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Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#101

Post by Veedrac »

BirAdam wrote: post #23

If all jobs were taken by AI in a short time span, the companies owning and operating those AIs would go out of business as no one would be able to afford the products made by the AIs. This is an unlikely scenario. Not all things will be made/run by AIs in a short time. It is far more likely that specific jobs in specific industries will be taken by AI, and AI will slowly take the labor market. This will drive down p…

> the companies owning and operating those AIs would go out of business as no one would be able to afford the products made by the AIs

What do you think money is...?

Money is a way to indirectly trade labour and goods. If a job is automated, that labour doesn't disappear into the aether, it's still in the tradable pot of total goods and services. You cannot empty a pot by filling it. A world where a company though automation has made there nobody else to productively sell to is a world where _by definition_ they own all the output that they could otherwise have traded for.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#102

Post by mannanj »

BirAdam wrote: post #23

If all jobs were taken by AI in a short time span, the companies owning and operating those AIs would go out of business as no one would be able to afford the products made by the AIs. This is an unlikely scenario. Not all things will be made/run by AIs in a short time. It is far more likely that specific jobs in specific industries will be taken by AI, and AI will slowly take the labor market. This will drive down p…

> If all jobs were taken by AI in a short time span, the companies owning and operating those AIs would go out of business as no one would be able to afford the products made by the AIs

I think The companies would go out of business if the government did not subsidize them as a matter of public or national security interest. Do you think that would not be the case? It doesn't take much for a company with money to lobby for this and for the power of marketing and mainstream media to make the public perceive this as the right decision - in fact a study of our history would reveal this as the more likely scenario so as a company racing to render the labor market obsolete its in their interest to disrupt it to capture any amount of it.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#103

Post by tsoukase »

If an LLM hallucinates in 1% of occasions and gives subpar output in 5%, this kills his effectiveness to replace anyone. Imagine a support guy on the other side of the phone to speak gibberish 10 times a day. Now, imagine a doctor. These will never lose their jobs.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#105

Post by Bratmon »

tsoukase wrote: post #103

If an LLM hallucinates in 1% of occasions and gives subpar output in 5%, this kills his effectiveness to replace anyone. Imagine a support guy on the other side of the phone to speak gibberish 10 times a day. Now, imagine a doctor. These will never lose their jobs.

> Imagine a support guy on the other side of the phone to speak gibberish 10 times a day.

A massive improvement?

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#106

Post by HNisCIS »

Lets assume auto-complete does continue to progress at a rate that threatens most knowledge worker jobs and then we manage to automate the rest by using it.

There is a particular mental disorder where people will horde wealth at absolutely all costs, personal or societal, until everyone else is dead (see NZ bunkers). We commonly see this as "the billionaire class".

IF things go in that direction we need to be ready to depose all of these billionaires. I mean that quite seriously.

IF this future comes, there is a very quickly closing window where preventing them from killing all of us for their own gain is possible. After a point, surveillance and their control over state violence will be so complete that it's impossible to do anything about it.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#107

Post by simianwords »

tsoukase wrote: post #103

If an LLM hallucinates in 1% of occasions and gives subpar output in 5%, this kills his effectiveness to replace anyone. Imagine a support guy on the other side of the phone to speak gibberish 10 times a day. Now, imagine a doctor. These will never lose their jobs.

but llm's dont speak gibberish 10 times a day even now. from my usage, chatgpt has not said one obviously strange thing since o3 came out.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#108

Post by simianwords »

ar_lan wrote: post #36
Mordisquitos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would AGI choose to run the planet?

This is honestly a fantastic question. AGI has no emotions, no drive, anything. Maybe, just maybe, it would want to: * Conserve power as much as possible, to "stay alive". * Optimize for power retention Why would it be further interested in generating capital or governing others, though?

> AGI has no emotions, no drive, anything

why do you say that? ever asked chatgpt about anything?

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#109

Post by mwigdahl »

reducesuffering wrote: post #40
Mordisquitos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would AGI choose to run the planet?

Instrumental convergence https://www.lesswrong.com/w/instrumental-convergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence

Despite the false advertising in the Tears for Fears song, everybody does _not_ want to rule the world. Omohundro drives are a great philosophical thought experiment and it is certainly plausible to consider that they might apply to AI, but claiming as is common on LessWrong that unlimited power seeking is an inevitable consequence of a sufficiently intelligent system seems to be missing a few proof steps, and is opposed by the example of 99% of human beings.

Re: Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)

#110

Post by ef2efe »

myrmidon wrote: post #74
ASalazarMX wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If machines did all the repetitive, labor intensive, productive work, including building more machines, the natural consequence would be a very disruptive rethinking of economics. Post-scarcity is only a disaster if money exists. People would still work, but as a hobby, not as a way of survival. Think of it as if in a few generations, everyone had the motivations of a rich junior, for better or worse. IMO, this is a…

"Disruptive rethinking of economics" is a very optimistic way to put this IMO. The big problem I see is that there is little incentive for "owners" (of datacenters/factories/etc) to share anything with such hobbyist laborers, because hobbyist labor has little to no value to them. All the past waves of automation provided a lot of entirely new job opportunities AND increased overall demand (by factory workers siphonin…

Who cares who owns the data center? The govt can send in the army and nationalise it... Lol as if you really believe that a bunch of people will actually control everything and the govt wont?

Think harder.

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