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Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

epoch.ai

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Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#61

Post by 857593936464 »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #45
techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

My last two roles have involved automating detection of cancers and other disease in biopsies (eliminating pathologists’ jobs in hospitals), and now automating invoice payment and statement settlement in the global freight sector (eliminating accountants’/operators’ jobs in these companies). I’m honestly very excited about this type of work. The benefits to society - better healthcare for less money, humans with thei…

> humans with their beautiful, creative brains not spending 40 hours a week looking at documents unnecessarily

What should they be doing once all the meaningful jobs are automated away?

> The flipside of this progress is, of course, that we have to overthrow the extractive capitalist system we have in place.

> I think the only thing that will actually push people to overthrow it is exactly the type of work I’m doing.

Stripping people of their livelihoods is one way to encourage them to overthrow the system, yes. Make no mistake though: the revolution will not be kind to you.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#62

Post by worldsayshi »

techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

We should also be displacing hierarchies. Why does it only benefit the very few? Because they get to somehow keep their moats. So how can we displace those moats?

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#63

Post by geysersam »

rqtwteye wrote: post #25
techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

Technical progress would be fantastic if the benefits didn't go mainly to the top. I am pretty sure in the not too far future we will have enough technology that you can live off the land somewhere with the help of some robots. Or have them do all your housework. In principle, this is great, but our society is not set up for a lot of people not working while the technology is progressed by a relatively small number o…

> I am pretty sure in the not too far future we will have enough technology that you can live off the land somewhere with the help of some robots.

I don't understand, what stops you from doing that today?

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#64

Post by ohgr »

techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

The depressing bit is it’s a corporate dystopia where you are a constant cash cow driven on hype and hope that never materialises.

Like fuck me someone was trying to sell my company an AI todo list the other day. What problem does it even solve?!?!?

Go out, buy a new iPhone. AI will come tomorrow and tell you when your mother gets to the airport and add it to your calendar and hire you a robotaxi to shovel your obsolete meat corpse into the worker ant distribution hub to escort her back to your techno-panopticon.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#65

Post by geysersam »

worldsayshi wrote: post #62
techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

We should also be displacing hierarchies. Why does it only benefit the very few? Because they get to somehow keep their moats. So how can we displace those moats?

> So how can we displace those moats?

Abolish private property I guess?

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#67

Post by 4b11b4 »

techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

I've recently been stuck on the idea that speculation is akin to computation... the moment we depart from the reality before us.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#68

Post by SequoiaHope »

techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

Well: though we are not particularly likely to I do think that replacing people with machines would be fantastic if we actually just let people relax and work less, and so rather than lament the state of things I tend to focus on the need to promote the value of social systems which support human thriving. On the second point, I guess I would say that most of the marketing talk we see is unlikely to manifest but the future will in fact bring fantastic and fanciful advances in technology - it just won’t be what the marketers are trying to tell us.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#69

Post by bashfulpup »

Very typical SV argument that R&D is "complex" and everything else is "simple".

Would it blow your mind if I told you 10yrs ago that we'd have AI that can do math/code better than 99% of humans but ordering a hotdog on doordash would be cutting edge and barely doable?

I don't disagree that "common" tasks are more valuable. I only argue that the argument these are easily automatable is a viewpoint based on ignorance. RPA has been around for over a decade and is not used in many tasks. AI is largely the same, until we get massive unrestriced access to the data for it we will not automate it.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#70

Post by User23 »

bashfulpup wrote: post #69

Very typical SV argument that R&D is "complex" and everything else is "simple". Would it blow your mind if I told you 10yrs ago that we'd have AI that can do math/code better than 99% of humans but ordering a hotdog on doordash would be cutting edge and barely doable? I don't disagree that "common" tasks are more valuable. I only argue that the argument these are easily automatable is a viewpoint based on ignorance.…

The code that AI is good at currently is exactly common tasks.

Good luck getting it to write a competitive video card driver for Nvidia hardware or anything else that requires actual creative problem solving that isn’t github boilerplate.

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