I think personal lament is different from organizing to stop what is good for civilization.
There is a lot of the latter happening so my comment remains relevant.
“I need to block abundance for all because I don’t feel safe with change”
is probably the most dangerous sentiment coursing through our civilization right now, and it’s coming now for me, and this is my rationalization from giving in to my baser instincts.
The few already have Abundance. I don’t care about them.
I’m talking housing, infrastructure, shipping, medical care, all critical services and sectors where fixing decades of lagging productivity will help the working class the most.
But AI is touted as the replacement for the working class? It’s TAM is “the combined wages and salaries of everyone below the C-suite” and it gets trillions of investment dollars, and letters of marque for copyright infringement and hacking, to pursue this market.
I mean, just look at the sequence of events you’re expecting here:
1. Ai companies achieve their stated goals
2. ???
3. Housing, infrastructure, medical care, etc get better for the working class
Are you the king of the underpants gnomes or something? How could it ever turn out this way? Why does anyone think it would? Am I taking crazy pills?
If those goals are fully eliminating need for human labor, then I agree it probably won't be good for most people. But that will probably take at least decades.
Anything short of that, and I think economy will be pretty similar to what it is now. You still need working class and need it to be productive, so you do need them to be reasonably happy, housed, healthy, and you need good infrastructure. With lower cost for all this, why wouldn't things improve, like all times throughout history?
Not parent but I could image an (utopian?) society in which AI/LLM helps us develop software and hardware that can help generating better and cheaper outputs in those fields. Not saying it's going to happen but it could be a possible outcome.
“Are you the king of the underpants gnomes or something?”
No I’m just at the frontlines of this so called “replacement” and all I’m seeing is people doing more with less with no possibility of replacement. I have no idea what all this marketing pablum about TAM replacement is. All I’m seeing is growing businesses serving more people with less resources.
Could it be that CEO’s of struggling businesses are lying about why they’re doing the layoffs? Why are we suddenly believing them on this one issue?
Who says that just because production becomes cheap anyone but the few will benefit from that? The few already control AI, what makes you think they will share its bounties? Why would they? The goodness of their hearts? The same guys that are sitting on their pile of gold like a dragon right now while countless die every day from things their resources could've fixed? What makes you think they'd suddenly change their behavior?
Every technology revolution since the Gutenberg press has followed the same pathway? There is no evidence AI is any different. They had oligarchs back then, hell they had feudal lords backs then!
There are definitely transient upheavals as civilization adapts to the new norm and we can do much to reduce those effects.
But the end result is the same, more of everything made cheaper for the working class.
We are at the tail end of a 50 year productivity plateau and rising costs. We’re looking down the barrel of the first reduction in the QoL for our kids. I for one want to see what this tech has to offer.
I completely disagree with the way you frame this.
The "abundance" is not all positive valence. It is a flood of superficial good with an unmanaged ratio of negative byproduct mixed in.
Some of the "change" is not merely doing things a bit differently. The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.
I think there are several more dangerous sentiments coursing through civilization these days:
1. That people bear no moral responsibility to act in good faith, and the corollary that one can enjoy the fruits of production while externalizing all the liabilities.
2. That strategies like "move fast and break things" and "fake it until you make it" are universally applicable and appropriate, rather than only in the low-stakes entertainment/media/marketing fields where they flourished in recent decades.
3. That mere acquisition of capital gives one the right to perform N=1 experiments on global civilization, the economy, and the enviromment.
“The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.”
I think these are problems to be worked on and they are being worked on. The work just looks boring and will not make any newsfeeds anytime soon. Our systems are changing and adapting as we speak.
See my other comments as to why that sentiment is the most dangerous sentiment. It’s easy to point to the problem of oligarch’s or clearly labellable “bad actors” and incompetence.
But neighbors agitating to block housing, unions blocking productivity enhancing technologies? Much more difficult to treat these as a “problem” as they are just a mass of historically disenfranchised people protecting their interests. But they are doing wide damage, and that same sentiment is now coming to software developers.
What is civilization if not the amalgamation of people?
