I wish GPT4 had never happened • Hacker News Board

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#551

Post by throwaway8689 » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:48 PM UTC

vc8f6vVV wrote: post #463

TrueDuality wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your response is equally naive. I am still largely undecided on whether something like a universal basic income would actually be a net positive for society, but the fallacy that receiving a fixed income immediately means that people won't do something productive with their time is ridiculous. I can't imagine _not_ working, I develop open source software in my free time and I would spend more time producing s…

What do you consider as "productive"? Look at animals in a zoo, do they look productive to you? They have "a universal basic income", they simply don't need to be productive. Humans, just like animals, are productive when they are trying to achieve something (catch food, find mates, and for social animals to establish their position in a society which leads to food, mates etc.). E.g. you are developing OSS -- ask you…

A lot of people have to work two jobs just to afford food and shelter. Granted there are also people trying to live a Champaign lifestyle on a lemonade budget, but how do you address the first group?

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#552

Post by danShumway » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #527

danShumway wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work" above is being used in a more specific form than you are using it. GP is not referring to all productive work, they are specifically referring to employment on the market. Yes, human beings are better in relationships and better when they help each other, but GP is not talking about abolishing helping other people or doing meaningful things. There are a huge number of things people can do to meaningfully make…

Someone has to grow, process, and ship your food. Mine the coal, or build and maintain the energy infrastructure. And roads. They expect to be paid because in many cases its work more than keeping busy. Those things that are more valuable or meaningful are valuable and meaningful to you, so not really a fair trade to the people doing work to support you.

I want to be polite about this, but I hate how I can correct one specific point on HN, and then I instantly need to defend an entire philosophy.

The comment I was replying to argued that we were talking about abolishing all meaningful human activity, and I pointed out that "meaningful human activity" and "gainful economic employment" are not the exact same category.

I don't really think that warrants having an extended debate about whether or not decoupling income from "work" is fair or not. And it's kind of a weird sequitur anyway, because all of the jobs you're talking about are paid noticeably less than white-collar jobs even though they are arguably way more essential than any of the programming work that we do. So for this to suddenly be a conversation about fairness... I mean, what conversation do you want to have, do you want to have a conversation about AI or about the entire history of wages and about how human beings value blue-collar jobs?

It's not a problem, it's just... people read way too much into comments like this. I'm just pointing out that "meaningful work" can happen outside of an economy, something that I think is a pretty obvious, uncontroversial point to state.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#553

Post by shrimp_emoji » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #283

mort96 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has been the promise over and over again, for centuries, and it has consistently not paid off. Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? The extra value has gone to enrich the oligarchs rather than to the people. Maybe that should change.

How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

Why should you play with a handicap? The "oligarch" forces you to work with violence. They've already violated the non-aggression principle.

No work? No money. No rent payment? Eviction (with violence). Stealing food? Arrest and imprisonment (with violence). It's violence all the way down. It always was. It's just a question of how it's organized and rhetorically justified.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#554

Post by kyletns » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

logicalmonster wrote: post #138

1) Chaudry's article is amazing in its lack of creative thinking. If people like Priya can be ~10 times more productive wielding some AI tools, that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. Though some people in some companies might be laid off, it doesn't necessarily mean that more people will be laid off than new jobs…

This is such a toxic response. You're commenting on someone's blog about how they are sad. Your response is to argue that they're wrong which means that their sadness is invalid.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#555

Post by ghaff » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #484

surgical_fire wrote: post #156

Funny thing - I've been using ChatGPT as a programming assistant. My experience with it is that the more knowledgeable I am at the domain, the more useful it is. It often generates code that won't compile or won't run correctly, but that sort of goes in the correct direction, enough that I can spot the blunders and refine my questions. Quite often I even learn a few new things when using it to explore libraries and f…

> My experience with it is that the more knowledgeable I am at the domain, the more useful it is. Exactly right. I made this argument in an unrelated thread: I gave an example of testing ChatGPT by asking it to write CRC calculation code in ARM assembler. The code worked. It wasn’t as good as mine (slower, inefficient), yet, as you said, as a starting point, it would have been fine. “This is today, mid 2023. Give it…

That's my experience with writing text as well. If I know the area well enough that I don't really need to do a lot of fact checking that isn't off the top of my head--and I can correct any areas of nuance it doesn't get quite write--it's easy enough to get a bunch of words down on paper and rework them as needed.

