outlined in the linked post.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#78
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this is the only way to get enough venture capital to support the compute needs for this kind of technology. Who is going to spend hundreds on billions on a vague idea without regular claims that this will upend the existing economy in six to twelve months and whoever owns it will become unfathomably rich? And despite all the actual developments we have seen going against that idea, investors keep fall…

It's a sad indictment of our society that there is always a shortage of money for medical care, infrastructure, housing, food stamps and space exploration but always a surplus of cash for war and tools that purport to replace the workforce.

> It's a sad indictment of our society that there is always a shortage of money for medical care...

It has nothing to do with society; there is infinite demand for medical care. The upper limit is whatever it takes to live until the universe's heat death in good health. That takes a lot of resources.

However much society spends on medical care, there is always more that could be spent. The modern era has the best, most affordable medical care in history and people are showing no signs of being satisfied at all.

While war spending generally just causes pain for no gain it doesn't change the fact that there will never be enough available to satisfy people's demand for medical care. Every single time people get what they want they just come up with a new aspirational minimum standard.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#79

A lot of the magic of LLMs, I think, has been tarnished by these CEOs and other FAANG companies. It might have been a far more interesting world if they didn't bring "AI" or "AGI" into the conversation in such a politicized way.

[dead]

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#80
One thing I'm kinda worried is what happens to social trust in society once we have more and more LLMs flooding the Internet. Divison in society, in particular in the United States, already seemed to be increasing at a rapid pace as social media became more and more relevant, and I'm afraid that LLMs are just going to add more fuel into the already started fire.

I'm less concerned about AI becoming the Skynet and killing humans and more concerned about AI making the world so miserable that we'll be killing ourselves and each other.

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