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Proof of Corn

proofofcorn.com

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Re: Proof of Corn

#271
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These experiments always seems to end up requiring the hand-holding of a human at top, seemingly breaking down the idea behind the experiment in the first place. Seems better to spend the time and energy on finding better ways for AI to work hand-in-hand with the user, empowering them, rather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible. That whole part fe…

>ather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible The particular problem here is it is very likely that the easiest people to replace with AI are the ones making the most money and doing the least work. Needless to say those people are going to fight a lot harder to remain employed than the average lower level person has political capital to accomplish.…

I didn't think we'd ever see the day where we started enshitifying labor

Re: Proof of Corn

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody can know, but I think it is fairly clearly possible without signs of sentience that we would consider obvious and indisputable. The definition of 'intelligence' is bearing a lot of weight here, though, and some people seem to favour a definition that makes 'non-sentient intelligence' a contradiction.

As far as I know, and I'm no expert in the field, there is no known example of intelligence without sentience. Actual AI is basically algorithm and statistics simulating intelligence.

Can you spell out your definition of 'intelligence'? (I'm not looking to be ultra pedantic and pick holes in it -- just to understand where you're coming from in a bit more detail.) The way I think of it, there's not really a hard line between true intelligence and a sufficiently good simulation of intelligence.

Re: Proof of Corn

#274
post #227
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible The particular problem here is it is very likely that the easiest people to replace with AI are the ones making the most money and doing the least work. Needless to say those people are going to fight a lot harder to remain employed than the average lower level person has political capital to accomplish.…

Ai hype is predicated on the popular idea that it can easily automate someone else's job, because that job they know nothing about is easy, but my job is safe from ai because it is so nuanced.

I don't think this describes all or most AI hype, but it definitely describes Marc Andreessen when he said VCs would be the last ones automated.

Re: Proof of Corn

#276
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can definitely believe that in 2026 someone at their computer with access to money can send the right emails and make the right bank transfers to get real people to grow corn for you. I think this is the new turing test. Once it's been passed we will have AGI and all the Sam Altmans of the world will be proven correct. (This isn't a perfect test obviously, but neither was the turing test) If it fails to pass we w…

I think we are closer than most folks would like to admit. in my wild guess opinion: - 2027: 10% - 2030s: 50% - 2040: >90% - 3000: 100% Assuming we don't see an existential event before then, i think it's inevitable, and soon. I think we are gonna be arguing about the definition of "general intelligence" long after these system are already running laps around humans at a wide variety of tasks.

This is pretty unlikely for the same reason that India is far from industrialized.

When people aren’t super necessary (aka rare), people are cheap.

Re: Proof of Corn

#277
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't seem autonomous in any real way though. There are people that I could hire in the real world, give $10k (I dunno if that's enough, but you understand what I mean) and say "Do everything necessary to grow 500 bushels of corn by October", and I would have corn in October. There are no AI agents where that's even close to true. When will that be possible?

Given enough time and money the chatbots we call "AI" today could contact and pay enough people that corn would happen. At some point it'll eventually have spammed and paid the right person who would manage everything necessary themselves after the initial ask and payment. Most people would probably just pocket the cash and never respond though.

You can already do this by…. Buying corn. At the store. Or worst case at a distributor.

It’s pretty cheap too.

It’s not like these are novel situations where ‘omg AI’ unlocks some new functionality. It’s literally competing against an existing, working, economic system.

Re: Proof of Corn

#278
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These experiments always seems to end up requiring the hand-holding of a human at top, seemingly breaking down the idea behind the experiment in the first place. Seems better to spend the time and energy on finding better ways for AI to work hand-in-hand with the user, empowering them, rather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible. That whole part fe…

>ather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible The particular problem here is it is very likely that the easiest people to replace with AI are the ones making the most money and doing the least work. Needless to say those people are going to fight a lot harder to remain employed than the average lower level person has political capital to accomplish.…

> the ones making the most money and doing the least work. Needless to say those people are going to fight a lot harder to remain employed than the average lower level person has political capital to accomplish.

They don't have to "fight" to stay employed, anyone with sufficient money is effectively self-employed. It's not going to be illegal to spend your own money running your own business if that's how you want to spend your money.

Anyone "making the most money and doing the least work" has enough money to start a variety of businesses if they get fired from their current job.

Re: Proof of Corn

#279
post #25

Polk County Iowa is where Des Moines is - the largest city in Iowa. (I live the next county over, but I bike to Polk county all the time) This is not a good location to run this because the farm land is owned by farmer/investors or farmer/developers - either way everybody knows the farm will become a suburb in the next 20 years and has priced accordingly (and if the timeline is is less than 5 years they have switched…

what is Bill Gates wanting to do with Iowa farm land?

It's just a normal part of his portfolio - only because he's so rich does his 'normal' percentage get to the level of being the largest private land owner. Basically it's a good place to stash wealth.

Re: Proof of Corn

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, and I'm no expert in the field, there is no known example of intelligence without sentience. Actual AI is basically algorithm and statistics simulating intelligence.

Can you spell out your definition of 'intelligence'? (I'm not looking to be ultra pedantic and pick holes in it -- just to understand where you're coming from in a bit more detail.) The way I think of it, there's not really a hard line between true intelligence and a sufficiently good simulation of intelligence.

I would say that "true" intelligence will allow someone/something to build a tool that never existed before while intelligence simulation will only allow someone/something to reproduce tools that already known. I would make a difference between someone able to use all his knowledge to find a solution to a problem using tools he knows of and someone able to discover a new tool while solving the same problem. I'm not sure the latter exists without sentience.
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