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Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

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Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#371

Post by maciejzj »

andai wrote: post #369
maciejzj wrote: post #353

I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather…

Is it good when number of human go up? Is bad when go down?

I would say that it is bad when it has large derivative (positive or negative). However, the problem is not about >number of human beings< but about making agency that existing people have obsolete.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#372

Post by j-bos »

maciejzj wrote: post #353

I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather…

> Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population?

Yes, here's a youtube classic that put forth the same argument over a decade ago, originally titled "Humans need not apply": https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#373

Post by usrbinbash »

ForHackernews wrote: post #307
rukuu001 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot about how much we altered our environment to suit cars. They're not a perfect solution to transport, but they've been so useful we've built tons more road to accommodate them. So, while I don't think AGI will happen any time soon, I wonder what 'roads' we'll build to squeeze the most out of our current AI. Probably tons of power generation.

Customer service will be almost fully automated, and human customers will be forced to adapt to the bots.

Or customers will find other providers who don't annoy them.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#374

Post by trymas »

maciejzj wrote: post #353

I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather…

> Have you ever thought that you would be compared to a gasoline engine and everyone would discuss this juxtaposition from purely economic perspective?

Not sure if by accident or not, but that’s what we are according today’s “tech elite”.

   Therefore, the most profitable disposition for this dubious form of capital is to convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/55660903-patchwork-a-p...

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#375

Post by etherlord »

torben-friis wrote: post #332
shaka-bear-tree wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny the original post doesn’t mention AI replacing the coding part of his job. There seems to be a running theme of “okay but what about” in every discussion that involves AI replacing jobs. Meanwhile a little time goes by and “poof” AI is handling it. I want to be be optimistic. But it’s hard to ignore what I’m doing and seeing. As far as I can tell, we haven’t hit serious unemployment yet because of momentum and…

>There seems to be a running theme of “okay but what about” in every discussion that involves AI replacing jobs. Meanwhile a little time goes by and “poof” AI is handling it. Yes, it’s a god of the gaps situation. We don’t know what the ceiling is. We might have hit it, there might be a giant leap forward ahead, we might leap back (if there is a rug pull). The most interesting questions are the ones that assume human…

I dont think it really matters if your or I or regular people are ok with it if the people with power are. There doesnt seem to be much any of us regular folks can do to stop it, especially as Ai eliminates more and more jobs thus further reducing the economic power of everyday people

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#376

Post by pzo »

maciejzj wrote: post #366
netsharc wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, like the Bill Gates haters who interpret him talking about reducing the rate of birth in Africa as wanting to kill Africans, you're interpreting it wrong. The graph says horse ownership per person. People probably stopped buying horses, they let theirs retire (well, to be honest, probably also sent to the glue factory), and when they stopped buying new horses, horse breeding programs slowed down.

We don't know what the author had in mind, but one has to really be tone deaf to let the weirdness of the discussion go unnoticed. Take a look at the last paragraphs in the text again: > And not very long after, 93 per cent of those horses had disappeared. > I very much hope we'll get the two decades that horses did. > But looking at how fast Claude is automating my job, I think we're getting a lot less. While most o…

> And not very long after, 93 per cent of those horses had disappeared.

> I very much hope we'll get the two decades that horses did.

Horses typically live between 25 to 30 years. I agree with OP that most likely those horses were not decimated (killed) but just died out and people stopped mass breeding them. Also as other noticed chart shows 'horses PER person in US'. Population between 1900 and 1950 increased from 1.5B to 2.5B (globally but probably similarly almost 70% increase in US).

I think depends what do you worry about:

1) `that human population decrease 50-80%`?

I don't worry about it even if that happen. 200 years ago human population was ~1 B today is ~8 B. At year 0 AD human population was ~0.250 B. Did we 200 years ago worry about it like "omg human population is only 1 B" ?

I doubt human population decrease 80% because of no demand for human as workforce but I don't see problem if it decrease by 50%. There will short transition period with surplus of retired people and work needed to keep the infrastructure but if robots can help with this then I don't see the problem.

2) `That we will not be needed and we will loose jobs?`

I don't see work like something in demand. Most people hate their jobs or do crappy jobs. What do people actually worry about that they will won't get any income. And actually not even about that - they worry that they will not be able to survive or be homeless. If there is improvement in production that food, shelter, transportation, healtcare is dirty cheap (all stuff from bottom maslov piramid) and fair distribution on social level then I also see a way this can be no problem.

3) `That we will all die because of AI`

This I find more plausable and maybe not even by AGI but earlier because of big social unrests during transition period.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#377

Post by bambax »

JohnMakin wrote: post #365
netsharc wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, like the Bill Gates haters who interpret him talking about reducing the rate of birth in Africa as wanting to kill Africans, you're interpreting it wrong. The graph says horse ownership per person. People probably stopped buying horses, they let theirs retire (well, to be honest, probably also sent to the glue factory), and when they stopped buying new horses, horse breeding programs slowed down.

I don’t think you’re realizing that the OP understands this, and that in this analogy, the horses are human beings

In this analogy, horses are jobs, not humans; you could argue there's not much of a difference between the two, because people without jobs will starve, etc., but still, they're not the same.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#378

Post by danw1979 »

netsharc wrote: post #360
maciejzj wrote: post #353

I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather…

I think, like the Bill Gates haters who interpret him talking about reducing the rate of birth in Africa as wanting to kill Africans, you're interpreting it wrong. The graph says horse ownership per person. People probably stopped buying horses, they let theirs retire (well, to be honest, probably also sent to the glue factory), and when they stopped buying new horses, horse breeding programs slowed down.

I wish the author had had the courage of their convictions to extend the analogy all the way to the glue factory. It’s what we are all thinking.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#379

Post by gcanyon »

andai wrote: post #369
maciejzj wrote: post #353

I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather…

Is it good when number of human go up? Is bad when go down?

It's bad if it goes down by more than about 1.2% per year. That would mean zero births, present-day natural deaths. Of course zero births isn't presently realistic, and we should expect the next 10-30 years to significantly increase human lifespan. If we assume continued births at the lowest rates seen anywhere on the planet, and humans just maxing out the present human lifespan limit, then anything more than about a 0.5% decrease means someone is getting murked.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#380

Post by empiricus »

jakewins wrote: post #286
shaka-bear-tree wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny the original post doesn’t mention AI replacing the coding part of his job. There seems to be a running theme of “okay but what about” in every discussion that involves AI replacing jobs. Meanwhile a little time goes by and “poof” AI is handling it. I want to be be optimistic. But it’s hard to ignore what I’m doing and seeing. As far as I can tell, we haven’t hit serious unemployment yet because of momentum and…

I’m deeply sceptical. Every time a major announcement comes out saying so-and-so model is now a triple Ph.D programming triathlon winner, I try using it. Every time it’s the same - super fast code generation, until suddenly staggering hallucinations. If anything the quality has gotten worse, because the models are now so good at lying when they don’t know it’s really hard to review. Is this a safe way to make that sy…

I agree that the current models are far from perfect. But I am curious how you see the future. Do you really think/feel they will stop here?
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