AI is repulsive. You either feel it, maybe not immediately, or don't. When you feel it, you'll rationalize it one way or another. The rationalization does not matter that much. It's essentially arbitrary and is a product of whatever experience you've accumulated so far. (E.g. could be a Communist rationalization of alienation under capitalism.) Yet the underlying feeling is true. Stick to it.
Leave Me Behind
121–130 of 344 posts
Re: Leave Me Behind
#122Most humans derive their purpose and meaning from their work. Has always been that way. What do you think happens when you remove meaning from people’s lives at scale? It won’t be pretty.
> What do you think happens when you remove meaning from people’s lives at scale?
You get some AI-slop like this:
> Your AI email deliverability specialist that tests and fixes your emails — backed by a Top-Rated expert.
Re: Leave Me Behind
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber Just mathematically speaking, collectively we're at peak population levels, so the total collective intelligence (sum of all individual human intelligences) is likely at peak as well, even accounting for individual dumbing down? A…
In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset?
> In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset?
Excellent question. Global GDP estimates going back to 1 CE are here [1][2]. I would argue that GDP is a good proxy for an estimate of the summation of per-capita intelligence being used for "productive" ends, by definition.
But, the global average GDP per capita is [3] with a similar hockey-stick curve, and it is unclear whether the per-capita intelligence used for "productive" ends has also been increasing similarly, because the confounding factor is the effect of tools as force-multipliers (impact on productivity). The Flynn Effect is the strongest indicator that yes, average intelligence has been rising as measured in certain populations where cultural differences do not wreck the applicability of IQ tests.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20260525015042/https://ourworldi...
[3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-ca...
Re: Leave Me Behind
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the previous tools, which freed us from physical work, take human physique to another pinnacle?
I think probably actually. The fittest people back then probably weren't as fit as people today with specialized diets and medical science, and surely those findings were a result of better equipment, which were a result of better tooling to manufacture that equipment. Introducing a machine to a manufacturing role obviously makes the manufacturer less fit, but it enables society to break through fitness barriers in g…
Considering developed societies with access to those specialized diets and medical science, the median person is definitely not stronger than the median person from a pre-industrial society, even taking malnutrition and injury into account. It seems you've never tried to arm-wrestle a farmer before.
Re: Leave Me Behind
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the previous tools, which freed us from physical work, take human physique to another pinnacle?
I think probably actually. The fittest people back then probably weren't as fit as people today with specialized diets and medical science, and surely those findings were a result of better equipment, which were a result of better tooling to manufacture that equipment. Introducing a machine to a manufacturing role obviously makes the manufacturer less fit, but it enables society to break through fitness barriers in g…
But what about average person, not a professional athlete? In past people suffered from malnourishment, but today they suffer from obesity.
We also know that testosterone levels (which are connected with muscle mass, recovery etc.) are lower today than even few decades back.
Re: Leave Me Behind
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hasn't all automation up to this point been same input equals same output though? Automation using LLMs feels different to anything before and I don't think there's a comparative time in history to point at and say "look it happened before and we are now better off"
I think we all been fooled by the sentence: "It's yet another automation, it's like horses were replaced by cars". It is not. Industrialization and automation is about manual labor. LLM/AI is about outsourcing thinking. And while I'll give two thumbs up for using ML(there is not 'I' in 'AI') as a technology for some tasks, outsourcing thinking is an evolutionary dead-end.
Moreover, historical events and processes are unique, even if there are some similarities. Nothing that happened in the past can give us certainty on what will happen now.
Re: Leave Me Behind
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you're actually excited by the prospect of buying them from Anthropic instead of making them?
Open weight models exist and are good enough to make the projects above.
And you're actually excited about these table scraps that companies couldn't even monetize, rather than making something?
Re: Leave Me Behind
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
then it isn't a slop fork machine anymore is it? i was under the impression that the best the SFM would get is generating... how do I say this? high quality low quality work. Basically, the ability to cheaply produce quality work, characterized by its lack of soul/originality. think amazing looking advertisement graphics. not to say that it can't do better than that. just meant it as an extreme example for illustrati…
It doesnt have to able to generate original things, its enough to be able to detect what makes it original and replicate the original thing with enough variations in different contexts to be able to be destructive and render the true original thing completely useless
what you described is not how originality works.
think about how in music, when an artist comes out with something original and awesome, and then everyone starts copying it and creating their own derivative works, like Jimi Hendrix or something.
Did Hendrix become useless? Did everyone end up thinking he sucks or something? No, he is even more revered, as the originator of a new type of sound that probably created multiple genres
The same thing applies here. Originality will be valued and even empowered as extrapolation and development off of it can increase in speed and quality in the case you mention
Re: Leave Me Behind
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's your time and life worth? You pay Apple to deal with it (which I do) and get to live a peaceful life and go out and take photos and have experiences. Or do you spend weeks implementing your own solution with Claude. The latter is considerably higher cost in time and money. AI is seen as a way out of drudgery but you're just trading one problem for another.
The implementation is part of the fun.
So why would you buy it off of Anthropic?
Re: Leave Me Behind
#130Mario Savio said a few lines when the industrial revolution peaked: There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious Makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels Upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to t…
> take human intelligence to another pinnacle I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber, and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders will accelerate that trend.
Whenever this topic comes up I am reminded of the black and white picture of all the scientist of 19th century together. Each individual in that photo had contributed something to human knowledge. It feels like in 19th century we believed in our scientists and advancing our knowledge. I feel today celebrities are given more importance than our scientists. The best minds of our century are focused on extracting value from rest of the population.