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Our First Generalist Policy

physicalintelligence.company

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Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#201

Post by closewith »

a_c_s wrote: post #197
closewith wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't understand the distinction you are making: two couples (4 people) meeting at a restaurant is, to me, equally social as one couple going to another couple's house to eat dinner.

Four people in a public space interacting with the rest of the community is fundamentally different to four people in an isolated silo.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#202

Post by ConspiracyFact »

haccount wrote: post #165
carapace wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the technology really advances to that point it will be very cheap to live. Yes. But the flipside of that is that it's hard to earn money. The cheaper it is to live, the harder it is to make money. The problem UBI solves is when most humans can no longer compete with machines in the economic system. Once that happens there are only a few options, and the least unpleasant is simply to give them (us) money tokens.

UBI assumes the entire financial sector doesn't exist. That companies grow like plants without agency. That everyone just accepts UBI as an equal portion and that the future is rosy and fair. The predatory institutions will still be there in the UBI future and price things accordingly, do a little hostile takeover here and there, bribe some politician and get a totally not monopoly started in as many sectors as they…

Advertising and data? Really? So people can’t pay for anything, but companies somehow see value in trying to sell things to them?

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#203

Post by marricks »

mmcdermott wrote: post #192
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…

> It’s time to find out what value our values really have. Which is exciting, as long as the net results are better for human beings. I really don't want to see us make human experience worse to ensure that AI is able to be more successful. That defeats the purpose of any technological invention.

Touchscreens in cars is a great example of making the human experience worse for the sake of tech.

Everyone prefers physical tactile buttons for a set interface, but that stands in the way of progress for cars! Guess where the industry is going...

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#204

Post by ConspiracyFact »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #183
golol wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Fairly confident that that was sarcasm.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#205

Post by ElevenLathe »

marricks wrote: post #203
mmcdermott wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s time to find out what value our values really have. Which is exciting, as long as the net results are better for human beings. I really don't want to see us make human experience worse to ensure that AI is able to be more successful. That defeats the purpose of any technological invention.

Touchscreens in cars is a great example of making the human experience worse for the sake of tech. Everyone prefers physical tactile buttons for a set interface, but that stands in the way of progress for cars! Guess where the industry is going...

I think that saying this phenomenon is change "for the sake of tech" or for "progress" elides the fact that it is good for some people. Specifically, it is good for auto executives and their shareholders (in their capacity as executives and shareholders, though presumably many of them are drivers as well). It's a cost measure that makes customers' lives worse (and more dangerous) for the entire life of the car in exchange for pennies in their pocket now. This isn't technology getting its way or anything, but people using their power to further their own interests with indifference to the interests of others. That's not new, just the details are.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#206

Post by golol »

ConspiracyFact wrote: post #204
forgetfreeman wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Fairly confident that that was sarcasm.

It was not. Maybe measured in relative terms the middle class is shrinking due to income inequality, but in absolute terms I am fairly confident it is at worst stagnating in America and western Europe. In many parts of the rest of the world there has been an amazing growth of a middle class that didn't exist before in the last decades. Eastern europe and asia of course.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#207

Post by BitPolice »

amelius wrote: post #164
tonygrue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm curious, do we see a decline in art freshmen in recent years?

I'm not sure first year students always have selected a major, but if we go by degree at graduation, I think this article (and the charts therein) is useful: https://www.chartr.co/newsletters/2023-10-08

(n.b. No archive.org evergreen link available, alas)

> " 20 years ago, roughly 8% of all US bachelor degrees were attained in the 4 core humanities subjects — a figure that’s fallen every year since 2007, with the share now sitting at just 4% per data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Conversely, STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) have been growing at an unparalleled pace, as students swap Charles Dickens for computational dynamics and Jane Austen forJavascript."

> "Indeed, computer science has risen from a 2.7% share of all degrees in 2009 to 5.4% by the end of 2022, while engineering has risen from 7.2% to 9.4% in the same time frame — more than double the share that the core humanities subjects currently occupy."

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#208

Post by kelseyfrog »

sokoloff wrote: post #198
kelseyfrog wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly easy to prevent. Accreditation is a legitimization mechanism eminently modulatable by law. When only state schools are accredited and truancy is enforced, there is no other option. The funding issue is also trivial, local property taxes should be transferred to the state rather than being used directly. The idea that somehow poor neighborhoods should have poor schools is asinine and re-enforces existing c…

It’s not a funding issue, or at least not just a funding issue. In many states, the lower performing districts have more per-pupil funding than higher performing schools. Parents and community are a massive influence, and parents will move as needed to attend better school districts, even if private schools are outlawed.

We can find a reason for any intervention to fail, but empiricism should be our guide, not our ability to conjure failure scenarios.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#209

Post by TylerE »

aftbit wrote: post #174
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.

I'm in this dystopia: WFH, delivery groceries, delivery meals when I'm feeling lazy. If I didn't have a dog, I'd probably only leave my house on the weekend. IMO it's not so bad. I don't miss grocery shopping. I do miss walking to work up Powell St. I do know my neighbors though, and talk to them on a pretty regular basis. I don't like sports especially, but I also do have some recreational hobbies that get me outsid…

That's more or less my life, except that I don't live somewhere walkable, and do still buy groceries in person (although I will, especially when my mobility/fatigue/general health issues acting up, use their curbside service), but that store is a 2 minute drive from my house. As I mentioned, I have medical issues that are currently rather sucky and limiting, and being chronic, largely irreversible conditions, well, they aren't gonna get better. Maybe with stem cells one day... Anyway, point being that these sort of services (which, in my case, can also be stuff like... buying the pre-cut fruit rather than whole) can be a pretty big deal for the disabled.

Re: Our First Generalist Policy

#210

Post by modeless »

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…

Washing and folding clothes won't become obsolete. But washing machines might. The robot can "hand" wash your clothes while you sleep. You can reclaim the space that your washing machine took up. Same with the dishwasher. No need to save labor means no need for labor saving devices!
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