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AI and the Automation of Work

ben-evans.com

151–160 of 268 posts

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#151

I am pretty concerned about AGI. I love computer science and programming. I would love to get into research after I finish my Masters in a couple of years. I think it's fair to say that _some day_ we will achieve AGI. It might not be in 10 years, or 1000, but eventually we'll get there. When we do have AGI, what would that mean for someone like me? Would there be any reason to have programmers (or similar) at all? Wo…

If we have AGI we won’t have to work anymore so why worrying about the future? In the meantime enjoy and try to partecipate in this new paradigm.

(Unless the AGI will come up capitalism is the best of the possible systems and they will rule them out of the equation)

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#152
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also very... American to not think mention the absurdity of machine guns at airports Now you mention it, despite the two respective national stereotypes, the only airports where I can remember seeing machine guns on the security team were one of the London airports. If I saw machine guns in SFO or JFK, I was too tired from the flight to remember.

From what I can remember, it's an everyday occurrence in various european cities to see police armed with machine guns. The first time I saw it it was very surprising and I wondered what was going on. Definitely not a uniquely american thing.

Indeed, but the UK in particular is one of the few places where police aren't routinely armed, and yet my aforementioned experience in some of the London airports…

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#154

As any now typical text of this nature, it cites very little real data. Here is an article on how recent historians believe that English male height during the Industrial Revolution went down due to malnutrition: https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/13/did-livin... Historians now think the Industrial Revolution was a giant economic boom where the majority of individuals actually became poorer. Here is an I…

As I said, sometimes the job goes different people in different places, and there’s always frictional pain in the adjustment On the other hand, you are correct that I didn’t post data saying that unemployment hasn’t fallen, but then that is self-evident. We do not have 50% unemployment now because machines took half the jobs, and we are all of us vastly more prosperous than we were in 1800 or 1900 - again, I don’t th…

"there's always frictional pain" is a fairly big understatement.

I think the assumption underlying this is that somehow stable on the other end, but I don't necessarily see post-industrial service oriented societies as stable economic realities. Having lived in one(UK), I found it as close to a capitalist dystopia as one can get.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#155
post #6

I think the "sparks of AIG" presentations are compelling. It does feel like there are a just a few remaining big problems away from AGI level capabilities where it was more futuristic unclear projections in the past. If the issues as synthetic data conversations like alpha go but for LLMs; setting much longer token contexts (or dramatically cheaper training on custom data sets) And scaling via software and hardware a…

Yann LeCun says human intelligence is not "general intelligence".

We are not GI, and GI is too wasteful to be useful in a scarce environment.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#156

No one who claims to automate testing ever seems to have a sophisticated understanding of testing. I suspect the urge people have for automating anything comes not from the love and skill they possess for that activity, but rather for the imagined fruits of it. Software testing is easy to fake, which means it’s particularly easy to claim automation accomplished. Therefore, all these people thinking they are going to…

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Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#157
post #50

It's not ChatGPT what we should be putting in our forecasts, but its successors. And, from what I have been reading, our AI folk are coming with better performers all the time by chaining multiple neural networks, "making modular brains", so to speak. Any argument that starts by saying "ChatGPT is very bad at X, humans will always do X," is flawed IMO. So I think that any job that can be done by a non-human is up for…

When I read your post it makes me think the best course of action for most people is to go set fire to the data centers and reclaim their ability to make some cash. Was that intentional ?

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#158
post #102
post #50

It's not ChatGPT what we should be putting in our forecasts, but its successors. And, from what I have been reading, our AI folk are coming with better performers all the time by chaining multiple neural networks, "making modular brains", so to speak. Any argument that starts by saying "ChatGPT is very bad at X, humans will always do X," is flawed IMO. So I think that any job that can be done by a non-human is up for…

> A security guard at an airport can be a machine gun with wheels, it is more intimidating that way. Out of all the dumb things people could suggest AI for this is without a doubt the dumbest.

I agree it's a complete waste of opportunity to not make them look like B1 battle droids. I mean seriously, did they even think this over?

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#159
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A security guard at an airport can be a a machine gun on wheels" - are you serious? That is a job which is 99.99% about understanding human intentions in confusing and ambiguous situations, and where making a mistake will literally kill people. It's the last job you want to automate with "AI".

>> It's the last job you want to automate with "AI". Have you been at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in France? The security people there look like paratroopers[^1]. It's terrifying, and it's a reason I avoid that particular airport every time I fly. It sends the message "Paris is an unsafe place to be, we are very paranoid, blame the others, don't come here." The machine guns have no business among civilians, being w…

I actually feel quite safe knowing that someone with more rigorous military training than police training, and with more familiarity with their service weapon, is ready to act in case of a bomb, knife or vehicle attack.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#160
post #102
post #50

It's not ChatGPT what we should be putting in our forecasts, but its successors. And, from what I have been reading, our AI folk are coming with better performers all the time by chaining multiple neural networks, "making modular brains", so to speak. Any argument that starts by saying "ChatGPT is very bad at X, humans will always do X," is flawed IMO. So I think that any job that can be done by a non-human is up for…

> A security guard at an airport can be a machine gun with wheels, it is more intimidating that way. Out of all the dumb things people could suggest AI for this is without a doubt the dumbest.

I've heard worse... Not to downplay it, but yea this is one of the more "out of touch" concepts.
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