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

aphyr.com

101–110 of 830 posts

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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automobiles are one of a key pillar of logistics. Getting things (food, medicine, construction materials, etc. etc.) to and from backbones like rail, harbors, airports etc. So even for those who don't own a vehicle or even want to own a vehicle, automobiles are still a vast net positive. I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Maybe everyone lives in giant 10 million+ population cities that are all connected to e…

Personal cars are not the same as using them for logistics. Yes cars/trucks/busses are still useful overall and are an incredible last-mile solution for freight. But on a personal level, it means we all must live far apart and maintain our own individual vehicles, along with the average total costs of $11,500/year PER CAR. [0] I’m not saying they should’ve even been banned for personal use - owning a car and living i…

> Personal cars are not the same as using them for logistics.

Yes, they are in fact, the same. You cannot introduce such massively useful technology into the world and then say that it would be used only for logistics and not for personal transportation. Short of a worldwide totalitarian government, such arbitrary restriction would be completely unenforceable.

It is possible to shape things with regulation, but only to some degree. With any great technology, you have to take the good with the bad. And the good outweights the bad in any historical technology. AI will be no exception.

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

#102

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 - Alternati…

While I agree in principle, I don’t know how much faith is warranted in humans using it wisely in practice.

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

#103

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…

Troll post? You state that "other people's cars" facilitate thousands of aspects of modern living, then go on to talk about things that trucks do, not personal vehicles

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

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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]

I never want to live in a society that views individualism as toxic

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

#105
post #102

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 - Alternati…

While I agree in principle, I don’t know how much faith is warranted in humans using it wisely in practice.

I have a lot of faith they will use it unwisely.

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

#106
post #64

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!

Those are all enormous benefits to you and you alone. The greatest thing about cars are the things they do for you.

In order for someone else to have those benefits, they also need a car.

If as a society, if we could feel the same way about public transit, bike lanes, sidewalks, that you do about your own personal vehicle - we'd be better off.

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

#107
post #105
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree in principle, I don’t know how much faith is warranted in humans using it wisely in practice.

I have a lot of faith they will use it unwisely.

Indeed.

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

#108

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…

You're free to take a vacation or quit working if you want to. Go ahead.

As for bank runs, no one cares. The big banks no longer need retail customer deposits as a source of capital for fractional reserve lending. Modern bank funding mechanisms are more sophisticated than that.

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using claude but then refuse to do much cleaning up of what it spews. Im leaving that for the PR reviewers who love AI and going through slop. If they want slop, I'll give them the slop they want.

based. our CEO has made it clear that we're expected to use LLMs to shit out as many features as we can as quickly as we can, so that's exactly what I'm doing. Can't wait to watch leadership flail around in a year or two when the long term consequences start to become apparent

You'll just get laid off and they'll be onto the next hype cycle as visionaries.

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

#110
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…

All blocked in the UK, sadly.
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