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Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

adlrocha.substack.com

81–90 of 114 posts

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#81
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have post scarcity due to AI, everything becomes so uncertain. Why would we still have violent and crazy people? Surely the ASI could figure it out and fix whatever is going on in their brains. It's so fuzzy after that event horizon I have no confidence in any predictions.

Why are some people able to bear suffering whereas others go bonkers? Or what if the only source of happiness of some of those crazy people is domination of other people and exclusivity of social hierarchies? How would AI fix that?

>Why some people are able to bear suffering whereas others go bonkers?

Well at least in some cases the scale of suffering between the bonkers and the ones bearing it might be significantly different.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#82
> "what is the role of humans in a scenario where work is no longer necessary?"

People have been fantasizing about this scenario throughout the industrial era--read William Morris' News from Nowhere (1890) for example--but it has failed to come to pass so many times, and the reasons are pretty obvious. The benefits of technology are spread unequally, and increasingly so over time, so only a wealthy few get the option of a post-labor existence. Also, our demands for the products of labor change as labor productivity increases; we prefer (or have been persuaded to act as if we prefer) material riches over lives with less stuff and more time.

We still haven't seen that AI actually replaces labor, as opposed to amplifying it, like a power saw or CNC mill used by a carpenter, so all these discussions about the end of labor seem like unwitting sales pitches for AI.

> “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”

The real question is why would anyone want, or want to help build, such an obscenity.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#83
post #7

>someone raised the question of “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”. Norbert Wiener, considered to be the father of Cybernetics, wrote a book back in the 1950's entitled "The Human Use of Human Beings" that brings up these questions in the early days of digital electronics and control systems. In it, he brings up things like: - 'Robots enslaving humans for doing jobs better suited by robots due…

>- 'Automation will lead to immediate devaluation of human labor that is routine. Society needs to decouple a person's "worth" from their "utility as a tool".' I have this vision that in absence of the ability for people to form social hierarchies on the back of their economic value to society, there will be this AI fueled class hierarchy of people's general social ability. So rather than money determining your neigh…

I'm terrified at the idea that society will select the crazies and the violent instead. I wonder why I think that

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#84
post #54

For anyone worried about AGI coming soon. Today I asked Claude to stop using em dashes. That was his/her answer: Noted — I'II avoid em dashes going forward and use other punctuation or restructure sentences instead.

I know some very smart guys that don’tknow how to use a microwave. And what? Doesn’t mean much

Are you afraid of them?

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#86

> But the topic of conversation that I enjoyed the most was when someone raised the question of “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”. Some were skeptical about whether we are ever going to reach an AI-first society. If we understand as an AI-first society, one where the fabric of the economy and society is automated through agents interacting with each other without human interaction, I think tha…

Right now, 30 seconds ago, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about a book I found that was written in the 60s. It made up the entire description. When I pointed this out, it apologized and then made up another description. The idea that this is going to lead to superintelligence in a few years is absolutely nonsense.

Is that because this book is obscure and no human has yet written a description that could be scraped?

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#87
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- 'Automation will lead to immediate devaluation of human labor that is routine. Society needs to decouple a person's "worth" from their "utility as a tool".' I have this vision that in absence of the ability for people to form social hierarchies on the back of their economic value to society, there will be this AI fueled class hierarchy of people's general social ability. So rather than money determining your neigh…

I'm terrified at the idea that society will select the crazies and the violent instead. I wonder why I think that

My real personal "doom" theory is that AI will, err, remove 99.99% of humans, pretty much everyone except for the top 100,000 based whatever fractally complex metric scheme it deems important.

Then those 100,000 get a utopia, the AI gets everything else, and ultimately the humans are just nice pets.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#88
post #7

>someone raised the question of “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”. Norbert Wiener, considered to be the father of Cybernetics, wrote a book back in the 1950's entitled "The Human Use of Human Beings" that brings up these questions in the early days of digital electronics and control systems. In it, he brings up things like: - 'Robots enslaving humans for doing jobs better suited by robots due…

I think its important to remember that humans are not that far removed from the native animals that we share the earth with. Civilization is just a thin layer of rules we use to try and keep the peace between us.

Just being born doesn't entitle somebody to food and shelter, you have to go out and find it. You have to work.

A magpie is not provided food and shelter, it has to hunt, fight for territory, and build its nest.

Humans don't have some inalienable "worth". But if you can work, you might choose to trade it for some food and shelter.

AI is not going change that. We might think the AI owners have a moral obligation to feed people who can't find work, but there is no guarantee this will happen.

Also, for the short term at least, we need to stop talking about AI like its a thing, and talk about the companies that build and own the AI. Why would Google build an AI that can do everyone's job, then turn around and start building farms to feed us for free?

Do we perhaps imagine our Governments are going to start building super automated farms to feed us. How are they going to pay Google for the AI with no tax income?

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly it looks like seanhunter was correct, shame.

He was literally wrong about chess

I said “say I said they couldn’t play chess, you will say they can” and you did. That’s literally not wrong.

Re: Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat

#90
post #7

>someone raised the question of “what would be the role of humans in an AI-first society”. Norbert Wiener, considered to be the father of Cybernetics, wrote a book back in the 1950's entitled "The Human Use of Human Beings" that brings up these questions in the early days of digital electronics and control systems. In it, he brings up things like: - 'Robots enslaving humans for doing jobs better suited by robots due…

>- 'Automation will lead to immediate devaluation of human labor that is routine. Society needs to decouple a person's "worth" from their "utility as a tool".' I have this vision that in absence of the ability for people to form social hierarchies on the back of their economic value to society, there will be this AI fueled class hierarchy of people's general social ability. So rather than money determining your neigh…

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