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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

#561

Post by [deleted] »

awillowingmind wrote: post #513
overfeed wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the wealthy think they can shield themselves by exerting control over mass media, news outlets, the press, and domestic surveillance, all amplified by AI. If all that fails, they have their underground bunkers on faraway islands and/or backup citizenships.

Assuming that they are able to fully replace the workforce, and that technocracy is fully realized, the majority stakeholders of these corporations will rely on corporations akin to palantir & anduril for private security.

[deleted]

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

#562

Post by luckman212 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #388
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 have been completely shocked by the number of people in the tech industry who seem to genuinely place no value on humanity and so many of its outputs. I see it in the writing of leaders within VC firms and AI companies but I also see it in ordinary conversations on the caltrain or in coffee shops. Friendship, love, sex, art, even faith and childrearing are opportunities for substitution with AI. Ask an AI to create…

"Hell on Earth" - I don't think there is a more succinct or accurate way to describe the current environment.

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

#563

Post by cal_dent »

torginus wrote: post #320
cal_dent wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is a funny old one and speaks to it being a human problem. One thing a lot of people dont truly engage with with the housing issue is that its a massive issue of distribution. Too many people want to live in too few places. Yes, central banks & interest rates (being too low and also now being relatively too high), nimbyism, and rent seeking play an important role too but solving the "too many people live in t…

I see the issue of housing is a combination of: - House prices increasing while wages are stagnant - Home loans and increasing prices mean the people going for huge leverages on their home purchases - Supply is essentially government controlled, and dependent, and building more housing is heavily politicized - A lot of dubious money is being created, which gets converted to good money by investing it in the housing m…

I'd argue that if your point around remote fully held true then that would be shown in the very short-term by rental prices (as the key indicator of people leaving London in lieu of population/census data) but that hasnt been apparent in the data. London rentals have seen much stronger growth post-covid than other places in the UK.

What is happening with house prices in london is a combination of the simple effects of high-ish interest rates v high house prices (limiting affordability) and also flats in general taking a beating from post-grenfell building regs changes and leasehold issues. When you look at granular data there is still a surprising amount growth in Zone 3-4 onwards in London because actual houses in those locations are still sort of achievable for decently paid couples.

Also regionally, a bit glib, but the price increases are happening in Manchester not Bolton or Sheffield not Scunthorpe. If remote working was truly acceptable then those latter locations would be seeing far more inward movement of people but they're not really

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

#564

Post by hnfong »

tim333 wrote: post #490
hnfong wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not seeing any horse heavens, do you have reason to believe humans (i.e. those not among the ruling class) are going to have a different fate from the horses? I agree we can kinda make the argument that abundance is soon upon us, and humanity as a whole embraces the ideas of equality and harmony etc etc... but still there's a kinda uncanny dissociation if you're happily talking about horses disappearing and humans be…

We are in control (for now). The horses were not. The whole alignment debate is basically about keeping us in control.

Member of ruling class spotted!!

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

#565

Post by marcus_holmes »

reeredfdfdf wrote: post #226
marcus_holmes wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm optimistic. Banks used to have rooms full of bank clerks who manually did double-entry bookkeeping for all the bank's transactions. For most people, this was a very boring job, and it made bank transactions slow and expensive. In the 50's and 60's we replaced all these people with computers. An entire career of "bank clerk" vanished, and it was a net good for humanity. The cost of bank transactions came down (by…

"I suspect the same will be true with this automation - if we can create and scale organisations easier and cheaper without employing all the admin staff that we currently do, then maybe we create more agile, responsive, organisations that serve their customers better." I'm not sure most of those organizations will have many customers left, if every white collar admin job has been automated away, and all those people…

> Automating away all the "boring jobs" leads to an economic collapse, unless you find another way for those people to earn their living.

Yes, that's what happens. All those people find other jobs, do other work, and that new work is usually much less boring than the old work, because boring work is easier to automate.

Historically, economies have changed and grown because of automation, but not collapsed.

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

#566

Post by marcus_holmes »

sotix wrote: post #401
marcus_holmes wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm optimistic. Banks used to have rooms full of bank clerks who manually did double-entry bookkeeping for all the bank's transactions. For most people, this was a very boring job, and it made bank transactions slow and expensive. In the 50's and 60's we replaced all these people with computers. An entire career of "bank clerk" vanished, and it was a net good for humanity. The cost of bank transactions came down (by…

> Banks used to have rooms full of bank clerks who manually did double-entry bookkeeping for all the bank's transactions. For most people, this was a very boring job, and it made bank transactions slow and expensive. > > And the people who had to do double-entry bookkeeping all day long got to do other, probably more interesting, jobs. I don't mean to pick on your example too much. However, when I worked in financial…

I did qualify it with "most people" because of people like you who enjoy that kind of work :).

I would hate that work, but luckily we have all sorts of different people in the world who enjoy different things. I hope you find something that you really enjoy doing.

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

#567

Post by giardini »

vidarh wrote: post #457
tokioyoyo wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want another side data point, most people I know both in Japan and Canada use some sort of an AI as a replacement for any kind of query. Almost nobody in my circles are in tech or tech-adjacent circles. So yeah, it’s just everyone collectively devaluing human interaction.

I love AI, but I'm exasperated by the extent to which my fiancee uses Claude instead of search, and for everything ...

You'll likely be OK until Claude gets a penis. Then you're toast.

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

#568

Post by marcus_holmes »

mrwrong wrote: post #403
marcus_holmes wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm optimistic. Banks used to have rooms full of bank clerks who manually did double-entry bookkeeping for all the bank's transactions. For most people, this was a very boring job, and it made bank transactions slow and expensive. In the 50's and 60's we replaced all these people with computers. An entire career of "bank clerk" vanished, and it was a net good for humanity. The cost of bank transactions came down (by…

> There are a ton of current careers that are just email + meetings + powerpoint + spreadsheet that can go the same way. it's interesting how it's never your job that will be automated away in this fantasy, it's always someone else's.

I have absolutely had that job, and it sucked. I also worked as a farm hand, a warehouse picker, a construction site labourer, and a checkout clerk. Most of that work is either already automated or about to be, thankfully.

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

#569

Post by giardini »

danw1979 wrote: post #378
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 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.

Soylent glue?

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

#570

Post by giardini »

tyre wrote: post #519
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending all the useless horses to glue factories in that time was so prevalent it was a cartoon trope. The other trope being men living in flop houses, and towns having entire sections for unemployable people called skid row. The AI people point to post 1950s style employment and say 'people recovered after industrial advance' and ignore the 1880s through the 1940s. We actually have zero idea if the buggy whip manufa…

Horses were killed more often for meat that was used in dog food than for glue. I did a deep research into the decline of horses and it was consistent with fewer births, not mass slaughter. The US Department of Agriculture has great records during this time, though they’re not fully digitized.

Horse meat is tasty too! Pretty popular in France. Hmmm, remember my first steak tartare in Belgium! Ymmmm!
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