If sentiment around people is that they don't want this (and that seems to be the case, based on many many articles like the above, as well as opinion surveys), then who are you to tell them what's good for them?
People don't seem to want an improverishment of mind and soul in exchange for vague promises of some sort of other abundance.
> Why are they being forced to that dubious trade?
Because it's just the prisoner's dilemma in disguise. Most people don't really like the idea of AI, a lot of people especially outside of programming hate it, and I bet deep down inside a lot of programmers would prefer if AI never existed.
But it's easier to say that AI will bring great wonders because the alternative is acknowledging the reality - the diminishing returns of technology. And that brings a lot of cognitive dissonance if you're a programmer.
I'm not sure it maps well to game theory. I think it's more of a false dilemma.
There is the old adage in many academic fields that "progress happens one funeral at a time." It's an age-old, rueful take on how our own learning and adaptation proceeds within a collective society. It is a rendering of an objective truth seen at the intersection of evolutionary processes, memetics, and the human condition. It is not a call to action.
Sometimes, I think the most worrisome thing is the ever so slight possibility that some clever, naive upstart will hear this adage and, rather than ponder the lesson about patience and complex social systems, instead conclude that the short path to a lot of progress is a bunch of killing.
Even if we ignore the obvious psychopathy it takes to embrace such an idea, it is still fantastically myopic. Yes, in a hypothetical way it might happen... after the great chaos, some new civilization might emerge with an impressive growth spurt.
But, it is infantile fantasy to believe that such chaos can be applied in a goal-directed fashion, or that the perpetrator(s) can expect to survive it and enjoy the result. Nobody can control who nor what knowledge passes through the gauntlet, nor what direction it spins after that.
What troubles me most, perhaps, is that the current zeitgeist makes me think some people are oblivious to these caveats.
It wasn't programmers who brought us the idea that all problems, obstacles and goals can be conceptualised as an insufficiency of code, apps or gadgets, without any thought to politics, negative externalities, institutions, or philosophy.
That came from SV technocrats and associated capital owners.
Not even touching your caricature of the AI argument, but “most dangerous sentiment [in] civilization right now” is a crazy thing to say during the current global political zeitgeist.
This argument spans AI, housing, infrastructure, scaling medical access, the whole shebang of critical solutions to 21st century problems is held back to couch the discomfort of the few.
Whether it’s neighbors blocking housing, union bosses blocking port automation at the height of COVID, medical association’s controlling doctor quotas it’s the same sentiment, a fear of change.
I grant that a healthy distrust of the (capitalist) parties involved is fine but the reaction when given power is the same, veto: Stop everything now. Change is scary.
There is a lot of the latter happening so my comment remains relevant.
“I need to block abundance for all because I don’t feel safe with change”
is probably the most dangerous sentiment coursing through our civilization right now, and it’s coming now for me, and this is my rationalization from giving in to my baser instincts.
I’m imploring others to do the same
I’m talking housing, infrastructure, shipping, medical care, all critical services and sectors where fixing decades of lagging productivity will help the working class the most.
I mean, just look at the sequence of events you’re expecting here:
1. Ai companies achieve their stated goals
2. ???
3. Housing, infrastructure, medical care, etc get better for the working class
Are you the king of the underpants gnomes or something? How could it ever turn out this way? Why does anyone think it would? Am I taking crazy pills?
If those goals are fully eliminating need for human labor, then I agree it probably won't be good for most people. But that will probably take at least decades.
Anything short of that, and I think economy will be pretty similar to what it is now. You still need working class and need it to be productive, so you do need them to be reasonably happy, housed, healthy, and you need good infrastructure. With lower cost for all this, why wouldn't things improve, like all times throughout history?
No I’m just at the frontlines of this so called “replacement” and all I’m seeing is people doing more with less with no possibility of replacement. I have no idea what all this marketing pablum about TAM replacement is. All I’m seeing is growing businesses serving more people with less resources.
Could it be that CEO’s of struggling businesses are lying about why they’re doing the layoffs? Why are we suddenly believing them on this one issue?
… is a pretty grotesque straw man, but sure, fight it if you want.
