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The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

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Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#91

Post by yubblegum »

geremiiah wrote: post #83
yubblegum wrote: post #63

I fear that outside of cataclysmic global warfare or some sort of butlerian jihad (which amounts to the same) this genie is not going back into the bottle. This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it, and almost all of the negatives cited by Kyle and likeminded (such as myself) are in fact positives for them in context of massive population reduction to eliminate "useless eaters" an…

> This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it If AI is smart enough to replace the 99.999% it's also smart enough to replace the 0.001%.

I have given this serious thought over the years. I even have an unfinished novel exactly around that topic.

Energy. The key is controlling their access to energy.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#92

Post by AdamH12113 »

This reminds me a bit of the ending of In the Beginning Was the Command Line:

> The people who brought us this operating system would have to provide templates and wizards, giving us a few default lives that we could use as starting places for designing our own. Chances are that these default lives would actually look pretty damn good to most people, good enough, anyway, that they'd be reluctant to tear them open and mess around with them for fear of making them worse. So after a few releases the software would begin to look even simpler: you would boot it up and it would present you with a dialog box with a single large button in the middle labeled: LIVE. Once you had clicked that button, your life would begin. If anything got out of whack, or failed to meet your expectations, you could complain about it to Microsoft's Customer Support Department. If you got a flack on the line, he or she would tell you that your life was actually fine, that there was not a thing wrong with it, and in any event it would be a lot better after the next upgrade was rolled out. But if you persisted, and identified yourself as Advanced, you might get through to an actual engineer.

> What would the engineer say, after you had explained your problem, and enumerated all of the dissatisfactions in your life? He would probably tell you that life is a very hard and complicated thing; that no interface can change that; that anyone who believes otherwise is a sucker; and that if you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#93

Post by alnwlsn »

baal80spam wrote: post #36
lukev wrote: post #17

This is a must-read series of articles, and I think Kyle is very much correct. The comparison to the adoption of automobiles is apt, and something I've thought about before as well. Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. That said, I'm more open to using LLMs in constrained scenarios, in cases where they're an appropriate tool for the job and the downsides can b…

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

I think it's most obvious in hindsight, probably it was a long time (some decades) before cars were understood to have much of a negative effect at all. Nobody* thought much about air pollution (even adding lead to the gasoline) or climate effects, or what would happen when cities were built enough that they were then dependent on cars, or what happens when gas or cars gets expensive.

All they saw was that trips taking a day could now be done in an hour and produced no manure, and that meant suddenly you could reasonably go to many more places. What's not to like? A model T was cheap, and you didn't even need to worry about insurance or having a driver's license. Surely nobody would drive so carelessly as to crash.

*well, not technically nobody, but nobody important.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#94

Post by yubblegum »

underlipton wrote: post #81
yubblegum wrote: post #63

I fear that outside of cataclysmic global warfare or some sort of butlerian jihad (which amounts to the same) this genie is not going back into the bottle. This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it, and almost all of the negatives cited by Kyle and likeminded (such as myself) are in fact positives for them in context of massive population reduction to eliminate "useless eaters" an…

Gonna beat this drum till it breaks: General strike and bank runs. Not to collapse the economic system, but to present a credible threat of collapsing the economic system which AI development, as these elite and their platforms know it, relies on. When they're freaking out, we call for negotiations. This only works if people with "secure" livelihoods not just participate, but drive the effort. Getting paid six figure…

Geopolitical realities and considerations require that the effort is synchronized and global. Assume great power X's society revolts and decides to reign in the financial and technological barons and lords, and do away with such things. Meanwhile, great powers Y, Z etc. are not doing this and one day people in X will wake up to AI drone swarms of these powers taking them over and they're back to square 1 and now not even a great power.

