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

epoch.ai

71–80 of 319 posts

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

#71

This article lost all credibility with me here: > ...this means that only 20% of labor productivity growth in the US since 1988 has been driven by R&D spending! Capital deepening accounts for around half of labor productivity growth in this period... This is like saying that Jeff Dean's net worth is attributable not to his programming skills, but to the capital deepening of his bank account. The authors are working w…

You know how office workers are more productive because of computers? This didn't just happen because various companies did R&D investments in building (better) computers, but also because companies actually spent money buying computers for their office workers and because those office workers spent time learning how to use computers.

If A caused B caused C, how does one determine the relative contributions of A and B to C? It makes no sense.

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

#72

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…

[deleted]

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

#73

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've had a long history of technological improvements being widespread distributed to the people. There's not a particularly bleak reason to believe the latest AI automation won't be too. Look around your desk or your house and just count all the effort-saving devices that have made their way down to you. Look at the price of TVs cratering. Tech that can be recreated easily spreads far and wide. AI can too. It's dropped 1000x in costs the last 2 years. This stuff will be running on old tech everywhere - and speedier and cheaper new chips, bots and other hardware are on their way.

Unless there's a new world war or draconian regulation, we're good. It's pretty much locked in.

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

#74

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'm kind of optimistic, especially fixing mortality seems interesting.

I'm not sure which particular hype won't manifest but a lot of the AI progress is kind of inevitable.

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

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wanted fully-automated luxury communism, but I got fully-automated neo-feudalism instead. It feels bad.

Pretty much every piece of technology we have known so far which had creator restrictions has been jailbroken. Sure the future might be Elon & Bezos androids, but what’s stopping us from jailbreaking them and using them off grid?

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted fully-automated luxury communism, but I got fully-automated neo-feudalism instead. It feels bad.

Pretty much every piece of technology we have known so far which had creator restrictions has been jailbroken. Sure the future might be Elon & Bezos androids, but what’s stopping us from jailbreaking them and using them off grid?

Police and military

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

#77

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 word you're looking for is 'dystopian'

And thats the "optimistic" outlook :\

There's also a negative side . . .

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The fact that those robots don't exist :-)

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

#80

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've had a long history of technological improvements being widespread distributed to the people. There's not a particularly bleak reason to believe the latest AI automation won't be too. Look around your desk or your house and just count all the effort-saving devices that have made their way down to you. Look at the price of TVs cratering. Tech that can be recreated easily spreads far and wide. AI can too. It's dro…

Progress is not guaranteed.

Humanity has been around in basically the same form for 2 million years (and the same form for probably 200 000 years) yet life for the average person on the planet really started improving circa 1950.

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