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I wish GPT4 had never happened

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Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#981

Post by imtringued »

ilaksh wrote: post #735
dns_snek wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as we lower that bar, the value a computer programmer has may begin to diminish. As a developer, I feel like it's the opposite. If anything, it's going to raise the bar by replacing low skilled coders who are only good at cheaply producing piles of future tech debt, GPT4 will do that sort of work for 'free'. On the other hand it's going to empower non-programmers to write or debug low complexity scripts on thei…

Do some more testing. Try putting it in a debug loop. Imagine tooling that has access to the files and a longer context window. If this is truly your judgement then GPT4 already has better reasoning capabilities than you. Imagine improved versions every 3-6 months.

The problem with this idea is that at some point you end up with a good approximation of AGI so humanity at large would become redundant, not just software developers.

Everyone talks about how the act of software development is being automated, nobody thinks about the impact of the software that is being developed, as if that had no impact on anyone else. Given enough effort you can replicate any human skill faster than people can retrain to an unknown skill.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#982

Post by imtringued »

renewiltord wrote: post #532
pavlov wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandparent comment does contain a definition: “A […] system that […] would make people welcome better AI because they could be confident it would make everyone wealthier” That would be a fair system regardless of the specifics of how it’s achieved.

Well, then we have been living in a system that's as close to fair as possible since global individual wealth has been growing for a long time. The few times we had it shrink significantly over some period of time is when local populations attempted forced wealth distribution. Our present system, by this definition, is amazing!

The US had both higher growth and higher wealth redistribution after world war 2 (extremely progressive income taxation and steep wealth taxes). The 70s ended wealth redistribution and the US has lower growth. At least get your basic history right.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#985

Post by fl7305 »

greatpatton wrote: post #670
fl7305 wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 1960's, the average lifespan was in the 60s Yes. At birth. The remaining life expectancy at 30/40/50/60 has not increased nearly as much as you would think from the increase in average lifespan at birth.

For Switzerland life expectancy for men went from 26 years at 50 years old in 1981 to 33.1 at the same age in 2021. That's more than 7 years. (At birth it increased from 72.4 to 81.6 at bit more than 9 years). So can we now please stop to mention all the time that the increase in life expectancy is only caused by infant mortality reduction when it's clearly not the case?

> So can we now please stop to mention all the time that the increase in life expectancy is only caused by infant mortality reduction when it's clearly not the case?

My point was in regards to the GP:

>> In the 1960's, the average lifespan was in the 60s. So a retirement age of 65 meant that around half of retirees would die before collecting retirement.

>> Now the average lifespan is 80. And the median age of the population is older than ever.

This makes it look like the pension system is doomed to fail due to a massive increase in the average lifespan today compared to earlier.

> That's more than 7 years.

If you're looking to balance the pension system, people just need to work 3.5 years longer given that increase.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#986

Post by fl7305 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #634
fl7305 wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 1960's, the average lifespan was in the 60s Yes. At birth. The remaining life expectancy at 30/40/50/60 has not increased nearly as much as you would think from the increase in average lifespan at birth.

It's gone from about 70 for average people in 1920 (when life expectancy was at a local minimum, probably due to pollutants and terrible diet) to about 80, not counting infant mortality. That still means tripling the years in which someone is retired.

If you look at the pension system today, people work for about 40 years, and are retired for about 20 years.

If the average life expectancy for the retirees increases by 1 year, they'd have to work 6 months longer to keep the system balanced with those numbers.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#987

Post by jamilton »

s__s wrote: post #764
Nifty3929 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly! Imagine as a thought experiment that we can produce everything we do today, but with zero labor due to automation. This would be a miracle for humanity! For one thing, we could use all our free time however we want, including working to produce still more stuff, or just go hiking. The real problem is how to distribute the goods and services produced - and there a UBI is probably the right answer. Machin…

As soon as you rely on UBI to live you’ve lost all control of your own life. Your a child with an allowance. The state has absolute authority over you. The government is already controlled and influenced primarily by nefarious interests. I can’t even begin to imagine how nasty it gets when the entire population relies on them for mere sustenance.

The state already controls your money.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#988

Post by roncesvalles »

HealthNeed wrote: post #633
ericbarrett wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a ratchet. It doesn't die, or retire, or change careers. Once it's good at something, it stays good. Once it gets better at something, it stays better. (If not, the model is disposed of without pity or remorse.) Right now, it may make you better at your job. But your very use of it is training it to do your job. It seems to me that if AI is currently helpful to you, it is likely to eventually replace you. And m…

What does "take it seriously" mean? For me, taking it seriously means that I am trying to use it as multiplier to be better at my own job. Is there some better course of action you think we should be taking? I personally do not think it is going anywhere, so I figure I had better be the expert.

Treat your job like a major league sports career. You have 10 more years at most. Earn and save what you can.

I'm pretty much responding to this by trying to maximize my earning potential immediately (TC is the only king. No more gambits where I might take a lower-paying job to "learn more" or have better WLB) and planning on limiting my expenses.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#989

Post by biql »

Imagine the world where everything is fully automated. You arrive at a city, order a self-driving taxi, do a self-check-in at the hotel that is managed by robots, order a food that is cooked by robots, using ingredients delivered by robots, grown in farms managed by robots. The hotel itself was 3d printed and the city district was planned by an AI algorithm optimised for economic utility. How many iterations are there before this is the reality? It would probably take a century before something like this is the norm.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#990

Post by spyckie2 »

Herval_freire wrote: post #938
dns_snek wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In theory to save people you must function as a welfare state with things like ubi. You must deliberately distribute income unfairly. This is only true for perverted definition of the word "fair" which allows owners/investors to perpetually capture 99.9% of the value produced by people who research, develop, build, and operate "your" machines. When this is your ground truth, I can see how you would perceive a truly…

Right so if I'm a janitor and I use chemicals to clean things which is the result of hundreds of years of human ingenuity and chemical engineering I suddenly owe humanity money? No. That is the perverted idea. I'm simply talking about fair as in fair trade. As in what is defined as a fair trade and a fair transaction according to economic theory and common sense. I am using the absolute most normal and most common se…

"Fairness" in this definition is tied to a belief that everyone deserves a decent life.

The thought is this: we are not a society of cavemen or subsistence farmers. We're the richest society in our history by far, so all people should enjoy the fruits of such a society.

Let's say you develop a debilitating illness that robs you of your ability to produce income. Or, you have a loved one—a child—that is debilitated and will never participate in the normal "fair trade" society.

Society condemns them to a life of poverty and suffering because of their debilitation. Is that "fair" in the context of our economic surplus? If it is fair, how much more should our economic surplus be in order for these debilitated individuals to have a decent life? Will they never ever have a decent life and that's just what we decide for ourselves?

This is ultimately a moral question. Can we imagine or create a society that yields better standard of living outcomes regardless of that person's status or capability? Andrew Yang's UBI policy was essentially because he had a son with down syndrome.

If you had down syndrome, would you prefer the "fair trade" definition of fairness, or the "fair living" definition?

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