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The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

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Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#271

Post by jacquesm »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #265
jacquesm wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we've had tech like this that can argued as dangerous on both sides of the aisle simultaneously. On the contrary, all tech is like this. It is just the first time that the knowledge workers producing the tech are directly affected so they see first hand the effects of their labor. That really is the only thing that is different.

I really hate this dismissal of "well it's affecting YOU now so now it's an issue". I'm not just "knowledge worker" and have grown up seeing the dangers of the internet, social media, invasion of privacy, and radicalization through seemingly benign channels. I've witnessed wars, unrest, and oppressions throughout all stages of my life. So let's not just handwave it as "nothing special" and actually demonstrate why th…

> I really hate this dismissal of "well it's affecting YOU now so now it's an issue". I'm not just "knowledge worker" and have grown up seeing the dangers of the internet, social media, invasion of privacy, and radicalization through seemingly benign channels. I've witnessed wars, unrest, and oppressions throughout all stages of my life.

Sorry, but my comment wasn't about you in particular. It was about the tech domain in general. I know absolutely nothing about you so I would not presume to make any statements about you in that sense.

> But society's given them ways to either retire or seek new work if needed. I'm not seeing that here.

No, not really. For the most part they became destitute and at some point they died.

What you are not seeing is that this is the end stage of technological progress, the point at which suddenly a large fraction of the people is superfluous to the people in charge. Historically such excess has been dealt with by wars.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#273

Post by zelphirkalt »

dagmx wrote: post #252
zelphirkalt wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You invest time into actually looking at applications properly and look at their previous work and ask them questions about that. The curious and learning mind will probably have some projects, because they are not only into the job for the money, but because they have a passion for the job. That's not a requirement, but it distinguishes the great ones from the mediocre ones.

That’s also something any number of people can fake easily. There’s a ton of smooth talkers who can hype up a project and talk in abstract about their previous projects but weren’t on the side of delivering it.

Show code and explain, or it didn't happen. Takes a capable interviewer, of course, to distinguish sweet talk from profound knowledge.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#274

Post by questionableans »

1718627440 wrote: post #249
questionableans wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration helps even out where populations are located. Immigrants built America. I really don’t think we have anything to worry about not having any people left. There’s still plenty of innate drive to reproduce, both biologically and intellectually (as in, educating far more people than the number of kids you could ever have).

Well, there is immigration and there is immigration. There are people that move between similar socialized countries, directly from one high-paying job to the next. Every country wants to have them. Then there are basically refugees, that are only named immigrants, because they happen to flee through another country. They might also have had a well paying job, but they often need to learn the language, they often nee…

It’s undeniably worth investing in immigrants, including refugees. Rhetoric otherwise is just veiled racism. These people already exist. It’s our duty to take care of them as global citizens, just like it’s our duty to care for the elderly and others.

I also think you’d be surprised how little time to pay off would actually be needed. Give people a calm space and community (including their friends and family), and we will all flourish.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#275

Post by johnnyanmac »

jacquesm wrote: post #271
johnnyanmac wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate this dismissal of "well it's affecting YOU now so now it's an issue". I'm not just "knowledge worker" and have grown up seeing the dangers of the internet, social media, invasion of privacy, and radicalization through seemingly benign channels. I've witnessed wars, unrest, and oppressions throughout all stages of my life. So let's not just handwave it as "nothing special" and actually demonstrate why th…

> I really hate this dismissal of "well it's affecting YOU now so now it's an issue". I'm not just "knowledge worker" and have grown up seeing the dangers of the internet, social media, invasion of privacy, and radicalization through seemingly benign channels. I've witnessed wars, unrest, and oppressions throughout all stages of my life. Sorry, but my comment wasn't about you in particular. It was about the tech doma…

>For the most part they became destitute and at some point they died

Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it. I will concede that if you are disrupted and in your 50's (not old enough to retire, and where it becomes difficult to be re-hired unless you're management) you get hit especially hard.

But it's hard to see the current landscape of jobs now and suggest that boomers/older GenX had nothing to fall back on when these things happen. These generations chided millennials and Gen Z for being "too proud to work a grill". Nowadays you're not even getting an interview at McDonald's after submitting hundreds of applications. That's not an environment that let's you "bounce back" after a setback.

>Historically such excess has been dealt with by wars.

Indeed. We seem to be approaching that point, and it's already broken out in several places. When all other channels are exhausted, humans simply seek to overthrow the ones orchestrating their oppression.

