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This content is for human consumption only

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Re: This content is for human consumption only

#31
post #5

Wouldn't it be racism to deny artificial brains to read your content while publicly offering it to human brains? If that would be possible and allowed, how long should this system be kept up? Even after AI has become just as complex and emotional as humans are? Would this also be a good idea if a human brain would be digitally cloned verbatim? If not, why is one program allowed to read while the other is not? Will AI…

This is really the stuff of science fiction. I think these are important questions, but also irrelevant when discussing ChatGPT because it's nowhere near "as complex and emotional as humans are" and I don't expect we'll have a system that will be in the near future.

But to answer the question: it's not really about who or what views the content, but rather for what purpose it's used. My brain might use your post as input for something I will write in the future, either consciously or subconsciously. That's kind of how humans work. But I'm not reading every single comment on HN for the explicit purpose of using that as input for future writings to make money off. It's a subtle but important difference. In this post that's shortened to "I don't want ChatGPT to ..." because today that's effectively the same.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> help someone is going to automate my job and other jobs might be harder More like “help, someone is going to automate my job and there won’t be jobs for everyone” In a hypothetical scenario where 30% of the current workforce is decimated by AI (white collar jobs), what makes you think the demand for plumbers, aircon unit installers or fruit pickers is goong to go up and absorb all those lost jobs?

I think, in some way or another, the economy will settle into an equilibrium where everyone is doing some kind of paid work, but if we automate away the enjoyable work and the difficult-to-automate work happens to be the type of work that's less enjoyable, then all our lives will be less enjoyable. We've seen this play out in history with the various productivity-increasing technologies in manufacturing. I imagine th…

Adding substance and example to the peer Murano comment

Lino Tagliapietra is a g'damn wizard.

I've had the pleasure of working with him in both Australia and New Zealand and I can't see his skill set being AI replicated anytime soon.

I dare say when it is we're all doomed. :-)

https://www.linotagliapietra.com/artist/biography

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, in some way or another, the economy will settle into an equilibrium where everyone is doing some kind of paid work, but if we automate away the enjoyable work and the difficult-to-automate work happens to be the type of work that's less enjoyable, then all our lives will be less enjoyable. We've seen this play out in history with the various productivity-increasing technologies in manufacturing. I imagine th…

> imagine that being a member of a crafts guild producing their wares in Renaissance Florence was a more fulfilling existence than being a modern assembly line worker who basically just fills in the difficult-to-automate gaps between the machines on an assembly line I was in Murano last summer. They probably have more global demand for their handmade wares than they’ve ever had in history.

> ...more global demand

Maybe in absolute terms, given the expansion of the total size of the economy through history, but I can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today.

In the Renaissance, artisanship was an economic necessity and a political system. Nowadays it's a weird meeing of supply-and-demand between the elites among the buyers and the elites among the sellers. Only the elites among the buyers can afford to buy goods that have been produced in a less economical way than functionally/aesthetically equivalent alternatives, just for the bragging rights connected with filling one's home with handmade stuff. Only the elites among the sellers can withstand the competition among those wanting to be such sellers.

Obviously those elites' point of view shouldn't be the only one informing the decisions about how we, as a society, want to relate to technology.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#34

Maybe I have a skewed view of the world, but I personally really don't care if something has been created by an AI or a human for most things. I mean, sure, it's nice to know you have some shoes that have been done by a person but only because this tends to be a sign of actual quality and care, a pair of boots cheaply made by a machine or through cheap labour will just not be (quality wise) as good as a pair of more…

If there was nothing to create and machines did everything for you, what would you actually do ?

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine that being a member of a crafts guild producing their wares in Renaissance Florence was a more fulfilling existence than being a modern assembly line worker who basically just fills in the difficult-to-automate gaps between the machines on an assembly line I was in Murano last summer. They probably have more global demand for their handmade wares than they’ve ever had in history.

