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Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

petergabriel.com

31–40 of 167 posts

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#31
if society is going to collapse it is going to collapse. Even if we did pause AI development, bad actors would just ignore the rule and continue anyway.

It's easy for me to say, I am young and healthy and can move away from programming after it bought me a house. Maybe I'll work in a brewery...

Either way, the dirty words everyone seems to be avoiding is UBI and socialism.

If AI sincerely destroys every white collar job, well... that will be interesting.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#32

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

What would your reply be to the following comment? (Not pasting it directly since it's frowned upon here)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34378139

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#33
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. The “think of the good” argument is over played. Same was true for combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct. I’d like it if people just stopped with it. People aren’t idiots, they know good things and very bad things can be achieved.

Yeah I really hate this line of argument as well. We obviously understand it can have a lot of beneficial effects in society. It's a strawman to say that people don't see that. The problem is nobody seems to be properly discussing the bad things that can and will occur.

We can of course also judge the track record on this kind of techno-optimist rhetoric. People expressed all the same lofty ideals about social media, almost all of which have been outweighed by what we really got: anger-driven addiction, micro-targeted propaganda, turn-key state surveillance, and teenagers attempting suicide at all time highs.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#34
post #17

Well said, this thing is here to stay. When I first played around with gpt-4 I was filled with immense dread. I, as many others have, immediately understood what kind of enormous societal impact this would have. But I put the question to myself, if I could magically wish this thing away, would I? I wouldn't. I understand the many that would, this thing completely upends the status quo. Massive swathes of people will…

If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. The “think of the good” argument is over played. Same was true for combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct. I’d like it if people just stopped with it. People aren’t idiots, they know good things and very bad things can be achieved.

Are you seriously suggesting humanity would be better off without the combustion engine? Also, presumably an AI powerful enough to kill vast swathes of humanity would be powerful enough to prevent something like climate change.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#35
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. The “think of the good” argument is over played. Same was true for combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct. I’d like it if people just stopped with it. People aren’t idiots, they know good things and very bad things can be achieved.

Yeah I really hate this line of argument as well. We obviously understand it can have a lot of beneficial effects in society. It's a strawman to say that people don't see that. The problem is nobody seems to be properly discussing the bad things that can and will occur.

> We obviously understand it can have a lot of beneficial effects in society

Really? Because nobody seems to be talking about them. You talk about how bad things "will" occur. What about bad things that are literally happening right now?

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#36
post #17

Well said, this thing is here to stay. When I first played around with gpt-4 I was filled with immense dread. I, as many others have, immediately understood what kind of enormous societal impact this would have. But I put the question to myself, if I could magically wish this thing away, would I? I wouldn't. I understand the many that would, this thing completely upends the status quo. Massive swathes of people will…

If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. The “think of the good” argument is over played. Same was true for combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct. I’d like it if people just stopped with it. People aren’t idiots, they know good things and very bad things can be achieved.

If only they’d focus their research on that instead of art and music.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#37

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

A train is approaching on the tracks, on one track you create free energy, solve diseases, create a new dawn for human ingenuity and also some white collar jobs are removed, others are created. On the other track we continue to toil in the dirt.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#38
post #22

This wave of AI has the power to be incredibly transformative for good, but not given any of the current economic or copyright systems we have now. I don't know how any of the proponents can pretend that this isn't an abject disaster on the horizon for anybody who depends on copyright to make their living. This is the natural progression to the unnatural properties of the shared delusion of pretending like ideas are…

> I don't know how any of the proponents can pretend that this isn't an abject disaster on the horizon for anybody who depends on copyright to make their living.

OK, I'll bite. How is the an abject disaster on the horizon for... let's say, novelists?

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#39

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists So does the world currently only listen to singer-songwriters on acoustic guitar at small local venues? The humanity in the consumption of art has been subject to mass commodification for centuries at this point. This process is driven by money and not love. Technology has nothing to do with it.

We've had big advancements before that allow people to do more with less, but this is a staggering leap. The jump from "you need to get a whole bunch of people together to practice and play music together" to "one person can make skilled music in their bedroom" isn't even comparable to "Hey AI, make me a reggaeton darkwave album performed by Kurt Cobain and Tiny Tim".

We're not talking just more art here, or some people losing jobs who then have to retrain. We're talking with possibly very near advancements, entire industries completely emptying, with hundreds of millions of people who now have nothing to do and nowhere to retrain to.

Other advancements have caused job losses and opened many more. I'm not understanding where all the potential displacements from AI are supposed to go, or how we're going to balance an economy when you need an order of magnitude fewer employees than ever to pump out more content than anybody could hope to consume.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#40
post #17

Well said, this thing is here to stay. When I first played around with gpt-4 I was filled with immense dread. I, as many others have, immediately understood what kind of enormous societal impact this would have. But I put the question to myself, if I could magically wish this thing away, would I? I wouldn't. I understand the many that would, this thing completely upends the status quo. Massive swathes of people will…

If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. The “think of the good” argument is over played. Same was true for combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct. I’d like it if people just stopped with it. People aren’t idiots, they know good things and very bad things can be achieved.

> combustion engines, they will probably send us extinct.

!RemindMe 150 years

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