Collective humanity needs to think this matter through and take global action. This is the only way I fear, short of natural calamities (act of God) that unplugs humanity from advanced tech for a few generations again.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#95

Post by kraquepype »

baal80spam wrote: post #36
lukev wrote: post #17

This is a must-read series of articles, and I think Kyle is very much correct. The comparison to the adoption of automobiles is apt, and something I've thought about before as well. Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. That said, I'm more open to using LLMs in constrained scenarios, in cases where they're an appropriate tool for the job and the downsides can b…

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

[flagged]

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#96

Post by masfuerte »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #65
masfuerte wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always lived in walkable cities. I don't own a car and with pollution, congestion, accident risk, pavement obstruction, etc. other people's cars unequivocally make my life worse. We can argue about whether this is a good trade off, but the claim that cars make everyone's life better is straightforwardly false.

Troll post? No, they do not "unequivocally" make your life worse. "Other people's cars" facilitate thousands of aspects of modern living and society that you apparently take for granted. You can choose to ONLY look at the negative impacts, but the comment as stated is ridiculous. The only way you receive food (except from your backyard inner-city garden?) is through people DRIVING. The way you receive packages is by…

I said cars not driving. Yes, the supermarket needs trucks to deliver the food. It doesn't need cars.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#97

Post by eloisius »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #65
masfuerte wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always lived in walkable cities. I don't own a car and with pollution, congestion, accident risk, pavement obstruction, etc. other people's cars unequivocally make my life worse. We can argue about whether this is a good trade off, but the claim that cars make everyone's life better is straightforwardly false.

Troll post? No, they do not "unequivocally" make your life worse. "Other people's cars" facilitate thousands of aspects of modern living and society that you apparently take for granted. You can choose to ONLY look at the negative impacts, but the comment as stated is ridiculous. The only way you receive food (except from your backyard inner-city garden?) is through people DRIVING. The way you receive packages is by…

There's a difference between personal vehicles and special purpose vehicles like ambulances and delivery trucks. I don't think anyone in this thread is saying all automobiles are bad, but car-centric development is definitely bad. You don't have to theorize from first principles about this. There are many places around the world that aren't as locked into the personal car as the US is, and they are still functioning societies where you can receive food, packages, medicine, workers maintain infrastructure, etc.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#98

Post by jasonmp85 »

nradov wrote: post #64
armonster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their negative effects are much more vast, subtle, and cultural. You could say many of the broad and widespread mental issues we have in the US is the result of automobiles leading to suburbanization and thus isolation of people. It has created an expensive barrier of entry for existing in society and added a ton of friction to doing anything and everything, especially with people. That's not even getting into the cl…

The upsides of automobiles, or personal mobility in general, are enormous . I can go wherever I want, whenever I want along with other people and cargo. I don't have to wait for a schedule set by someone else, or worry about union strikes. I love my cars!

[dead]

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#99

Post by layer8 »

geremiiah wrote: post #83
yubblegum wrote: post #63

I fear that outside of cataclysmic global warfare or some sort of butlerian jihad (which amounts to the same) this genie is not going back into the bottle. This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it, and almost all of the negatives cited by Kyle and likeminded (such as myself) are in fact positives for them in context of massive population reduction to eliminate "useless eaters" an…

> This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it If AI is smart enough to replace the 99.999% it's also smart enough to replace the 0.001%.

That fact doesn’t prevent the 0.001% from continuing to control it.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#100

Post by Ifkaluva »

I don’t think this is the right take.

To take the car analogy: it matters how we use the car.

The car in itself can be used to save time and energy that would otherwise be used to walk to places. That extra time and energy can be used well, or poorly.

- It can be squandered by having a longer commute that defeats the point

- Alternatively, it can be wasted by sitting on a couch consuming Netflix or TikTok

- Alternatively, it can be used productively, by playing team sports with friends, or chasing your kids through the park, or building a chicken coop in your back yard

It’s all about wise usage. Yes it can be used as a way to destroy your own body and waste your time and attention, but also it can be used as a tool to deploy your resources better, for example in physical activities that are fun and social rather than required drudgery.

I think it’s the same for LLMs. Managers and executives have always delegated the engineering work, and even researching and writing reports. It matters whether we find places to continue to challenge and deploy our cognition, or completely settle back, delegate everything to the LLM and scroll TikTok while it works.

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