There are definitely transient upheavals as civilization adapts to the new norm and we can do much to reduce those effects.
But the end result is the same, more of everything made cheaper for the working class.
We are at the tail end of a 50 year productivity plateau and rising costs. We’re looking down the barrel of the first reduction in the QoL for our kids. I for one want to see what this tech has to offer.
The "abundance" is not all positive valence. It is a flood of superficial good with an unmanaged ratio of negative byproduct mixed in.
Some of the "change" is not merely doing things a bit differently. The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.
I think there are several more dangerous sentiments coursing through civilization these days:
1. That people bear no moral responsibility to act in good faith, and the corollary that one can enjoy the fruits of production while externalizing all the liabilities.
2. That strategies like "move fast and break things" and "fake it until you make it" are universally applicable and appropriate, rather than only in the low-stakes entertainment/media/marketing fields where they flourished in recent decades.
3. That mere acquisition of capital gives one the right to perform N=1 experiments on global civilization, the economy, and the enviromment.
I think these are problems to be worked on and they are being worked on. The work just looks boring and will not make any newsfeeds anytime soon. Our systems are changing and adapting as we speak.
See my other comments as to why that sentiment is the most dangerous sentiment. It’s easy to point to the problem of oligarch’s or clearly labellable “bad actors” and incompetence.
But neighbors agitating to block housing, unions blocking productivity enhancing technologies? Much more difficult to treat these as a “problem” as they are just a mass of historically disenfranchised people protecting their interests. But they are doing wide damage, and that same sentiment is now coming to software developers.
If sentiment around people is that they don't want this (and that seems to be the case, based on many many articles like the above, as well as opinion surveys), then who are you to tell them what's good for them?
People don't seem to want an improverishment of mind and soul in exchange for vague promises of some sort of other abundance.
Why are they being forced to that dubious trade?
Because it's just the prisoner's dilemma in disguise. Most people don't really like the idea of AI, a lot of people especially outside of programming hate it, and I bet deep down inside a lot of programmers would prefer if AI never existed.
But it's easier to say that AI will bring great wonders because the alternative is acknowledging the reality - the diminishing returns of technology. And that brings a lot of cognitive dissonance if you're a programmer.
There is the old adage in many academic fields that "progress happens one funeral at a time." It's an age-old, rueful take on how our own learning and adaptation proceeds within a collective society. It is a rendering of an objective truth seen at the intersection of evolutionary processes, memetics, and the human condition. It is not a call to action.
Sometimes, I think the most worrisome thing is the ever so slight possibility that some clever, naive upstart will hear this adage and, rather than ponder the lesson about patience and complex social systems, instead conclude that the short path to a lot of progress is a bunch of killing.
Even if we ignore the obvious psychopathy it takes to embrace such an idea, it is still fantastically myopic. Yes, in a hypothetical way it might happen... after the great chaos, some new civilization might emerge with an impressive growth spurt.
But, it is infantile fantasy to believe that such chaos can be applied in a goal-directed fashion, or that the perpetrator(s) can expect to survive it and enjoy the result. Nobody can control who nor what knowledge passes through the gauntlet, nor what direction it spins after that.
What troubles me most, perhaps, is that the current zeitgeist makes me think some people are oblivious to these caveats.
Same here. "Are we all going crazy?" is the feeling I often have.
That came from SV technocrats and associated capital owners.
Whether it’s neighbors blocking housing, union bosses blocking port automation at the height of COVID, medical association’s controlling doctor quotas it’s the same sentiment, a fear of change.
I grant that a healthy distrust of the (capitalist) parties involved is fine but the reaction when given power is the same, veto: Stop everything now. Change is scary.
- significant amount of money that used to be wages now paid to AI companies
- causing significant power shift to the owners of AI companies
- significant amount of people out of jobs, at the same time blue collar workers still have to work
- causing anger and resentment within society
- fueled by AI owners who will train their models to subtly argue in their favor
- protecting themselves with drones
- significant amount of countries simply go bankrupt or fall apart
- unable to let go of the basic capitalist mindset that cannot work when there simply is no available work for many people