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The Education of a Doomer

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Re: The Education of a Doomer

#31

Post by OgsyedIE »

anon84873628 wrote: post #24
slopinthebag wrote: post #15

Actual AGI might be really bad but thankfully we are not even close to building it and I doubt I’ll see it in my lifetime (imo ofc)

And even then, reaching "I, Robot" levels is unrealistic. Machines are fragile . It would take a very long time to bootstrap the entire automated robot construction and maintenance supply chain, which would also require energy production and resource collection too. Until then it is vulnerable to disruption. So of course you will need the robot army to forcibly take and defend resources around the world. How will tha…

Any non-maritime part of the supply chain can be extremely well-defended from disruption as long as you marry agentic defense planning based on existing crime prediction machine learning SaaS platforms to loyal human puppets with boots and guns (police, ICE, military).

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#32

Post by anon84873628 »

saulpw wrote: post #16
rahulyc wrote: post #4

I'm not sure what happens (I think no one does), but with every other technology, I can opt-out if I don't want to use it. Even if I get unemployed, I don't see how I can opt-out when it comes to everyone everywhere using it. Governments historically have considered humans as assets - it's even called "human capital", and they require us for tax revenue and to run the state. What happens when we aren't needed? Even i…

National governments which can print their own currency don't require people for tax revenue. They use taxes to compel people to acquire their currency to give it value. If they can instead compel AIs to acquire their currency, they won't need humans for that either.

We're assuming the oligarchs control the government so they can be rich and powerful and use that to lead lavish lives. Well with these hypothetical AGI imbued robots, they could just construct lavish lives directly.

Not much different from the feudal era. You still need access to good lands (energy production, minerals) but an army of computers and robots instead of serfs and knights. Like Asimov's world of Solaria.

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#33

Post by saulpw »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #21
saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National governments which can print their own currency don't require people for tax revenue. They use taxes to compel people to acquire their currency to give it value. If they can instead compel AIs to acquire their currency, they won't need humans for that either.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but the purpose of taxes isn't to "compel people to acquire their currency", it's to remove that currency from circulation and prevent the currency they've printed from inflating itself out of existence.

Reducing inflation is indeed one of the reasons, but what I was getting at is that the government doesn't "need" people for tax revenue to pay for its services, contrary to popular belief. It needs taxes to make its money valuable.

L. Randall Wray, "What Are Taxes For? The MMT Approach" (2014):

> Sovereign government does not really need revenue in its own currency in order to spend. It is the tax that 'drives' the currency. If we eliminated the tax, people probably would not immediately abandon use of the currency, but the main driver for its use would be gone.

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#34

Post by fellowniusmonk »

paulpauper wrote: post #5

I’ve never had this worry. When I was funemployed last year, I spent my time reading books and writing code and hanging out with friends. If the future is an infinite UBI-funded vacation, I know what I’ll do. “Before the Singularity, read books and throw house parties; after the singularity, etc.” yeah it's obvious the author has a really high IQ who can keep himself busy with intellectual pursuits and a nice social…

The nature of novel innovation makes it basically unpredictable, I'm less worried about providing a safety net for video game playing pleasure maxxers and far more concerned about that orphan crushing machine we have currently (as an orphan.)

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#35

Post by diputsmonro »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #23
saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National governments which can print their own currency don't require people for tax revenue. They use taxes to compel people to acquire their currency to give it value. If they can instead compel AIs to acquire their currency, they won't need humans for that either.

The government is made up of human beings too. I doubt most of them are psycho to such a degree as to let 99% of humanity die for no real reason.

All you need is 1% of humanity to be psycho enough to let the other 99% die out.

And I do not have much faith in the charity of the most powerful 1%. Charitable people often do not make it into that group.

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#36

Post by aranelsurion »

> what if GPT-3 hadn’t worked? What would we have to look forward to, in this alternate 2026?

One would hope maybe boring things like healthcare, better living conditions, better functioning societies, and so on.

Not as exciting as flying cars and thinking machines for sure.

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#37

Post by aranelsurion »

throwawayk7h wrote: post #8

> if humans are economically useless, the state does not need them. Why pay out UBI to people who have neither economic nor political power? Forgive me if I'm naïve. But wouldn't people just vote for UBI in this case?

Who says you get a vote against AI-powered drones though.

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#38

Post by underlipton »

>Before LLMs, what was there to be excited about in the near future? Solar power? Self-driving cars? The energy transition? It’s laughable.

I, for one, would have welcomed our green energy revolution overlords.

Also, VR/AR, before the Great Powers deep-sixed any real efforts. Growing up on .hack, GitS, and SAO, it really is a bummer. How come I must know, where the techbros lead me to go?

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#39

Post by Prophet6-0091 »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #25
rustcleaner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting has to have the implication of violent force from the polity to dissuade abrogation of the vote. If people need not apply for a functioning economy, and Palantir/Flock like systems reduce the violence potential of the people, then what incentives remain for the state to be subjected to the people's votes?

The state is made up of human beings too. I don't see why they would want most of humanity to starve. Even a power-hungry psycho wants to have people to rule over, and I don't think the average politician's neurotic traits are so extreme as to want to eliminate 99% of humanity and inherit the Earth.

[dead]

Re: The Education of a Doomer

#40

Post by ChriSumlin »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #23
saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National governments which can print their own currency don't require people for tax revenue. They use taxes to compel people to acquire their currency to give it value. If they can instead compel AIs to acquire their currency, they won't need humans for that either.

The government is made up of human beings too. I doubt most of them are psycho to such a degree as to let 99% of humanity die for no real reason.

I agree and I think uncertainty causes people to miss this. A dystopian world is good for no-one. The shitty things people do to each other are scarcity motivated and call me delusionally optimistic but I think a world of total and complete abundance doesn't incentivize people at the top (who are there because people at the bottom allow it) to mercy kill everyone else with AI drones.
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