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Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

petergabriel.com

81–90 of 167 posts

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#81
post #37

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

A train is approaching on the tracks, on one track you create free energy, solve diseases, create a new dawn for human ingenuity and also some white collar jobs are removed, others are created. On the other track we continue to toil in the dirt.

We've been on this track before. Even more will be toiling in the dirt. Quite literally when AI takes every job that doesn't involve physical labor.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're technically correct, but missing the point: When technology destroys menial jobs, it's progress . When technology destroys white-color jobs, it's a threat .

When technology destroys work people don't like to do, it's progress . When technology destroys work people like to do, it's _______.

> When technology destroys work people don't like to do, it's progress.

The Luddites would beg to differ.

People don't work because they like it, they work because they need to. "Work" that doesn't support your livelihood is correctly referred to as "play."

The interesting thing is how society differently reacts when different classes of people lose their work due to progress.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When technology destroys work people don't like to do, it's progress . When technology destroys work people like to do, it's _______.

> When technology destroys work people like to do, it's _______. Liberating. I remember enjoying laying out sheet music. Doesn't mean I scorn my iPad.

Did you lose your livelihood because your iPad made composing easier?

If not, then technology didn't destroy your work.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#84

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

This comes off as incredibly passive. You are in control of how you use and adapt to AI.

>if AI takes my job

AI is not going to take anyone's job. People using AI will take jobs from people who don't use AI.

>What happens to the doctors

That's completely up to them. Some will use AI to research new treatments, to assist with their daily workload, or even to treat patients.

Some doctors will stick their head in the sand and refuse to work with the new technology. They might lose their jobs if they can't compete with AI-assisted doctors, and it will be entirely their fault.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prosperity for whom? The answer for the past 50 years has certainly not been “everyone” or even “most people” in wealthy countries like America. The poorest state in America, Mississippi, is richer than most of the world [1][2]. (No. 19, between the U.K. and New Zealand.) The post-war era experienced the largest and most broad-based increase in material prosperity in human history. Our poorest Americans saw real ec…

I would say that someone looking at all the problems that Mississippi has, while existing inside the richest country in human history, and saying “well, it’s not as bad as XYZ poor country” is a textbook example of the nihilism and failed imagination that has led us to wealth inequality and declining lifespans.

> someone looking at all the problems that Mississippi has, while existing inside the richest country in human history, and saying “well, it’s not as bad as XYZ poor country” is a textbook example of nihilism and failed imagination

I'm not saying there aren't problems. We're comparing medians. The poorest Mississippians struggles with problems on Maslow's hierarchy well above the median or even top quartile human.

So yes, we've been halfway better than nothing at distributing gains. That isn't an argument against change. But it is solid against arguing were should stall all progress until some imaginary threshold is met.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When technology destroys work people like to do, it's _______. Liberating. I remember enjoying laying out sheet music. Doesn't mean I scorn my iPad.

Did you lose your livelihood because your iPad made composing easier? If not, then technology didn't destroy your work.

> Did you lose your livelihood because your iPad made composing easier

Page flippers sure did. (I'm not a professional musician.)

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#87

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

This comes off as incredibly passive. You are in control of how you use and adapt to AI. >if AI takes my job AI is not going to take anyone's job. People using AI will take jobs from people who don't use AI. >What happens to the doctors That's completely up to them. Some will use AI to research new treatments, to assist with their daily workload, or even to treat patients. Some doctors will stick their head in the sa…

“AI is not going to take anyone's job. People using AI will take jobs from people who don't use AI.”

An incredible distinction on the level of “guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people”. The difference is practically meaningless. By your logic, if everybody uses AI then no one loses their job but that’s not how productivity gains work is it?

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#88

I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people…

When AI Chess started kicking my @ss, I assumed that human competitive Chess was over.

Quite the opposite happened. We appreciate human-vs-human Chess even more because Stockfish, and other AIs, demonstrated there are more challenging lines and strategies to pursue.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#89
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely more. This takes very hard and challenging work and turns it into nearly nothing. This reduces decades of skilled labor and education into an algorithm. I'm not undervaluing industrialization, but the improvement in productivity wasn't on the same scale. We're talking reducing weeks of work to seconds in some cases, and that's not even being optimistic with what improvements we might still see in the comin…

> takes very hard and challenging work and turns it into nearly nothing. This reduces decades of skilled labor and education into an algorithm Read up on Luddism. These were multi-generational trades undone by the loom alone. The Industrial Revolution required millions of people to not only retrain, but also relocate. It changed political structures, often violently. Even in the 1980s, skilled spreadsheets were done…

The scale is different by a grand margin. If 50% of US jobs are replaced by AI in the next 20 years, and those jobs aren't replaced by other jobs, and people depend on income to survive, what happens?

I'm not saying to ban it. I think the productivity gain could be a gift. Everybody being freed from the need to work would be amazing.

But without actually dealing with it, what's the proposal for dealing with the majority of the population of your country being completely without employment? What do we do for money when there's no work left to be done? The whole country can't trade stocks for a living.

Re: Peter Gabriel: AI competition statement

#90
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> takes very hard and challenging work and turns it into nearly nothing. This reduces decades of skilled labor and education into an algorithm Read up on Luddism. These were multi-generational trades undone by the loom alone. The Industrial Revolution required millions of people to not only retrain, but also relocate. It changed political structures, often violently. Even in the 1980s, skilled spreadsheets were done…

The scale is different by a grand margin. If 50% of US jobs are replaced by AI in the next 20 years, and those jobs aren't replaced by other jobs, and people depend on income to survive, what happens? I'm not saying to ban it. I think the productivity gain could be a gift. Everybody being freed from the need to work would be amazing. But without actually dealing with it, what's the proposal for dealing with the major…

> If 50% of US jobs are replaced by AI in the next 20 years, and those jobs aren't replaced by other jobs, and people depend on income to survive, what happens?

Which 50% are you seeing replaced? We can, and have, always imagined mass income eradication.

I'm not arguing we do nothing. But zero problems surfaced so far are even remotely actionable, as they're all well within the realm of hypothesis versus evidence.

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