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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?

#331

Post by ericmcer »

abricq wrote: post #70

> ML assistance reduces our performance and persistence, and denies us both the muscle memory and deep theory-building that comes with working through a task by hand: the cultivation of what James C. Scott would call Imagine being starting university now... I can't imagine to have learned what I did at engineering school if it wasn't for all the time lost on projects, on errors. And I can't really think that I would…

That is part of why I am not... too worried as an engineer?

Like years of manually studying, fixing and reviewing code is experience that only pre ~2020 devs will have.

The intuitive/tacit knowledge that lets you look at code and "feel" that something is off with it cannot really be gained when using Claude Code, it takes just 1000s of hours of tinkering.

It will suck if the job shifts to reviewing and owning whatever an LLM spits out, but I don't really know how effective new juniors are going to be.

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

#332

Post by merb »

What doomsayers or tech bros never really understand, you can’t be rich without an economy. Which basically means that if 90% of the people loose their jobs, their home, the system by itself will collapse even the stuff that the rich people are needing.

AI will basically either enrich our life like the loom did or it will outright kill the current economic system of the world which might stop poverty at all or it will sort of start a big collapse where people suffer at the beginning but than it will still have a positive outcome at the end.

Humankind always found a solution in the past and it will even do that in the future.

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

#333

Post by [deleted] »

recursive wrote: post #291
nradov wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, that's a real problem. For practical urban riding, I use a beater fixie that I can replace for less than a car payment. I've had a few stolen, but that's across decades. This is probably highly dependent on your particular location. But I've also had cars broken in to. Replacing the bike is actually a lot easier than getting the windows fixed IME.

[deleted]

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

#334

Post by Glemllksdf »

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…

I think he is to pesimistic, a tool is a tool and if AI progresses without hitting a ceilling, i will see a potential future of a society which might explore space.

Musks SpaceX Keynote was ridiculous, don't get me wrong, but we will be able to see AI progress in the next 5 years which will give us some kind of gut feeling were the journey can go.

Also AI solves another problem: Compute. It was clear that we want some kind of compute but its like with 4k; We have 4k for ages now but it is not the default resolution on all displays sold. We stoped pushing the boundaries because invest is not here. People do not bother too much with it.

With AI and the richest companies and people want to see what happens, pushes the envolope a lot faster, pushes us to find solutions.

This AI Compute based on ML/Neuroal Networks can also be used for physics simulation, protein folding, and everything else.

Stoping technology is not an option and not a solution. Education is. We need to educate people.

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

#335

Post by strbean »

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?

Guess: there is likely some repetition in articles in a series, but there is a ton in the discussion here, and that is what HN wants to avoid. Discussion on a link that bundles together the parts of a series helps avoid excessive rehashing in the comment sections.

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

#336

Post by furyofantares »

grvdrm wrote: post #111

Two years ago, I was enjoying a drink with my wife, her friend, a very senior female VC partner, and another friend. Somehow we talked AI in some depth, and the VC at one point said (about AI): “I don’t know what our kids are going to do for work. I don’t know what jobs there will be to do.” That same VC invests in AI companies and by what I heard about her, has done phenomenally well. I think about that exchange all…

There's plenty of things you can be simultaneously worried and optimistic about, and I find this is constantly true of parenting.

I will encourage my kid to gain independence, but of course I'm worried about it! The fact that there is uncertainty in her independence and that I can imagine bad outcomes does not mean I'm working against her interest by encouraging it.

"I don't know what jobs there will be to do" is a statement of uncertainty, and, given how you are relaying it, there must have been fear there as well. But it doesn't seem like it's a statement that the world will be worse. You can be fearful and hopeful at the same time, and fear tends to be the stronger of the two, and come out more strongly, again especially in parenting I find, even if you find the hopeful outcomes more likely.

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

#337

Post by Glemllksdf »

nradov wrote: post #272
tim333 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article skips the potential upsides of an AI future - like curing diseases, abundance, merge type immortality. I'm keen myself with nothing to do with the goals of the 0.001% really. I think the future generations will like the above and look back on now like we look back at medieval dentistary.

I have nothing against AI as a technology but the notion of it "curing diseases" is so silly. The limiting factors are largely in fundamental biology research and then human clinical trials. There is no plausible way that LLMs will make those activities 10× faster or cheaper. Hard work still has to be done in the messy real world outside of computers.

LLMs help already a lot because plenty of normal people do not have programming skills. Evaluating test results is a lot harder if you do not know how to program or how to use a computer.

But LLMs compute requirement is so high that it pushes the boundaries of compute, memory and memory bandwidth which is fundamental for curing diseases.

LLMs math / neural networks can and are used for medical research. Simulating a whole body with proteins, cells etc. will bring us the breakthrough we need.

Nothing in modern medicin research is withoout compute.

AlphaFold def helps researchers around the globe.

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

#338

Post by asdff »

archagon wrote: post #279
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.

I'd say commercial automobiles probably have a net positive effect. (Though their impact on pollution and climate change can't be discounted.) But daily life in walkable and public transitable European cities is so, so much nicer and healthier than in most American cities. I'd trade ubiquitous personal automobiles for that in a heartbeat.

There's still plenty of cars in europe. Biggest advantage of europe is even the major cities are only so large in footprint, like even berlin is barely over a dozen miles across. Major US cities could be 40-60 miles across. Greater LA maybe over 100 miles across depending on how you measure, all contiguous development. The northeast corridor is nearly contiguous urban/suburban development over a ~450 mile snake from washington dc to boston. Makes a little 10 mile rail line in berlin capture a much greater share of potential trips within the berlin urban area than a 10 mile rail line pretty much anywhere in the US. LA has a light rail line that is over 50 miles long.

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

#339

Post by Glemllksdf »

miltonlost wrote: post #34
chungusamongus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly it. This person does not understand the coercive competition of the market. If you don't use new tech, you are going to be undercut by people who do. And every HR dept is going to expect to to have experience with AI even if the department that’s hiring doesn't really use it. If the author's supposed solution to the problem has negative personal consequences, why would you do it? To be nice?

Because I don't like the feeling my conscience gives me by doing something I think is evil and bad. Some people have moral lines that they won't cross when finding jobs. If my competitors are filling their flour with sawdust, guess I got to just do the same?

Its not the same. Its clearly shit to replace flour with sawdust.

Having different opinions on AI/LLMs doesn't make the use of it the same as replacing flour with sawdust.

The AI 'image' slop for example, i don't think its bad. But i also don't think it takes anything from a real artist. It takes jobs from people with drawing skills but it doesn't change anything for an artist.

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

#340

Post by throwanem »

flir wrote: post #330
throwanem wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. I made no claim your legislators are competent. (Congratulations on the summary dismissal of the hereditary peers!)
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