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Comment by brushfoot | Hacker News Reader

> You will work less, produce more (with AI)

The "work less" notion seems based on the idea that the only kind of work we can do is to keep the 20th century going. Once that infrastructure is automated, there's nothing left to do. That's just not true.

AI can help us explore space, mine asteroids, discover new worlds. It can eradicate diseases. It can create portable tests for transmissible diseases. It can help us rebuild cities into green spaces with fruit trees, gardens, flowers.

We have this incredible new technology that can let us reshape the world into an incredible future. Why would we settle for anything less than Star Trek?

The possibilities aren't ending with AI; they're just beginning.

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That is a very nice point of view, thanks for sharing it. I'll try and keep it somewhere in my mind if the dark days come :)

Observing how AI (and, let's face it, pretty much every other tool at our disposal) has been used so far, I suspect that there will be quite a few steps before we get there. First, a mad rush to use AI for just about anything, just in case it sticks. In particular:

- attempting to build addictive technologies with AI (toys? casinos? conspiracy theories? definitely porn);

- attempting to speculate with AI;

- disrupting as many existing industries as possible with AI, whether it's sustainable or not;

- also, pretend AI (look at you, Parler/Hive);

- undoubtedly, AI for cyberwar;

- and of course, any number of confidence tricks based on AI.

My hope, at this stage, is that we'll hit a sufficient number of use cases in which AI is actually useful (AI for green urban planning?) before we hit either a new AI winter (which may be prompted by some catastrophe in which AI will have played some role).

Preach! Need more comments like this—about the cool new shit that will happen in the real world thanks to technological advancement. A very Musk-ian point of view.

Real talk though, we need another frontier to give (now globalized) human society something to look forward to. Colonization of space is pretty much the only place to go, and fortunately it doesn’t carry the moral baggage of displacing other life forms (at least as far as we know).

It can also help us spread propaganda, con people at massive scale, destroy public discourse spaces with spam, create deep fakes to slander people, start and prosecute wars, etc.

History shows that both good and bad things will be done with AI. We shouldn’t be doomers but we shouldn’t be naive either.

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