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AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

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61–70 of 195 posts

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#61
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?

Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others. If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expe…

Yeah they can, if the want isolation, no internet or water and no friends around them.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#62
post #49
post #5

An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. I realize the hyperbolic framing of the idea, but none-the-less I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This article feels li…

I think it is a step towards a money free world. Only if we could invent a food printer.

There is almost zero credible evidence I think you could point to that this even vaguely resembles a credible path that we are on in reality. Sometimes theoretical models don’t match reality and this sure seems to be a good example of that.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#63
post #5

An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. I realize the hyperbolic framing of the idea, but none-the-less I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This article feels li…

Is water less valuable because it comes out of a tap almost for no money?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#64
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?

Sorry, but its quite the opposite. Its dystopia considering only the already rich really benefit from it.

Especially combined with the AI companies focusing on the destruction of value of human creative output.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#65
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?

Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others. If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expe…

In Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota, part of what transforms society into an utopia is the development of some kind of flying car that can take you anywhere in the world in under 2hrs, making borders irrelevant. This transit system is coordinated by a special group.

I would suspect The Culture would have some means to travel very fast. But you are right that it's never explained. In "The player of games" I think the main character lives in a beautiful house with an incredible view, and I always wondered, how did he get that house?

If you think about, the problem could be solved even now, you could use fast trains to connect small cities, and replace cars completely.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#66
post #10

I feel a lot less pride in my creative work knowing it can be done much too easily with modern AI. It makes me less eager to create which is quite unfortunate. I haven’t felt to bad about my creative works being fed into training models. Taken by itself, my creations are minuscule. But it’s very apparent when I look at AI as a whole, having taken from everyone in aggregate. I feel that.

Perhaps I'm not the right person to reply to this, because I am just a beginner pixel artist, but I feel so much better when I finish my art projects when compared to the time I spent fiddling with stable diffusion. Maybe because I struggled so much to make it because of my mediocre skills?

I got the same feeling as when you defeat a boss in some soulslike game, it's frustrating but you feel so good when you're done with it.

AI art didn't feel special to me because you can generate as many as you want, I got bored very fast. I guess this is because I'm a process oriented person.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#67
post #64
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but its quite the opposite. Its dystopia considering only the already rich really benefit from it.

Especially combined with the AI companies focusing on the destruction of value of human creative output.

Yea that's a shame really... Creativity was one of the only things that made me enjoy my everyday life. I just do everything offline now. Sucks to not being able to discover new music as easily anymore though.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#68
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?

Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others. If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expe…

[dead]

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#69
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?

Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others. If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expe…

In "look to windward", on an orbital, limited tickets for a concert for a famous composer are assigned randomly. A black market forms for those tickets, mostly based on barter as of course they don't have money.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#70
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. 1) I think it's the destruction of our value, as workers. Without an unthinkable change in society, we'll be discarded. 2) I thin…

There is a very strong argument that if your work output can be discarded effectively in favor of a firehose of mediocre slop, then it is a moral imperative that we stop employing human beings in those roles as it’s a terrible waste of a human life. The only people I see handwringing over AI slop replacing their jobs are people who produce things of quality on the level of AI slop. Nobody truly creative seems to feel…

You’re doing that thing that people sometimes do where they say something incredibly naive but do so in such a confident manner that they imply they are really this enlightened individual and it’s everyone else who’s dumb.

But this idea that you’ve put forth really doesn’t hold up to even the lightest bit of scrutiny when you actually start thinking about what this would look like in reality.

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