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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?

#551

Post by Bombthecat »

mplanchard wrote: post #202
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #152

Earlier 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).

My hope is that there is a sort of Cambrian explosion of small software projects built by people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Many such projects will go nowhere, but some percentage of them will see success and growth. My second hope is that there will always come some threshold of complexity beyond which AI cannot effectively iterate on a project without (at minimum) the prompting of an expert in…

That all implies that AI won't get ( much) better anymore.

I doubt that

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

#552

Post by charlie90 »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #143
Earw0rm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine if people choose it. It's not fine if that choice denies other people the choice not to. And there seems to be a lot of the latter. For example, when shopping facilities or hospitals are built so as to be, de-facto, only accessible by automobile, that locks people out of the choice to say no thanks.

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?

They exist, but usually they are expensive and in-demand areas because... people usually like walkable areas. Its a shame that more suburbs arent designed this way, because it doesnt even cost more money...just more thoughtfulness in how we should design our livable spaces.

Suburbs/car-dependecy is a classic case of "worse is better". Its simpler to build and the worst-case suburban sprawl is tolerable, so it proliferates.

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

#553

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

rowanG077 wrote: post #488
munificent wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with your overall point, but I do think that ingenuity, problem-solving, impulse control, and the ability to delay gratification and reach long-term goals have always been valuable skills. You might still only be a farmer if you're smart, but you can at least be one of the more productive farmers with a more smoothly running farm.

I agree. Studies show time and time again that smart people are more efficient even at tasks that may not look like they require a smart person. So while people might not have been paid to do thinking jobs I don't buy that the intelligent did not always have had an edge, all else being equal.

> all else being equal.

"Load bearing phrase", as they say.

A stupid ass that just keeps pushing on often goes further than a smart ass who gets distracted.

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

#554

Post by copypaper »

Aurornis wrote: post #536
copypaper wrote: post #532

We are one technological breakthrough away from AGI. Seriously what happens when, for example, a viable room temperature superconductor (remember LK-99 lol) gets discovered? Next thing you know we have 3d stacked chips operating at THz speeds with virtually zero heat output, batteries that can charge instantly, etc. I know a RTSC is the holy grail, but it really feels like AI is in the same stage computers were in th…

> what happens when, for example, a viable room temperature superconductor (remember LK-99 lol) gets discovered? Next thing you know we have 3d stacked chips operating at THz speeds with virtually zero heat output Room temperature superconductors don’t enable THz chips with no heat output. If superconductors broadly allowed this, we’d already have such chips available because we could super cool them and keep them at…

> we could super cool them and keep that at that temperature easily

As far as im aware, 3d stacking chips requires the inside to be cooled as well (not just the outside). I don't think they've solved this yet.

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

#555

Post by ted_dunning »

tim333 wrote: post #290
nradov wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re. disease cures I am hoping more for AlphaFold type stuff and simulating cells in silico rather than ChatGPT type LLMs. There is some progress like >“There are people sitting in our office in King’s Cross, London, working, and collaborating with AI to design drugs for cancer. “That’s happening right now.” https://www.htworld.co.uk/news/research-news/isomorphic-labs... and >...enables researchers to move seamlessly…

And none of that doesn't improve the throughput of the clinical trials. It just decrease the cost of coming up with things to put into trial.

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

#556

Post by Bombthecat »

munificent wrote: post #462
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> no increase in demand. We are already hitting the limits of demand in many areas of life. The fundamental currency that is not growing is human attention . Sure, now you can be a musician and use AI to help you make an album in a weekend. Great. So can a million other people. Who's going to listen to them? Everyone is already inundated with more music than they could ever listen to in a lifetime. Now someone who's…

Also, I said it way before LLMs, when X started firing people. Software is more or less on maintenance mode. You don't need that many developers anymore and so many new features.

You don't need to create the next Facebook, Shopify, X etc.... Because it already exists and controls the market.

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

#557

Post by BobbyJo »

armonster wrote: post #46
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.

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…

Urbanization has separated far more families than suburbanization, so the isolation argument, as if suburbanization is the core cause, doesn't make sense to me.

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

#558

Post by noosphr »

Animats wrote: post #445

"I could retrain, but my core skills—reading, thinking, and writing—are squarely in the blast radius of large language models." Yes. For the lifetime of almost everyone alive now, reading, thinking, and writing have been valued skills which moved one up in society's hierarchy. This is a historical anomaly. Prior to 1800 or so, those skills were not all that useful to the average farmer. There were more smart people t…

In the same way that numeracy skills were in the blast radius of the Colossus.

People seriously underestimate how underpowered and tiny llms are for the tasks they need to solve.

A trillion parameter model can't tell the difference between left and right. We will need to grow them millions to trillions of times before they are half as good as AI boosters claim they are.

This isn't the end of thinking any more than the watt steam engine was the end of horses. It will be centuries before we get there. And by that point the difference between man and machine will be at best academic.

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

#559

Post by throwanem »

chungusamongus wrote: post #549
throwanem wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkable to me that you should be so concerned with my perspective, if you believe me insane as you now claim. (What will it be next? That I have too much time on my hands? That's often next from here.) Evidently you are concerned with my perspective, considering the effort you keep going to to continue to gain its benefit. I've explained why I think that is, and I'm not likely to change my mind at this point.…

Literally every single one of your responses is an attempt to deflect by psychologizing your opponent. It’s very transparent.

Then it should be easy for you to dispose of me, shouldn't it? If you can see right through me, I mean, the way you say you can. And yet. And yet.

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

#560

Post by throwanem »

chungusamongus wrote: post #543
hackable_sand wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think none of us have families?

If you have a family and you are doing what this guy is suggesting, that is extremely concerning to me. Seeking a low wage, menial job at a time when costs are rising due to the oil spike? Dumbest move you could make.

I said "menial." I did not say "low wage." And given the utter footlessness of your own situation as you yourself continue to show it, you are bold indeed in presuming to advise anyone else on their finances.

But you continue to astonish me with your assumptions! Is it a gambling debt? Get a little too happy on Robinhood or Polymarket, maybe? Were you really really counting on a crypto tax holiday? To keep from having to tell the wife, maybe?

On a side note, the mods here aren't great fans of either my opinions or my stubborn insistence on their accurate expression (1) but apparently that distaste extends not quite so far that they see fit to ban me. (Or not at the time of this writing, anyway.) No blame, of course; even if the place is looking sort of shabby and down at the mouth these days, at least when not seen through eyes of nostalgia for the high times of the 2010s, this is still their house.

Don't worry, though! Once the rate limiter is satisfied, I'll be right back here and we can talk about how you keep deceitfully attributing to me a statement you yourself made up. But I hope instead to find by then (assuming you are in the US as your usage leads me to do) that you have called the National Gambling Addiction Hotline, which is open 24/7 at (844) 779-2637, or failing that the SAMHSA helpline at 988. Help is available, but you do have to take the first step.

(1) I appreciate this is my own view of the matter, and that others will reasonably describe the thing in different terms. Nevertheless.

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