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After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

blog.robbowley.net

321–330 of 489 posts

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#321
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite an interesting read Basically saying we're in war time economy with a race to super intelligence. Whichever super power does it first has won the game. Seeing the last tariffs and what China done about the rare earth minerals (and also the deal the US made with Ukraine for said minerals), the article might have a point that the super power will cripple each other to be the first with the super intelligence. And…

This take is way too generous to the current US administration’s quality of long term planning. Tariffs aren’t there to pay for a race to superintelligence, they’re a lever that the authoritarian is pulling because it’s one of the most powerful levers the president is allowed to pull. It’s a narcissist’s toy to feel important and immediately impactful (and an obvious vehicle for insider trading). If the present admin…

While I agree about the competence of the high level decision makers in the administration, the people advising them are incredibly smart and should under no circumstances be underestimated. Peter and his circle are totally crazy, but if you're playing against them you better bring your A game.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#322
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite an interesting read Basically saying we're in war time economy with a race to super intelligence. Whichever super power does it first has won the game. Seeing the last tariffs and what China done about the rare earth minerals (and also the deal the US made with Ukraine for said minerals), the article might have a point that the super power will cripple each other to be the first with the super intelligence. And…

There's only one problem with a race to superintelligence, and that's that nobody has evidence that mere intelligence is coming, much less superintelligence. (There are a thousand more problems, but none of them matter until that first one is overcome.)

Today's AI does exhibit some intelligence, period. It is absurd to claim that an intelligent-looking entity doesn't have intelligence, only because we might not be able to determine which part of the entity has one. The superintelligence is an entirely different problem though because there is no clear path from intelligence to so-called superintelligence, everything has been just a speculation so far.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#323

This is where we're headed: https://sibylline.dev/articles/2025-10-12-ai-is-too-big-to-f...

To me this reads like someone's been inside the echo chamber too long.

> For you AI skeptics, this is going to be rough to hear, but given the suffering that will occur if AI fails, I believe we have a moral imperative to make sure it succeeds.

What if, and hear me out here, the prediction is that it will fail because it can't succeed. It hasn't proven it is capable of producing the results that would justify itself. That there is some value doesn't mean that it will develop that capability. We have nothing to say that it will.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#324
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one problem with a race to superintelligence, and that's that nobody has evidence that mere intelligence is coming, much less superintelligence. (There are a thousand more problems, but none of them matter until that first one is overcome.)

Today's AI does exhibit some intelligence, period. It is absurd to claim that an intelligent-looking entity doesn't have intelligence, only because we might not be able to determine which part of the entity has one. The superintelligence is an entirely different problem though because there is no clear path from intelligence to so-called superintelligence, everything has been just a speculation so far.

> It is absurd to claim that an intelligent-looking entity doesn't have intelligence

I think if one really thinks about this statement, they'll find the opposite to be at least as possible.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#326
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> of _the next bubble_ and how it will form This is how humans have worked with pretty much every area of expansion in at least the last 500 years and probably longer. It's especially noticeable now because the amount of excess capital in the world from technological expansion makes it very noticeable and a lot of the limitations we know of in physics have been ran into, so further work gets very expensive. If you wa…

No, that's not how capitalism works. Debt is not the same thing as a speculation bubble.

Capitalism is what capitalism does.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#327
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's going to pay to run those models? They are currently running at a huge loss.

Anthropic said their inference is cash positive. I would be very surprised if this isn't the norm.

As if inference exists in a bubble. Driving a car from point A to point B costs $0, as long as you exclude the cost of the car or the fuel you purchased before you were at point A.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the critics can only be so critical because they are not convinced of the revealed truth that we are materializing machine god. How irrational.

I'm hoping that it's sarcasm to be invoking a machine god while calling the non-believers irrational.

While the majority of people invoking the idea of a machine god are being irrational the idea in itself has at least some merit. Some animals are more intelligent than others. Humans far more intelligent than the vast majority of animals, and with tools and cooperation in large societies we live in an existence they are not equipped to comprehend. This invites the question of what are the limits of intelligence. Is it far beyond our capabilities? If so, what does that look like to us.

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#329

This is where we're headed: https://sibylline.dev/articles/2025-10-12-ai-is-too-big-to-f...

Quite an interesting read Basically saying we're in war time economy with a race to super intelligence. Whichever super power does it first has won the game. Seeing the last tariffs and what China done about the rare earth minerals (and also the deal the US made with Ukraine for said minerals), the article might have a point that the super power will cripple each other to be the first with the super intelligence. And…

Imagine if super intelligence turns out to be a second organic brain you connect to your default brain..

Re: After the AI boom: what might we be left with?

#330
post #222

This is where we're headed: https://sibylline.dev/articles/2025-10-12-ai-is-too-big-to-f...

> brutal serfdom You can't seriously believe that spending all your income each month while living in the country with the highest standard of living in history is "serfdom." Hyperbolic nonsense like this makes the rest of the article hard to take seriously, not that I agree with most of it anyway.

The US is ranked 14th in terms of standard of living in (in order):

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Oman, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, United States, Estonia.

Based on these metrics: Quality of Life Index, Purchasing Power Index, Safety Index, Health Care Index, Cost of Living Index, Property Price to Income Ratio, Traffic Commute Time Index, Pollution Index, and Climate Index.

Source: https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...

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