I haven't found it to be a big help but it can save me time.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#556

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

sebzim4500 wrote: post #418

luckylion wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? It's here, you're living in it, most likely. You just have to lower your wants to the standards of whenever that prediction was made.

Is this actually true though? Suppose you want to own a house and a car, not to mention be able to send your kids to university. That was affordable 50 years ago, and the only one of those things which has gotten better is the car.

Fifty years ago was still in the post World War 2 economic boom. If you want that again, all you need is another devastating world war that kills tens of millions and wrecks every other economy except that of the United States.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#557

Post by klibertp » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

rg111 wrote: post #446

crop_rotation wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for penning down your emotional response. HN is mostly in denial of anything ChatGPT (most people haven't used GPT4 and keep pasting results of GPT3.5). The thing is that there is nothing other than denial that people can express. Saying that their jobs will become much less relevant is just too hard for almost anyone to swallow. People in this thread keep talking about productivity improvements, not realis…

It's so refreshing to see someone recognizing the mass-spread denial of HN commentariat on GPT4. What HN commentariat doesn't realize is that many of them will be made redundant. And "many new jobs are created" is such a bloated, empty statement in the wake of GPT4 like techs. We all know that all technological improvements in recent decades have led to more inequality . No questions about that. LLMs, AI will lead mo…

Agreed with both you and GP. The denial is a normal emotional response. It's not strange to cling to your decades of professional experience and skillset. It's just that, now really is not the time for emotional responses. It's time to start running away from the crowd so that you're one of those not made redundant. You can grieve the lost innocence of days past later.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#558

Post by tharne » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #518

surgical_fire wrote: post #156

Funny thing - I've been using ChatGPT as a programming assistant. My experience with it is that the more knowledgeable I am at the domain, the more useful it is. It often generates code that won't compile or won't run correctly, but that sort of goes in the correct direction, enough that I can spot the blunders and refine my questions. Quite often I even learn a few new things when using it to explore libraries and f…

It's not bad for something that's pretty new. Now imagine what another decade or two of development will give us. The number of areas in which a typical worker is more knowledgeable is going to get lower and lower.

Exactly. Every discussion I see focuses almost exclusively on AI as it exists right now. Everyone is either dismissing the impact due to some minor shortcoming, or wildly overestimating the short-term impact. The one consistent thing among those who dismiss it and those who think it's going to change everything in the next six months is that they're both drastically underestimating the long-term impact. GPT is already behaving in ways that researchers did not anticipate.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#559

Post by pydry » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

HyperSane wrote: post #450

The fact that so many people fear loss of income as a result of better AI is a real indictment of our economic system. A better system that more fairly distributed economic productivity would make people welcome better AI because they could be confident it would make everyone wealthier instead of just a few people rich enough to be Goa'uld.

If we could just stop being economically gaslighted it would help.

The economic system can't be simultaneously unproductive enough to require us to keep raising the retirement age and so productive that job loss is a big problem.

It is possible that a political war on labor is being waged at both ends.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#560

Post by japhyr » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

quijoteuniv wrote: post #423

logicalmonster wrote: post #138

1) Chaudry's article is amazing in its lack of creative thinking. If people like Priya can be ~10 times more productive wielding some AI tools, that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. Though some people in some companies might be laid off, it doesn't necessarily mean that more people will be laid off than new jobs…

I appreciate the perspective shared in the article, but I can't help but find it somewhat egocentric. Firstly, it seems to overlook the fact that Priya was already being exploited in a low-paying job. The article describes the long hours and overwork she endures, but it fails to challenge the status quo of her employment situation. This lack of critical analysis may be indicative of a narrow focus on the negative eff…

I would guess that a higher proportion of HNers have had a chance to work with GPT-4 than the general population has. Most people are still basing their takes about AI either on something like GPT-3, or just what they're hearing in the general media.

The point of the article I that there are a lot more people in jobs like Priya's who won't be able to quickly leverage AI for their own benefit than there are who will. We throw the word "disruptive" around a lot here. But that's exactly what these new AI tools will do to many people's lives. Their lives will be disrupted, and they have little cushion to fall back on.

I believe technical progress is inevitable, but a lot of people suffer on the path forward.