> ...more global demand Maybe in absolute terms, given the expansion of the total size of the economy through history, but I can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today. In the Renaissance, artisanship was an economic necessity and a political system. Nowadays it's a weird meeing of supply-a…

> can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today

I would love to see figures, actually. My gut feeling is it would be lower. The world was overall poorer, and still struggling to even feed itself.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#36

> This is the worst imaginable end-stage capitalism dystopia, in which the only ways to make money are the grueling physical jobs like nursing and commercial kitchens (if you work in a field like that, you have my deepest respect). Having worked a physical job on a scaffold 13 stories in the air while wearing a respirator on a sweltering summer day and grinding out mortar joints, I can’t help but feel that this would…

> cannot maintain the standard … when the boomer generation retires

But doesn’t AI fundamentally change this all? I can already see Japan rejoicing that the demographic curve just became a lot less threatening.

People it seems, with the arrival of the robots in the knowledge workforce, have shifted from an economic asset class to a potential liability / efficiency bottleneck in the definition of capitalism and that means change. It means the demographic predicted rise of India for example is not as preordained as it once was.

In this new world where few people own most of the assets and regular humans as economic factors are diminishing …

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#37

> This is the worst imaginable end-stage capitalism dystopia, in which the only ways to make money are the grueling physical jobs like nursing and commercial kitchens (if you work in a field like that, you have my deepest respect). Having worked a physical job on a scaffold 13 stories in the air while wearing a respirator on a sweltering summer day and grinding out mortar joints, I can’t help but feel that this would…

Agree with this. I find it bizarre that people seem to shit talk actual work so much.

In my circles, it used to be that people considered office work a "cushy job". It was clearly recognised as being out of the ordinary and special.

Now it's like it's flipped and somehow anything that actually does anything real is for the proles.

I barely know anyone that can even like, build a crappy basic table. That would make me really disappointed in myself. It's like everyone is trapped in a fake virtual economy pretending it all matters.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#38
post #34

Maybe I have a skewed view of the world, but I personally really don't care if something has been created by an AI or a human for most things. I mean, sure, it's nice to know you have some shoes that have been done by a person but only because this tends to be a sign of actual quality and care, a pair of boots cheaply made by a machine or through cheap labour will just not be (quality wise) as good as a pair of more…

If there was nothing to create and machines did everything for you, what would you actually do ?

Find a hobby like everyone else. People tend gardens, even though they are just inefficiently ran agricultural setups. People play chess even though nearly all of them won't be able to beat the best AI. People will still draw for the enjoyment of the act of drawing. People will still write/type/voice their thoughts onto some medium. People will be with friends and family. Hell, I'd be happy just being left to ruminate with my own thoughts a lot of the time.

Machines can replace our need to produce our material goods and services, but I don't see how they could ever replace our need to express or relate.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#39
> like DALL-E, it seems more likely that writers, artists, and programmers are the most vulnerable to displacement.

Programmer here.

I'm don't feel vulnerable to displacement by AI tools.

And if I'm displaced, perhaps my skills were not as meaningful as I thought they were.

Re: This content is for human consumption only

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...more global demand Maybe in absolute terms, given the expansion of the total size of the economy through history, but I can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today. In the Renaissance, artisanship was an economic necessity and a political system. Nowadays it's a weird meeing of supply-a…

> can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today I would love to see figures, actually. My gut feeling is it would be lower. The world was overall poorer, and still struggling to even feed itself.

> still struggling to even feed itself.

I don't think so, especially considering the plague. The economy was already set up to feed a lot more mouths than survived the plague, and places like Florence were the destination for many of those newly wealthy. The guilds also exercised political power, behaving as organized monopolies. You would think that monopolies are bad for the economy, but they were markedly different from today's monopolies in that their internal organization foreshadowed today's systems of democracy and a strong civil society.

So, to think of this as a golden age of artisanship, and to think that the phenomenon reached even into commoners' lives, is certainly more than mere romanticizing about the past ...though I don't claim to have a good quantitative grasp of it either.

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