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How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

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Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#71

Post by card_zero »

cautiouscat wrote: post #43
zeafoamrun wrote: post #38

One of my reports just sent me a giant design doc that Claude enthusiastically generated packed with plausible looking technical detail. Unfortunately the problem it's trying to solve is completely misguided and we shouldn't be doing it at all. So I'd say as answer to the question posed by this title: a while.

Yeah but these models are the worst they’ll ever be! They’ll get better! You need to give it better context! Did you try multiple agents? Sarcasm aside, I am just so tired.

You have to loop its weighted tool harness tighter until it gets iterated.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#72

Post by hodder »

dwa3592 wrote: post #23
hodder wrote: post #5

It's a specific subtype of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. They "know" AI cant do their own jobs, but it seems pretty good at summarizing what others do without understanding the nuance. It seems to really apply to the AI Lab CEOs who appear "shocked" everyone isn't simply replaced with LLMs by now so the timelines get kicked.

i like this and i think it's adjacent to gell-man effect rather than a subtype of it. Any CEO claiming AGI is here will never say, "AGI is here because it can automate what I do today." They are saying AGI is here because they have some loose understanding of what other humans seem to be doing and think the LLMs can also do this. In a way it also makes me think that these CEOs are kind of operating like LLMs - they s…

Spot on. That is what I was trying to get at.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#73

Post by wat10000 »

yCombLinks wrote: post #35
ddp26 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here, I drew on this from AI 2027. Yes, a very-expensive AGI, e.g. $1 million / day to simulate a smart human, would be a huge deal. But it would have meaningfully different effects than a cheap one. Here's one definition AI 2027 used [1]: "Superhuman coder (SC): An AI system for which the company could run with 5% of their compute budget 30x as many agents as they have human research engineers..." [1] https:/…

I've got no problem with your concept, and even think it's useful. I just don't think that concept and AGI are the same thing. Economically useful has no relation to what has been called AGI before.

I take it as a sign of how close it is (or how close people think it is). When AGI was SFnal magic, merely having it at all is a fascinating concept. Now that (people think) it's on the horizon, there are more practical concerns, like the fact that running these things might cost a substantial amount of money.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#75

Post by th4tth4ng »

hyperpape wrote: post #56

"Most purely cognitive labor is automatable" I cannot express how annoyed I am a researcher could use such a shitty definition. It only makes sense to say "most" if you have a clear idea of what constitutes the majority. "Most people are male" yeah, fine..50% + epsilon of humans are males. That's more or less decidable (maybe a little vague because of intersex folks). I believe it's false because there are slightly m…

You can make them separate questions rhetorically but it doesn't mean they need to followed up on as such. It's pretty simple...

Most of the time? Well it includes the word most, so yes.

Most of the tasks? Well it includes the word most, so yes.

Such is a common way of writing. Think of it as a kind of compression. Researchers consider the rhetoric more than you want to give them credit for with your knee jerk "I don't personally understand so these researchers are idiots" ad hominem.

Models do contain a mathematical happy path to answer most questions that have been asked and answered when the model was trained. The issue is not whether those answers exist but finding them. That's what the bulk of the bleeding edge of model work is focused on atm.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#76

Post by SirFatty »

coldtea wrote: post #40
zeafoamrun wrote: post #38

One of my reports just sent me a giant design doc that Claude enthusiastically generated packed with plausible looking technical detail. Unfortunately the problem it's trying to solve is completely misguided and we shouldn't be doing it at all. So I'd say as answer to the question posed by this title: a while.

> Unfortunately the problem it's trying to solve is completely misguided and we shouldn't be doing it at all Isn't that like 90% of project plans by pre-LLM managers too?

yeah, those damned managers.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#77

Post by hyperpape »

ddp26 wrote: post #67
hyperpape wrote: post #56

"Most purely cognitive labor is automatable" I cannot express how annoyed I am a researcher could use such a shitty definition. It only makes sense to say "most" if you have a clear idea of what constitutes the majority. "Most people are male" yeah, fine..50% + epsilon of humans are males. That's more or less decidable (maybe a little vague because of intersex folks). I believe it's false because there are slightly m…

What's a definition of AGI you would use, for either time, tasks, value, or job descriptions?

No one has to provide a definition to argue that your definition is inadequate.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#78

Post by scotty79 »

yCombLinks wrote: post #16

> The overlapping AGI definition I use here is "Most purely cognitive labor is automatable at better quality, speed, and cost than humans". That's a poor definition. Nowhere have I seen cheapness as being a requirement to count as AGI. If we have something that can do everything people can do and more, but it costs a lot means it's not AGI?

If it's not cheaper, it won't be automated. So saying that it's gonna get massively automated already includes assumption that it's gonna be cheaper. No harm in mentioning it again.

Re: How long until AI automates all cognitive labor?

#79

Post by scotty79 »

sdf4j wrote: post #41
ekidd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's merely human equivalent but somehow costs a lot more than actual humans, then it's actually pretty marginal until the cost comes down. There are a lot of humans. So you could technically have AGI without entering a true AGI era. "95% as good as an average Harvard graduate across the board, but it costs $5 million/year to run" is impressive and scientifically interesting, but not economically transformative. B…

Plenty of C-level executives have salaries around that number. Replacing them with AGI would be cost-effective. Cost is contingent, shouldn't be part of the AGI definition.

You could replace them with a potato and get similar economic outcomes for their companies.

They get this much money not because their work is worth this much. It's just how the system is set up.

AGI couldn't be CEO BECASUE it can't receive millions of dollars in compensation the same way potato can't. Getting this much money is what the CEO does. Apart from that they do very little when summed up.

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