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AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

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Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#81

Post by rekrsiv »

renewiltord wrote: post #11

This stuff is all a bit much. Fan fiction sites are all “creative content lifted without your consent”. You think J K Rowling consented to Harry x Hermione slash fiction? Or Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? Absolutely non-consensual. All of this stuff is clearly a highly cherry-picked gymnastic exercise to justify a pre-existing position. Classic Elephant and Rider stuff. It’s the same as support for the…

You forgot to provide a counter-argument to the author's position while you attacked them personally.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#82

Post by zmgsabst »

philistine wrote: post #52
zmgsabst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the same way about automatic looms displacing crafters, eg, the Luddites?

Someone needs to maintain and setup those efficient brand new looms. All I hear from AI is the promise that managers and owners will no longer need creative and managerial workers.

As many people as were employed as artisans? — are the new jobs on average as good as artisanship?

Or so we displace 9/10 workers to worse or no jobs while 1/10 gets a valuable one?

My understanding of AI is that it’s likely to represent the same 90:10 split — where some people operate those new AI systems, but most people are displaced to intellectual assembly lines. (Or unneeded, entirely.)

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#83

Post by [deleted] »

anoncow wrote: post #49
barrell wrote: 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.

[deleted]

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#84

Post by simianwords »

This is a strange article. AI is the best thing to happen to meritocracy. Previously, knowledge was gatekept. Pretty much everyone has access to ChatGPT in India.

You used to need the privilege of knowing the right people or knowing the right sources. But you don’t need that anymore.

What honestly could be better for meritocracy than AI?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#86

Post by Ekaros »

woile wrote: post #65
sneak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ch…

I think in that same book there was scene about going far fast. Essentially doing that was still huge energy expenditure and done rarely. Just it being done for main character told that it was something Minds considered important.

Culture is bit weird post-scarcity utopia. The space habitats are big and housing in such are plentiful. And basically just given away as toys to placate the fleshbags.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#87

Post by daemonologist »

sneak wrote: post #33
raincole wrote: post #14

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…

I think base case yes, Hub just assigns you something (appropriate, and accommodating your requests as much as possible), but highly desirable locations would be bartered/traded for favors/given to a friend.

I also think that in such a utopia the maximum density would just be a lot lower - no pressure to live near a job or amenities, better transportation, and it'd be easy to move.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#88

Post by simianwords »

nathias wrote: post #50
barrell wrote: 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's a fundemental misunderstanding of value. Things are useful regardless of their price, the price is speculative but if there is a cost producing something (from earth, the mind or AI) the price will not be zero. Scarcity is the basis of value only for things that have no other utility and cost, for example some crypto made just for pump and dump.

What about land which has high value because of its scarcity?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#89

Post by simianwords »

RobinL wrote: post #9
barrell wrote: 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…

Price and scarcity go hand in hand, not value and scarcity. Diamonds are pretty worthless but expensive because they're scarce (putting aside industrial applications), water is extremely valuable but cheap. No doubt there are some goods where the value is related to price, but these are probably mostly status related goods. e.g. to many buyers, the whole point in a Rolex is that it's expensive.

I thought diamonds are not scarce

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#90

Post by impossiblefork »

youoy wrote: post #51

> Right now, even people who reject meritocracy understand its logic. You develop rare skills, you work hard, you create value, and you capture some of that value. The premise is that AI does not allow to do this any more, which is completely false. It may not allow to do it in the same way, so its true that some jobs may disappear, but others will be created. The article is too alarmist by someone who has drank all…

Yes, but I don't think it's about the present, necessarily.

AI is still shit. There are prompt networks, what some people call agents, but presently models are still primarily trained as a singular models, not made to operate as agents in different contexts with RL on each agent being used to improve the whole indirectly.

Tokens will eventually become cheaper to the point where it will be possible to actually train proper agents. So we probably will end up with very powerful systems in time, systems that might actually be at least some kind of AGI-lite. I don't think is far off. At most a decade.

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