The way I see this is that you can feed Priya 10x as much work while you focus on higher level tasks and you make more money. Making everyone much more productive does not need to be destructive. Use this as an opportunity to scale things up, because you can clearly afford priya right now, you should be able to do more.
I wish GPT4 had never happened
71–80 of 1001 posts
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#72The big oversight here is that Priya does not want a job , what Priya wants is an income . The point of life is not working, the point of life is to enjoy it. We should strive to eliminate as many jobs as we possibly can, the less we have to work the better it is. To make this possible we need to find a way to a new system that doesn't directly link labour with income .
> doesn't directly link labour with income
Who in their right mind would work if they can get free income, even if small, without having a disability or similar disqualifier?
Right now, we are in a worker shortage, and it’s going to get worse as retirements continue. Separating labor from work would cripple living standards and demoralize productive workers.
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#73The big oversight here is that Priya does not want a job , what Priya wants is an income . The point of life is not working, the point of life is to enjoy it. We should strive to eliminate as many jobs as we possibly can, the less we have to work the better it is. To make this possible we need to find a way to a new system that doesn't directly link labour with income .
Jobs often make people feel useful. While many can be the happy unemployed person playing Counterstrike 24/7, many others need some sort of occupation for self-realization. This is actually a common problem, which can even became a major psychological issue, with people entering retirement.
Maybe one day we can live in a world where machines are doing all the work and there are fulfilling hobbies for everybody, but I fear this will require more changes, on a much longer time horizon, than the short-term issues just around the corner due to the recent AI advances.
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#74This is a really pessimistic and shallow article. Who will prompt the AI for code? Manager? Also, you mentioned it gave wrong result at first. How did you know? Because you know how to code. As mentioned in other comment she should learn more about programming so she can become indispensible.
"...she should learn more about programming..."
The post covered that - she's trying, but struggling with it. Not everyone has the kind of mind that can understand, write and manage code easily. So what then?
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that would require that we start taxing companies far more and stop the global tax evasion mechanisms. I fear automation is just going to further increase inequality and devastate the middle class. But that has been predicted for every new increase in automation, so maybe we‘ll be wrong again.
If everybody is unemployed, then we’ll have plenty of time to to protest and demand major social changes. Hopefully we will have enough leverage to actually make it happen.
That only works when you aren't starved already. Many in 3rd world countries are experiencing it right now.
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#76The big oversight here is that Priya does not want a job , what Priya wants is an income . The point of life is not working, the point of life is to enjoy it. We should strive to eliminate as many jobs as we possibly can, the less we have to work the better it is. To make this possible we need to find a way to a new system that doesn't directly link labour with income .
Billions of people throughout history have worked just to live. The biological and evolutionary point of life is to reproduce.
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#77It looks like those who love LLMs (which I do) are forcing themselves to come up with narratives that mitigate the proposed negative effects. I have a different suggestion. It’s likely it is real and painful and sad. Transitions are hard, disruptive and can often cause very real and negative problems, but they are unavoidable and historically technology brings humanity to a better place in the long run. That reminder…
I keep hearing this but I’ve never heard a coherent plan about how we’d go forwards with AI, like what is the actual strategy and do we actually think this will end.
By all accounts it’s probably not going to be ideal?
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
All small businesses are not pure profit maximizers. Anyway even if they were, there’s MORE money to be made by empowering employees to use powerful tools which can increase revenues and profits much more than just firing. Doing so generates goodwill which improves employee effectiveness and drive.
Small businesses get eaten . That's the entire point of modern venture capital, even! Find ways to out-operationalize small businesses in sub-optimally exploited markets while burning an ocean of cash, then seek profits when you no longer have to dump to be competitive. It's okay to not think every technology under the sun is a good thing. You don't have to have heart-eyes emojis for the immiseration machine.
Sounds like a good idea to embrace new tech, then, instead of get eaten.
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#79I have a suspicion that things will get much, much worse for millions of people before they get better
Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the author is not proposing to keep worthless jobs but realized that while Priya work is worthless, his very own work is about to become so.
But the title implies that he wishes that gpt4 never existed so those jobs could continue existing like in the past?
I think it is more similar to how I wish a cute gazelle wouldn't be eaten by a lion, but that's the way it goes.