Comment by hypfer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hypfer | Hacker News Reader

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If you allow me to also tap into fiction and creative writing.

I think people generally underestimate how much change a small "dedicated" group of people can achieve if morals are considered optional.

A lot of the debate on AI and its consequences is built on various assumptions that all kinda take the status quo (apathy, regulatory capture, but also laws) and take that as a given.

History - like e.g. the third reich, but also military coups - however tells us that these kinds of assumptions can be void at any time for any reason without a mandate or a democratic resolution to do so.

I am practically certain that before everything collapsed as predicted, someone will "restore order" by any means necessary.

If that means shutting down the Internet, the Internet will shut down. If that means "shutting down" people, then people will be shut down.

The predicted scenarios are all invalid states that the rules governing the underlying system will not allow to exist; or at least not for long.

I don't know if you're right or not, but this is the kind of thinking about what might happen that is needed - can you write up a more concrete fiction of this?

The whole thing feels unreal to nearly everyone - the only tangible write-up I've seen was in Plan A. I don't think people have thought through the good scenarios tangibly, never mind the bad ones.

Hmm that is a good question.

I can't really provide a full picture here as I just make stuff up as I go, but the first word that came to my mind when reading your question was "atomization".

Not sure what my brain wants to tell me with that, though.

It might be one of the prerequisites for the current state. It might be what changes for greater change to quickly snap into existence. Or it might also be brainfart.

Not sure if a quick answer like this is helpful, but maybe there will be a longer answer later. Or not. The brain works in mysterious ways.

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Hmm. It might be that the mechanisms that have been pushing said atomization could perhaps break down due to the reward systems breaking down.

And then suddenly collectives violently snap back together like these neodymium magnets that make that fun sound.

Which, in more concrete terms, could possibly be translated as "people might get so sick of everything, they prefer logging off and talking to their neighbors instead". Although that is a translation that comes with resolution loss.

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Another thread to pull on here is that AI hyperinflates all sorts of things like fake merit or similar.

So stuff like virtual internetpoints driving people might not continue working.

Or if AI steals all our jobs as proposed, then maybe people will not take the monetary system in which AI wins seriously anymore.

Definitely these are forces that will do things. What their timing is relative to e.g. armies of AI robots, which could interfere with other humans living outside the internet/money, is part of the question.

Hope your brain works on this and writes something - we have lots of very odd future possibilities, and we're not really ready or planning for them, so making them tangible helps.

From my understanding, the "armies of AI robots" are just the wishful thinking of the currently winning people, in the sense that that would be what would be necessary to cement their own power while hoarding all resources for themselves.

It's not a real scenario. It's just rationalizing the "oh shit, they're coming for my head if I don't stop optimizing for my own benefit". "What can I do what can I do.. I know.. Army of Robots. I am safe and have nothing to change about anything I do".

You can tell that it is just that by considering the logistics of the proposed scenario.

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Every time we see vengeful AI or robots, we merely see a reflection of the currently winning meatbags, their character, their flaws, their fears and their goals.

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On the logistics note:

You can I think also see the hubris of the IT people in that, because "supply chain" for them means "npm", and that can be replaced with an LLM.

It breaks minds to be able to create value out of nothing just with your brain. It makes you believe that the whole world would work like that.

It however does not. And you cannot just compensate that with blitzscaling robots. The supply chain of.. literally any object you can find around you is absurdly complex. Even the most simplest stuff.

And it's also not documented, but even documentation wouldn't help you there. Experience in requirements engineering should make the "why" there obvious.

> someone will "restore order" by any means necessary.

Ah the good old appeal to / waiting for higher authority that will be moral and just and will do whats right and correct things.

Thats the shit naive humans hope for, thats why fairy tales of religions can still be acceptable in 21st century for some, despite often sounding like from (bad) disney cartoon movie.

I bring you alternate, more realistic view - there is nobody like that. We are in this on our own, its on each of us. Either we act or let things go as they will. So, not really good outlook, is it. Maybe this is the Great filter event.

Its one of those technologies that brings a lot, but for every single thing it brings it feels like we as mankind are losing much more than gained.

> Ah the good old appeal to / waiting for higher authority that will be moral and just and will do whats right and correct things.

> Thats the shit naive humans hope for,

No, you've misread me. I'm not "hoping" for anything. I've just wrote down what I suspect future outcomes will be in the same way a meteorologist predicts a storm or similar.

Whether you're interested in the weather forecast is a different question.

Sure, just that my forecast is a bit more cloudy than yours for reasons mentioned

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