Every time Sam Altman announces some new offering at OpenAI, I get a little more thankful I don't have any children.
Every generation had a real or perceived existential crisis that might have prompted this type of mindset. The Great Depression, World Wars, Communism, rock music, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, global warming… This latest one isn’t going anywhere, and humanity will almost certainly find a way to make it ‘work out’.
Sora could ruin peoples lives
61–70 of 185 posts
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they may turn out like him?
Heh. I'm not a part of the private St. Louis preparatory school and "drop out of Stanford when a VC tells you you're Jesus Christ" set. I doubt any of my potential offspring would be either. No, more because Altman is an even higher form of Silicon Valley creature than we've seen before. This is a segment of society that thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have…
This is a deliberately cynical perspective along the tiresome ‘evil tech MBA overlord’ trope.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#63I wonder what Sam Altman's equivalent quote to "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" will be when he sees what his creation leads to.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#64Every time Sam Altman announces some new offering at OpenAI, I get a little more thankful I don't have any children.
I don't get it. Why? The entire point of life is to reproduce. Every moment in history has technological changes. Your fear is driving you to make poor decisions. Having children is a biologically good decision.
People tend to think the world needs their DNA walkin' around out there after they're dead. They don't think about what the world that the DNA's walkin' around in will be like.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#65Is there still something we can realistically tell kids that they should invest time and effort into learning? Seems that the general idea of getting good at something you are passionate about is going away. Also in particular in the arts, the idea that humans practice for a long time to create art, show it to other people who then enjoy it will disappear. I don't think people have really thought about the deeper consequences of this. Seems that a lot of people like to immediately deflect and deny that this is any different from changes in the past, as you can see in the responses to her post.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
So are you, if you abstract enough.
> So are you, if you abstract enough. Doubt. Explain, for instance, pain. How do you create that algorithmically? Or if you don't like to explain pain, how about love? You see, that's the problem with being caught up in the "technical person" identity completely. Reducing yourself down to an algorithm is not exactly healthy if you ask me. But it sure explains a lot about where the world is headed and why.
I'm not going to ask you to lift things heavier than you can, or to do math or programming that's beyond your known capabilities.
My goal is going to be to find out what you're best at, then optimize my tasks to be aligned with your training and objectives.
This is pretty much what I do with AI also.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they may turn out like him?
Because it's going to change the world in drastic ways, and it's very likely that it will be harder, in many ways, for the next generation than it was for us. The kids today will become adults in a world that is mostly foreign to all of us; there won't be precedent to fall back on or wisdom of elders to lean on. They won't recognize this or even mind that this is their reality, as it will just have always been this w…
LLMs are not the messiah, they're not the gateway to AGI, they not even that useful given their limitations. They are a very interesting data point on the path to the next data point. The idea that there will be some mass regression due to "AI" is ridiculous. It will only benefit humanity because humanity will learn to harness it for its benefit. (What humans do to other humans with technology is another matter.) Your ancestors made the same specious claims about the horseless carriage, TV, the pill, and countless other creations.
The future is unknowable but there is no reason to think the next generation won't be better of than the current generation, just like it's been for many centuries (modulo various wars and disasters).
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh. I'm not a part of the private St. Louis preparatory school and "drop out of Stanford when a VC tells you you're Jesus Christ" set. I doubt any of my potential offspring would be either. No, more because Altman is an even higher form of Silicon Valley creature than we've seen before. This is a segment of society that thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have…
> thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have This is a deliberately cynical perspective along the tiresome ‘evil tech MBA overlord’ trope.
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So are you, if you abstract enough. Doubt. Explain, for instance, pain. How do you create that algorithmically? Or if you don't like to explain pain, how about love? You see, that's the problem with being caught up in the "technical person" identity completely. Reducing yourself down to an algorithm is not exactly healthy if you ask me. But it sure explains a lot about where the world is headed and why.
If I need you to perform a task, I'm going to try and prevent you from experiencing pain by giving you clear requirements and time to complete the task. I'm not going to ask you to lift things heavier than you can, or to do math or programming that's beyond your known capabilities. My goal is going to be to find out what you're best at, then optimize my tasks to be aligned with your training and objectives. This is p…
That doesn't explain what pain is. My question was how you would algorithmically create that? If I am as much a being as an algorithm, as you insulted, then sure thing there must be an algorithmic nature underlying my (or anyone's) pain?
Re: Sora could ruin peoples lives
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every generation had a real or perceived existential crisis that might have prompted this type of mindset. The Great Depression, World Wars, Communism, rock music, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, global warming… This latest one isn’t going anywhere, and humanity will almost certainly find a way to make it ‘work out’.
Yeah but there was a metric crapton of suffering in those crises. Well, except rock music and nuclear energy.
Also, I’d argue that rock has caused suffering. It’s indirectly responsible for the middle-of-the-road (MOR) genre, and directly responsible for Nickleback Smashmouth.