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We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

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Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#541

Post by neom »

rwyinuse wrote: post #409

People spending all their time glued to their smartphone and social media is a problem, as it often replaces quality live socialization with lower quality pseudo-socialization. AI won't impact that much one way or another.

And it's everywhere. I've been on the road a lot the last few years, all over, central/south america, north america, korea, europe, airports, trains, coffee shops, restaurants, hospitals, it's everywhere. I've taken to spending time to just sit somewhere for a half hour and just watching people...stuck, totally glued, to the screen. So sad to watch parents with children, the children desperate for attention, the parents zoned into the device, or the inverse also...but the degree of prevalence is stark to my mind.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#542

Post by Modified3019 »

pantalaimon wrote: post #463
slt2021 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it doesn't. With the labor productivity and automation, it is not obvious we need to maintain the current population, especially because the current social contract seems to be working class being exploited by oligarchs, while their taxes go fund boomers' retirement and overseas wars

How is it supposed to work when every working age person has two retirees to support?

Probably like: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kaelon

Just need to re-evaluate things once we hit post-scarcity.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#543

Post by mgraczyk »

dv_dt wrote: post #476
mgraczyk wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true in the US. Young people in US consume much more of those things you listed than people over 40 did at the same age. Young people have more purchasing power than previous generations. EDIT: Data from the fed and payroll providers show this overwhelmingly to be the case, but just to add some color/anecdote. I found all of the first jobs I had in highschool and just after. 3/3 of my first roles now adver…

How much is paid to go out is different than the amount of time spent out though

Sorry I do not understand what that means. You're talking about opportunity cost? In what sense is "time spent" economic?

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#544

Post by mlinhares »

socalgal2 wrote: post #353
dv_dt wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's popularized to blame social media and phones, economics should not be overlooked. Pay for young generations is lagging and restaurants and bar prices are super high. Public spaces for informal gatherings has shrunk - eg fewer malls

This doesn't match my experience. In fact one thing I noticed living in Japan is how much more willing people are to spend money to meet up. Lots of events costs 3000-7000 yen. Clubs and bar have a cover charge. People will organize parties where they rent a bar and tell their friends it's 4000 yen each (about $27 currently but was closer to $40) in the past. They'll even have house parties and tell everyone to pitch…

I think a lot of this conversation is centered in the US, most other countries haven't been through a suburbanization at the rate and size the US has gone through. It is very easy for you to be disconnected from reality living in the suburbs in florida (where I live, for instance) than it is to do the same in a city like Barcelona or São Paulo.

I don't know of any other country were living in the burbs is desirable, everyone wants to be close to where the action and the businesses are.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#545

Post by 9rx »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #443
mgraczyk wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true in the US. Young people in US consume much more of those things you listed than people over 40 did at the same age. Young people have more purchasing power than previous generations. EDIT: Data from the fed and payroll providers show this overwhelmingly to be the case, but just to add some color/anecdote. I found all of the first jobs I had in highschool and just after. 3/3 of my first roles now adver…

A night out literally costs 5x as much as 10 years ago

That's because the night starts way earlier than it used to. The data is abundantly clear about that.

Back in my day you didn't even leave home for a night out before 11PM. You couldn't spend that much even if you tried before everything was closed and there was nowhere left to spend. Young people today, on the other hand, are favouring starting the night out in the early evening, even the afternoon.

A night out may cost 5x more, but the same night out doesn't.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#546

Post by spencerflem »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #398
djeastm wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would throw Grok in there, too, but I suppose that might get us into a political discussion...

I don't know anything about Grok, but AFAIK they have different problems. Grok lacks alignment to push back against users asking for bad things, like advocating for hurting people. But Deepseek is trained to manipulate the user into wanting bad things like hurting people.

I disagree that Grok, manipulated by Elon Musk, does not push ideas that hurt people

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#547

Post by trinix912 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #502
dv_dt wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's popularized to blame social media and phones, economics should not be overlooked. Pay for young generations is lagging and restaurants and bar prices are super high. Public spaces for informal gatherings has shrunk - eg fewer malls

Is the change universal? In 90s in Europe, my socializing was predominantly "walk down to the pedestrian zone and meet your friends for a walk". Not sure how it is there these days - Canadian social life today is indeed highly correlated with movies / restaurants / expenses.

I'm one of the people who do that nowadays (I'm also from Europe). I've friends who find no problem with just sitting in a public park / square, but the amount of other young people I see doing that seems to be going down year by year. Slightly, but steadily. Same with bars, at least in my city, most bars have raised prices significantly due to tourism. Wages for student jobs have gone up (the minimal student wage almost doubled in the last 5 years), but not at the same rate as prices at bars, restaurants, and cinemas.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#548

Post by giantrobot »

polotics wrote: post #430
giantrobot wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…? Where I am all the nature and bike trails lined with homeless encampments. It's actually been quite a problem. Unless you go out on serious hike type trails you're surrounded by homeless.

may I ask where is it that bad, whereabouts are you?

I'm in California. We have a large "native" population of homeless and have been a popular destination for "Greyhound Therapy" for decades. It's the same where I live in every part of the state I've been through in the past several years. Police tend to clear homeless off main drags and parks so they end up moving to less policed areas like outdoor preserves and trails.

I try not to judge homeless people as it happens for a thousand reasons, many outside peoples' control. That being said having open spaces filled with homeless doesn't make anyone want or even able to use those spaces. It's not just the people but tents, trash, and literal shit.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#549

Post by bebeskids »

smith7018 wrote: post #455
bebeskids wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parks, libraries are cheap and free and they're dead where I live, a metro area of 2+ million The only people I see out are families with grandpa in tow to pay for a mediocre overpriced wood fired pizza. No one has analog skills. Just social analysis skills. Very briefly dated a 39 year old who admitted she had never baked, boiled, or microwaved her own potato. Already got 2 kids. We reach endgame sooner in life. We…

That 39 year old woman anecdote is a strange addition. I know many 20-to-30-somethings that know how to cook. It's far too expensive to constantly eat out nowadays so people know how to provide for themselves in other ways. It sounds like you met a woman that didn't know how to cook and extrapolated that experience into thinking society is over and we're all helpless.

You took "a 39 year old" and felt targeted. Where there's one there's more, it doesn't need to be all to be statistically significant.

Society collapses when the capable are helpless. There's no bandwidth to help the actual needy when enough of the normies need caretaking too.

Old puritans in government and corporate would just lop off the tail but that's actual people who mean something to their useful people.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#550

Post by bowsamic »

gchamonlive wrote: post #274
bowsamic wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly just think it’s that before there was so little to do at home that you were just bored as hell if you didn’t go out. Now there’s just infinite entertainment of all kinds

We just have to be very careful with this line of thinking. One could misunderstand that you are blaming information access for these problems.

That would not be a misunderstanding, it is so
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