In this case that isn't AI. At least not yet. But it's a symptom of how they've done this.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#276

Post by jacquesm »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #275
jacquesm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really hate this dismissal of "well it's affecting YOU now so now it's an issue". I'm not just "knowledge worker" and have grown up seeing the dangers of the internet, social media, invasion of privacy, and radicalization through seemingly benign channels. I've witnessed wars, unrest, and oppressions throughout all stages of my life. Sorry, but my comment wasn't about you in particular. It was about the tech doma…

>For the most part they became destitute and at some point they died Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it. I will concede that if you are disrupted and in your 50's (not old enough to retire, and where it becomes difficult to be re-hired unless you're management) you get hit especially hard. But it's hard to see the current landscape of jobs now and suggest that boomers/older GenX had nothing to fall ba…

> Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it.

Well, in that sense everybody has opportunity. But I know quite a few people who definitely would not survive their line of employment shutting down. A lot of them have invested decades in their careers and have life complications, responsibilities and expenses that stop them from simply 'seizing opportunity'. For them it would be the end of the line, hopefully social security would catch them but if not then I have no idea how they would make it.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#277

Post by leptons »

fragmede wrote: post #242
leptons wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 46 years. The first program I wrote was on a piece of notebook paper, in anticipation of getting my first computer a few weeks later (Atari 400).

How has your experience with AI been?

Not great, honestly. It's rather like pulling a lever on a slot machine. And I'm not really into gambling.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#278

Post by johnnyanmac »

jacquesm wrote: post #276
johnnyanmac wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For the most part they became destitute and at some point they died Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it. I will concede that if you are disrupted and in your 50's (not old enough to retire, and where it becomes difficult to be re-hired unless you're management) you get hit especially hard. But it's hard to see the current landscape of jobs now and suggest that boomers/older GenX had nothing to fall ba…

> Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it. Well, in that sense everybody has opportunity. But I know quite a few people who definitely would not survive their line of employment shutting down. A lot of them have invested decades in their careers and have life complications, responsibilities and expenses that stop them from simply 'seizing opportunity'. For them it would be the end of the line, hopefully so…

Generally speaking, yes. I do understand not everyone has the opportunities for life circumstances beyond their control. So I don't want to belittle that.

But speaking in macroeconomics, most people have the capacity to readjust if needed. I had to do so these last few years (and yes, am thankful I am "able bodied" and have a family/friend network to help me out when at my lowest points). And the market really sucks, but I eventually found some things. Some related to my career, some not.

But I'm 30. In the worst worst cases, I have time and energy to pivot. The opportunities out there are dreadful all around, though.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#279

Post by ineedasername »

jncfhnb wrote: post #244
ineedasername wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I don’t buy that a lack of long form books are the culprit” I agree that they might not, in themselves, be a necessary requirement, however: the ability to engage with material, short or long, at a level of deep focus and intentionality is important. And one of the (extremely common, historically) stronger methods of doing this is with long form content, the less passive and more challenging the better. It touches o…

I don’t really agree about the premise here. We want people to surpass some basic level of competency in literacy and numeracy skills. The bars which people fall below here are not impressive. Are forced courses a good means to achieve that? In my opinion, no, these forced courses are functionally useless. You can’t teach things students don’t care to learn.

Any course is functionally useless if you don’t do the work, and my comment was not about people having to take forced courses. It was about people being naive, and willfully so, about the practical value of these courses and then making factually incorrect statements about them being useless for the area of study where they want to make a career. It is identical, only with different subject areas, to a computer science student saying that analytical algebra is useless and has no value. I think most readers in these spaces would see that and say “huh? maybe you’re never going to be working on a CAS system or some other application of it but do you really not comprehend the basic idea, you’re not understanding that there’s direct practical utility in your future career in training yourself to be capable of thinking in those ways?”

It is a failure of factual understanding in how cognitive function and critical thinking arises from the brain. If a person isn’t going to do the work then by all means don’t waste their time, but don’t indulge their factually incorrect stance that it has no utility simply because they also don’t have the basic knowledge to know what that utility is.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#280

Post by AndrewKemendo »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #254
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then its firmly an organizational problem with how reward is allocated in human society. Humans haven’t figured out how to include all humans and ecological systems into the same “tribe” and therefore the infighting between artificially segregated human groups, disconnected with ecological “externalities” which prevents a sustainable cooperative solution. So most likely it will continue to be a small number of humans…

Yes. And do we know what this leads to in history? Conflicts, violent uprising, coups, and wars. At some point, the population reaches a breaking point and outs the oppressors. This happening as recent as last month, so 2025 isn't any different from 1525. The tool itself doesn't matter, but the people are falling into the same cycle once again. I can see LLM's used ethically and carefully managed to assist the popula…

You’ve correctly identified the problem and the fact that this cycle is going to continue.

How do you think you can break the cycle?

Do you have a suggestion for what you are going to do about it?

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