> And if I’m wrong, we can always build it later.
That's the rub: if we build it later, our economy crashes in the meantime.
The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
261–270 of 830 posts
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have this misconception that first it was one way, and then , and they'll wake up and suddenly it is another. It's a slow creep. 10 years ago there were 5 of us on a team each responsible for something specific. Now I can do all of that. Teams and companies will downsize. How do you see AI creating more jobs? (I need some hope right now lol).
Massive job loss from AI requires one of two things: actual human-equivalent AGI or no increase in demand. Focusing on option 2 and software development, teams and companies will only downsize if the demand for software doesn’t increase. Make the same amount of stuff you do now but with less people. What I think will happen is that enough companies will choose to do things that they couldn’t afford or weren’t possibl…
There are more options:
Mass unemployment, consolidation of all AI-related benefits in the hands of a few, an increase in demand that doesn't outpaced the loss of employment, increase in capabilities (not AGI) that mean a few chosen people can do most things without hiring other people, etc.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#263Here are the articles in this series that got significant HN discussion (in chronological order for a change): ML promises to be profoundly weird* - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689648 - April 2026 (602 comments) The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47703528 - April 2026 (106 comments) The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyance…
If you enjoyed reading these and would like more, very few folks read sections 2, 4, or 6. They might be up your alley:
2. Dynamics - https://aphyr.com/posts/412-the-future-of-everything-is-lies...
4. Information Ecology - https://aphyr.com/posts/414-the-future-of-everything-is-lies...
6. Psychological Hazards - https://aphyr.com/posts/416-the-future-of-everything-is-lies...
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
That's simply untrue; you're deliberately misinterpreting terms to grind a tired axe. It is perfectly possible to be both masculine and non-toxic without being feminine. Refusing to allow that is toxic in itself.
> you're deliberately misinterpreting terms
Using the term "toxic" to describe things is an issue because people have an immediate negative reaction to it and go on the defence. Wording matters a lot and I'm unsure why there's such an insistence on calling things "toxic" when other words would both better describe issues and cause a less visceral reaction.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot of people in this comment thread interpreting the post's analogy as "ban all cars forever" rather than "consider how to use them as part of a wider societal strategy that makes places better for everyone". You can implement all kinds of transport badly. Trains can suck if they don't take you where you want to go, bicycles suck if wherever you live doesn't provide acceptable parking methods. Cars are gre…
It seems like a hard argument to make that bikes can suck more than cars because of parking . As a bicycle enthusiast, I can provide you with some better reasons. You'll get rained on. You'll get sweaty. The helmet will mess up your fancy hair. You can't go as fast. Parking is one of the biggest upsides of bikes IMO.
Parking is one of the biggest downsides of bikes IMO.
Bikes are great, I ride mine whenever I can. But most places lack secure bike parking and the police don't take bike theft seriously. So sometimes I drive my car even to places where I could easily ride a bike just because I'm confident the car will still be there when I get out.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet. I read this take a lot but I don't buy it. This isn't guaranteed by any means. And even if it does happen, isn't it just as likely that AI is deployed into those companies too and they don't actually result in any job growth?
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That's not the rebuke you think it is. You made a claim (not original, I've read it before), someone expressed doubts about your claim (which if proven false, will have dire consequences) and you cannot wave it off with "there are no guarantees in life".
Sorry, you made a claim, there's good reason to believe your claim may not pan out, and if it doesn't the consequences are dire.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#267We should consider how we came to be so powerless. The cringe "people gave their lives for that flag" line is actually true, and we're trading it away for what? Not having to get out of our gaming chairs? The reason you can't beat index funds is the people who build the market built a system that benefits them and them alone; the index fund is the pitchfork dividend (what you pay to avoid getting pitchforked). The re…
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Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few hundred years ago it took a team of 5 plus draft animals plough a field. Now one guy with a tractor can do it. Some teams and companies will downsize. New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet.
Are SWEs the farmers of the draft animals in this analogy?
The SWEs are the draft animals, to be put out to pasture in the AI future.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't follow, are people then not able to choose to live somewhere that has shopping facilities or hospitals that are built so as not to be only accessible by automobile?
> re people then not able to choose to live somewhere No, because no such somewhere has been built in the country in question (US) in the past ~60 years, because the default is car-centric. So you're left with a few uber dense, old, predating automobiles, places. Which are extremely expensive, because they simply do not have the capacity for everyone who wants to live in them.
There are plenty of city centers that aren't super-expensive but probably don't have a lot of great local employment options and maybe aren't generally considered desirable--and don't have a lot of great transportation options to outlying areas though that's generally true of a lot of major Tier 1 cities as well. You prioritize your choices.
Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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%.
IMO this is a common trap. Certainly there's no boundary of cognitive capability that separates capitalist elites from those below them in terms of an AI's ability to outperform them. But that doesn't really matter when we talk about "replacement" because these people don't "do" they simply "own". They're not concerned about being outpaced at some skill they perform in exchange for money...they just need the producti…
It's not about capability. It's about who "holds the key". And sure, many currently with deep pockets and pushing for AI will miscalculate and get pushed by the wayside. I think many people who are not in the 0.001% are miscalculating right now in HN.
What's important is that ultimately some small subset owns this, and it doesn't matter how smart they are, only that they own the thing and that it cannot be employed against them (because they hold the key).