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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?

#321

Post by Miraste »

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.

It's not at all clear whether automobiles were a net positive. They are more or less solely responsible for climate change (even emissions not directly from motor vehicles wouldn't be possible without them), which may prove to be the worst mistake in the history of technology.

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

#322

Post by [deleted] »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #307
dang wrote: post #249

Here 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…

Why would a series of articles imply repetition? Let's presume there's a series on re-making the antikythera mechanism: 1. Metallurgy: finding, mining and smelting the ore 2. Building the tools (files, molds, etc) 3. Designing the mechanism 4. Making the parts (gears, bearings, etc) Am I wrong or there's no repetition, except maybe the title and calling it a series? Why reject parts 2, 3, 4?

[deleted]

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

#323

Post by bluefirebrand »

nradov wrote: post #295
the_af wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it's a rebuke. I'm just explaining the reality of the situation.

You said

> New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet

I have a really big imagination, so I will believe it when I see it. If you have any real idea what these new companies might be doing in the future then I'm all ears. But until then maybe stop trying to claim some kind of future knowledge based on some handwaved nonsense like "we can't even imagine what the future will look like"

And then trying to claim that's "the reality of the situation", please be serious

Edit: Maybe if you think the future is so unimaginable, you should take a look around at the present. Can you identify anything in our lives today that was not imagined by anyone in the past? Think about how every piece of technology ever made nowadays, someone can say "it's like the Torment Nexus from Famous Piece of Literature!"

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

#324

Post by yubblegum »

chungusamongus wrote: post #286
yubblegum wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that many people miss the subtle irony of Frank Herbert's books. He seems to be debating himself to a certain extent in that series. That said, there is no obvious reason to posit that the intergalactic feudal system, CHOAM, or the empire, came to be because of the butlerian jihad. The concrete side effects of the jihad were in fact hyper specialization of cognitive faculties in humans: mentats, guild navigat…

Yeah. I'm not saying the jihad was the cause. But elimating AI didn't prevent the feudal system. It didn't really help, in other words. Honestly, I kinda think Herbert just didn't want to have AI or sophisticated robots in his narrative, so he contrived an elaborate reason why that tech doesn't exist.

But it did "help". Mentats had supercomputer computation capabilities; navigators folded space and charted non-collision paths; warriors had robocop like abilities. These were developed precisely because the use of thinking machines was forbidden.

I don't think feudalism is going away one way or another. It persists [in various forms] because of certain biological realities, ranging from genetics to loyalty engendered by familial relations. [This is merely an observation.]

In sum, the argument against current AI trends isn't that once addressed we will wake up in utopia. No. The point is that these natural tendencies of humans are hugely amplified and set in generational stone once the elite have control over thinking machines and lord it over a population that has experienced generationally diminished independent cognitive abilities.

p.s. All this somehow reminded me of 'Spock's Brain' episode of Startrek /g Note: the elite there were overcome because Kirk and his landing team were cognitive high performers ..

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

#325

Post by [deleted] »

mason_mpls wrote: post #208
baal80spam wrote: post #36

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.

one trip to Amsterdam will show you how bad our use of cars has been for us

[deleted]

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

#326

Post by bluefirebrand »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #220
bluefirebrand wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the hiring managers I would actually want to work for would see it as a red flag on resumes

Why? It's just the name of the game, everyone gets it. Especially if you're a generalist/frontend type.

It's simply not a game I'm interested in playing. I'll find something else to do instead, leave the AI jockeying to others.

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

#328

Post by asdff »

spprashant wrote: post #140
baal80spam wrote: post #36

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.

The positive effects were immediate, and measurable. The negative effects are delayed, and hard to quantify without all the advancement in climate research since then. If everyone in 1920 knew a 100 years from now there would be climate crisis to reckon with, perhaps a few things would have changed along the way. Today we have a much better understanding of the world, so we have the means to think down the line of wh…

Negative effects were immediately noticed. The change in smog was apparent. Road laws rapidly advanced. Road building standards rapidly changed. Congestion was also very much apparent, and the reason behind massive highway building effort that came some thirty years after the car's rise to popularity.

Really these people decades ago had a great grasp on these things. But why did they "fail" and we still have traffic? They didn't fail really, what failed was implementation not planning. Most cities you see with notorious traffic today, chances are the bottlenecks that exist were planned to be relieved by some midcentury road plan that was for whatever reason, not ever built. Comprehensive rapid transit was often also planned, several times over, but not built or at least never to the full scale of those plans. Catalytic converter was also a great success people today probably don't even think about. You can see the mountains again in California's cities thanks to the catalytic converter.

Leaded gas took longer, but I'd say the tailpipe pollution, congestion, and general capacity related issues were well understood.

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

#329

Post by gdulli »

chungusamongus wrote: post #40
gdulli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Frank Herbert: "Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

I mean, people are talking about the butlerian jihad without any sense of irony or subtext. Dune is literally a feudal hellscape that takes place in the wake of that event. It didn’t make things better. Lmao

You think his argument was that we should welcome the likes of Google controlling the direction of our cognition? The book was about the dangers of asserting our independence from those who control technology? Admittedly, I haven't read the sequels.

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

#330

Post by flir »

throwanem wrote: post #170
ForHackernews wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All blocked in the UK, sadly.

He's gay, and being gay online contravenes the UK Online Safety Act. Complain to your legislators.

That's funny, 'cos being anti-gay contravenes the UK Online Safety Act too.
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