Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
scottaaronson.blog
Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#2Reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#3Someone close to me is about to embark on a maths PhD. I'm curious about what advice people here would have for people in that position.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#4It remains to be seen if LLMs would do any good in the "theory-building" heavy fields of math. They have certainly proven themselves in branches of math where the progress is verifiable, but fields like AG commonly have papers that do not concretely solve a problem but provide a new perspective/framework. This is iterated upon if other mathematicians find the construction rich and interesting enough, which eventually leads to breakthroughs.
LLMs have yet to show that they can meaningfully make such helpful abstractions. Not saying that it can't be done, but I wouldn't write such doomer posts just as yet.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#5Soon we will all just be human cattle owner by billionaires who own all the technology used to keep us poor and indoors.
Oh, no - that's actually now.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#6bwaaaaaa! ha ha ha bwaaaaa!
wheeeeeeuew!
is the title what happens from too much ketamine?
or is the hype machine being tasked with streeeetching things out for one more quarter? bills, elections, push back,lack of relevance, that sort of stuff.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#7Someone close to me is about to embark on a maths PhD. I'm curious about what advice people here would have for people in that position.
Learn a trade that involves using your hands.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#8Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#9Someone close to me is about to embark on a maths PhD. I'm curious about what advice people here would have for people in that position.
The academic market in the US is very bad and in the EU only marginally better. China seems to prefer domestic talent now.
Outside of academia there are only a few niche industries still hiring. Mag7 is drying up. The semi-private research institutes want seniors with grants or customers in pocket, not fresh phds with no connections.
Probably only getting worse in the near term.
There are a few specific applications that are still good. Medical imaging seems okay for now. Advanced signal processing is still a viable route. Consumer robotics, possibly.
Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance
#10> I feel like at this point, both the prophets of AI utopia like Ray Kurzweil, and of AI doom like Eliezer Yudkowsky, could be forgiven for asking: dude, will you listen to us YET?
What did Kurzweil or Yudkowsky predict that actually came to pass?
I assign this Scott no points for bringing up Penrose as a straw man. That’s a very old canard.