Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our First Generalist Policy

physicalintelligence.company

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 249 posts

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#181

Post by insane_dreamer »

maxerickson wrote: post #160
erulabs wrote: post #99

It almost feels easier to disassemble and resew the shirt from recycled fabric. I’m mostly joking, but my point is that physical AI probably implies a complete rethink of every individual routine from first principles: why fold the shirt at all? Why not just-in-time-ironing? We’re focusing on the hard problems because we’re imitating how a human with limited resources would approach the issue. If you asked a robot to…

If robots are doing everything, people will have bigger kitchens...

So long as the robots didn't eliminate their job (and make it very difficult to get another job), in which case they'll have a smaller kitchen (or no kitchen).

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#182

Post by usrusr »

bayindirh wrote: post #178
usrusr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dystopia all right, but one that is already very real. WFH is a reality for many, groceries to the door hasn't become mainstream yet but the supermarket might well be on the trajectory taken by book stores two decades earlier and people who don't attend outdoor or team sports can have surprisingly few occasions to leave home unless they go out of their way to find an excuse.

Just because I can order everything I need for home with a couple of taps (which I can, BTW), work from home time to time, and can cook and clean by myself doesn't mean that I don't need to leave home. Taking a long tour along the neighborhood, to see what I want to buy first hand before pulling the trigger, or seeing an old friend and getting a nice coffee at that café are all valid reasons to go out. Getting fresh…

That's why I called it a dystopia. After a year of working fully remote I now have the option of walking to an office and I haven't skipped on that a single day. The WFH had its benefits, but all in all it felt like COVID lockdown going into overtime. As in enjoying those few seconds of interaction at the supermarket checkout.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#183

Post by forgetfreeman »

golol wrote: post #139
forgetfreeman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quality of life for who, though? That's kind of the point of all this back and forth isn't it? Because if prior examples are anything to go on the likeliest outcome is we're talking about further increasing QoL for a small minority of individuals who least need it at the expense of basically everyone else.

The ever expanding middle class of course.

According to the Pew Trust (and my own personal observations) the middle class has been shrinking more or less steadily for the last 50 years. Through what mechanism is eliminating existing jobs expected to reverse this trend?

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#184

Post by insane_dreamer »

tonygrue wrote: post #17
virgildotcodes wrote: post #15

I wonder at the long term vision for humanity. We have AI replacing a lot of art, writing, coding, etc. We have a bunch of robotics companies racing to replace physical human labor. Waymo and Tesla replacing drivers. What role do the majority of people realistically play in this world?

My thoughts are a few: There is a lot of undone labor in the world. In developing countries the middle class has drivers, cooks, housekeepers. That’s only possible due to inequality. With automation we can all get that. These people with tons of help by and large live fulfilled lives. You find fulfillment in family, friendships, and non necessary creation (art, research, etc); whatever makes you happy. But most of al…

> But most of all, the Industrial Revolution made people think we’d all be idle and nothing can be further from those predictions.

The Industrial Revolution is often used as a benchmark of sorts for how society will adapt to a new technology that eliminates many of the jobs that were previously needed. But what is very different with AGI, or something close to it (i.e., a robot that can learn to do almost any physical job, an AI software that can learn to do almost any digital job), is that there is no new set of jobs that humans can turn to since, by definition, a physical or digital AGI should be able to learn those too. So even if humans discover a whole new set of professions -- as we did with factories and then with computers -- companies will quickly train robots/AIs to do those better and faster.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#185

Post by forgetfreeman »

ben_w wrote: post #135
forgetfreeman wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have deadpanned that a little too hard. Was intended as sarcasm.

Ah, fair enough. Difficult to tell, as I've seen that position held seriously here.

I mean, bricking the human population would certainly reduce our species carbon footprint, so the position itself should be fairly uncontroversial. Expressing excitement at the prospect seems pretty broken however.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#186

Post by insane_dreamer »

_yb2s wrote: post #88
ryandrake wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If robotics and AI are doing all the work, what are the former workers going to do for money? Nothing. They won’t have money. It’s not like the rich will have 1e6 x the poor. The poor will have nothing at all. The future is a tiny elite leisure class with all the wealth and property and access to robotics and automation that does all the work for them and a huge underclass with nothing, nothing to do, and no access t…

If only the ultra rich can afford and use these technologies, and they no longer employ or involve the poor- isn’t that the same as the rich simply not existing for most practical purposes? What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now? Essentially if AI and robotics are so expensive t…

> What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now?

Access to resources. Who will own the land that the poor will labor on to grow food, or raw materials from which to create goods that they will trade?

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#187

Post by closewith »

netruk44 wrote: post #148
closewith wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people go to restaurants because of the social benefits, not the labour savings. The idea of people or groups of people siloing themselves into their ultra-convenient homes and never interact with others is a dystopia and a sure sign of an already broken community.

Well, that feels like a rather extreme jump to conclusions, and was certainly not something I thought the GP comment was even suggesting. I don't see any reason why people couldn't adjust from meeting friends at restaurants to hosting friends at home instead. (Unless, of course, your living space is limited) If you aren't cooking and cleaning up after, what's the difference between that and meeting someone at a resta…

> If you aren't cooking and cleaning up after, what's the difference between that and meeting someone at a restaurant?

I wonder if you realise how dystopian your life already is to consider this question reasonable.

There is a difference between a co-located set of siloed people and a community. The inability to recognise this means your community is already broken.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#188

Post by insane_dreamer »

visarga wrote: post #109
ryandrake wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If robotics and AI are doing all the work, what are the former workers going to do for money? Nothing. They won’t have money. It’s not like the rich will have 1e6 x the poor. The poor will have nothing at all. The future is a tiny elite leisure class with all the wealth and property and access to robotics and automation that does all the work for them and a huge underclass with nothing, nothing to do, and no access t…

> a huge underclass with nothing, nothing to do, and no access to that automation Why do you think the poor won't have AGI in their pockets and robots as well? If we look at how LLMs are evolving, they become easier to run on edge, and there are so many of them being pushed out every day. Costs for robotic hardware are also going down fast. Intelligence is free to have, unlike UBI. And robots can build robots, or mak…

If you don't have a job that allows you to pay the rent and food, then access to AGI tools -- even free -- won't help you very much.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#189

Post by forgetfreeman »

Philpax wrote: post #140
forgetfreeman wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensibly there won't be any carpenters to hire because they've all been bankrupted by automated contractor services. This seems like a pretty big change to me.

But how does that change the calculation in the grandposter's reply? You can still do it yourself if you want, or you can hire the automated contractor if you don't have the time or effort.

Clearly it doesn't, but why should I care about, much less prioritize discussing, an individual's DIY proclivities when a potentially much more potent issue is available?

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#190

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

_yb2s wrote: post #88
ryandrake wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If robotics and AI are doing all the work, what are the former workers going to do for money? Nothing. They won’t have money. It’s not like the rich will have 1e6 x the poor. The poor will have nothing at all. The future is a tiny elite leisure class with all the wealth and property and access to robotics and automation that does all the work for them and a huge underclass with nothing, nothing to do, and no access t…

If only the ultra rich can afford and use these technologies, and they no longer employ or involve the poor- isn’t that the same as the rich simply not existing for most practical purposes? What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now? Essentially if AI and robotics are so expensive t…

> What stops "the poor" from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own

The rich.

Post reply on HN