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The turbulent AI era is here

gatesnotes.com

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Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#211

Post by selfhoster1312 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #172
beloch wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it cynical, or simply realistic, to recognize that AI CEO's won't ask for this kind of policy, and governments won't force anything upon the AI sector until things get very bad ? That, in my view, is a much bigger problem. We know what's coming but we won't do anything about it until after a lot of suffering occurs. Why can't we be more proactive?

This is Gates' point, isn't it? We need to be more proactive, and he has suggestions for what to do now, before the bad times.

The solutions Gates proposes aren't even close to being adequate, they are detrimental to actual solutions.

Gates claims AI regulation will make sure AI solves the climate crisis for all. AI is in fact a major contributor to the climate crisis, and AI industries are now the biggest fossil fuel lobbyists across the world. (not suggesting that CO2 is the biggest environmental problem we face)

So the man who profited off the Microsoft monster now is proposing anti-solutions to a real problem he helped develop, and we're supposed to actually give him credit? Listen to the real specialists with credible analysis: people like James Mickens on the AI side, and people like Aurore Stéphant on the tech sustainability side.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#212

Post by globalnode »

vrganj wrote: post #210
ipdashc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we've all heard this a million times. I'm afraid you've still given zero actual solution or even anything approaching one. "A radical break" okay, a radical break from what? How? To do what differently?

Let's first finish the critique, then we can use its conclusions to talk about what it would actually take to get us out of this mess. Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions. For the longest time, the only power labor has had to get those things was the power of collective ba…

Good points, i like them, but i fear you were sucked in by low effort trolling. Your original point was clear, that fiddling with a broken system is a distraction from a better more workable system. If you try to begin to articulate a more workable system you'll then have to contend with a barrage of mindless ad hom and rhetorical rubbish... (ug ug socialism bad) so sometimes critiquing the current system is just easier.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#213

Post by ipdashc »

vrganj wrote: post #210
ipdashc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we've all heard this a million times. I'm afraid you've still given zero actual solution or even anything approaching one. "A radical break" okay, a radical break from what? How? To do what differently?

Let's first finish the critique, then we can use its conclusions to talk about what it would actually take to get us out of this mess. Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions. For the longest time, the only power labor has had to get those things was the power of collective ba…

Thank you, now this is a solid answer. I don't think I agree with everything in it entirely, but it's well written and certainly gives me a lot to think about.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#214

Post by DiscourseFan »

gigel82 wrote: post #182
gyomu wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> social change caught up and imposed a more equitable distribution of the dividends. That’s a very nice way to say “the workers put the fear of God in the heart of capital owners, and lots of people died” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canut_revolts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturian_Revolution_of_1934 etc.

Nothing says "social change" like building a Flock of predictive-surveillance cameras capable of spotting the revolt before the flock even knows it’s a flock.

The arrondissements of Paris did not prevent the formation of the commune.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#215

Post by ipdashc »

globalnode wrote: post #212
vrganj wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's first finish the critique, then we can use its conclusions to talk about what it would actually take to get us out of this mess. Capitalism has always been a tension between capitalists, who want maximum return on capital and workers, who want pesky things like a living wage, sick leave or safe work conditions. For the longest time, the only power labor has had to get those things was the power of collective ba…

Good points, i like them, but i fear you were sucked in by low effort trolling. Your original point was clear, that fiddling with a broken system is a distraction from a better more workable system. If you try to begin to articulate a more workable system you'll then have to contend with a barrage of mindless ad hom and rhetorical rubbish... (ug ug socialism bad) so sometimes critiquing the current system is just eas…

"Critiquing the current system" on its own is nearly useless. Literally everyone can do it. Yes, articulating a more workable system is hard, that's why it's actually meaningful.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#216

Post by DiscourseFan »

metek wrote: post #194
gigel82 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing says "social change" like building a Flock of predictive-surveillance cameras capable of spotting the revolt before the flock even knows it’s a flock.

The fascist leader needs to catch every single revolutionary group every single time. But a single revolutionary with a pistol only needs to catch the leader ONCE.

This is not a superhero movie. Fascism is a symptom, killing one individual will not do away with it. Also its relatively easy to divide revolutionary groups because they are very paranoid, whereas fascist leaders are often highly insulated by the state apparatus. But fascism is also not a very good form of governance and tends to collapse on its own after only a few decades at most. Its really more like, every so often, a bunch of people are needlessly executed to preserve the capitalist system, and then after that things kinda go back to "normal" for a while. Revolutionary movements operate somewhat irrespective of fascist regimes, although yes its more difficult to do so under an oppressive state.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#217

Post by latexr »

hn_submit wrote: post #188

If A.I. starts to replace jobs en masse I propose we tax the companies profiting from this at a rate of 95% so we can finance welfare and Universal Basic Income schemes. We need to be aware that said companies and the people behind them will do anything in their power, including bribing politicians, to prevent this and to keep the money they believe are they're entitled to. I even believe the Big Tech bigwigs have lo…

> I even believe the Big Tech bigwigs have long foreseen this and are quietly prodding our society towards an authoritarian regime where people have no say so they can keep their moonies.

“Quietly”? They’re not even subtle about it! Hard to get those types of news here, though, as submissions in that direction tend to be heavily flagged, no matter how tame the comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411762

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#218

Post by DiscourseFan »

sghiassy wrote: post #127
numeri wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> new space is created That seems to be the crux here. You think it will be, I (and a lot of other people) aren't sure it will. If new space for jobs are created, I am certain we'll be fine long term. What do you think will happen if it isn't (I know you have strong evidence for and reasons to believe it will be, but just indulge the hypothetical)?

Yes that’s the crux of the risk - will new space be created On one hand. We’ve never had a technological revolution that didn’t yield more jobs On the other hand, Terminator

There is a theoretical limit, but we can't know when it will occur.

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#219

Post by jaynetics »

hypfer wrote: post #209
jaynetics wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are also non-deterministic, for all practical purposes, and the more of them you need to build some piece of software, the harder it can get to keep the likelihood of issues low. I'm not saying it will happen, but at least it's not inconceivable that LLMs could surpass them in this calculation more and more often.

The quality of discussion here is not up to the standards I would want it to be. What are you even saying there. "Humans are also not perfect, so anything is possible" but painted with a coat of fake intellectualism. What a waste of time.

So, do you have a counter-argument? Anything that humans can do that goes beyond "pushing probabilities higher"?

Re: The turbulent AI era is here

#220

Post by DiscourseFan »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #166
AuthAuth wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those emissions are nothing. Its a drop in the bucket compared with other industrial uses. A 50% reduction would change nothing, reduction to 0 would change nothing.

This is an absurd argument. Any one source is a drop in the bucket.

I think international shipping produces significantly more CO2 than any single other source
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