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Comment by istypwbasofotso | Hacker News Reader

The fascinating thing about the AI boom is that every suggested outcome just seems worse than if it were never invented. Even the "good" future is one where human effort has no value and no reward. What good is curing every disease and solving every math problem if it just leads to longer emptier lives?

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> just leads to longer emptier lives

This is the argument made by the Unabomber manifesto [1]. Maybe we should have listened to him?

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...

There are lots of anti-technology philosophers that expressed these ideas a lot better than Ted did. I know it's fun and edgy to go all "the unabomber was right", but if you actually read his writings he's also a weird racist/anti-"woke" whack-job. Read Ellul (ted's main influence) instead. I guess he is the reason I even know who that is though.

<< What good is curing every disease and solving every math problem if it just leads to longer emptier lives?

Yes, my cancer is cured, but I feel empty inside. I will take my chances with emptiness, thank you. At least with it have a chance it will get better on its own.

I don't understand this take. Like would you really rather work a job to make someone rich instead of playing with your kids, doing sports with friends, reading books, playing games, going to the beach etc. Of course this is best case scenario version where AI handles the real work and we can just enjoy the benefits of all this automation. Sadly it's a long shot because there are always some who just want money and power and can't stand people being content.

> Of course this is best case scenario version where AI handles the real work and we can just enjoy the benefits of all this automation.

Explain how this would not lead to an eventual Eloi & Morlocks situation.

> I don't understand this take

I think you do

> Of course this is best case scenario version where AI handles the real work and we can just enjoy the benefits of all this automation.

That's not a best case scenarlo. It's a claim that has no precedent in human history. The technology is unprecedented, sure, but that doesn't mean we can rewrite the rules of human behavior when predicting the future it'll bring.

The industrial revolution brought about the massive inequality of the Gilded Age, and those gains were not socialized but rather concentrated in the hands of the few. Perhaps you do not follow politics as closely as I do.

We are now seeing massive inequality again, due to corporations amassing wealth and political power. Part of what has driven that is the concentrations of wealth brought about by computer technology companies.

The burden of proof is on you to show that the people who profit from automating away all the jobs will change their minds about amassing wealth and power and decide to just start sharing all their stuff with the rest of us.

What? I see your "good" future as one where every apartment buikding has a basketball team and you compete against the others in your neighborhood for fun. For example. Do you seriously imagine a world like that would be empty and lacking meaning. In such a scenario AI takes away a lot, sure, but it also gives a a fair bit, most importantly time.

> Do you seriously imagine a world like that would be empty and lacking meaning

Yes. I think that being useful is a fundamental (and often understated) requirement of a happy fulfilling life.

I have been wondering if this just isn't a problem for most people, because for me it feels like a major problem. We sometimes find our reliance on other humans to be a burden, so we are optimizing towards a future where each human can do all their tasks without involving other humans. But this reliance was the whole basis of our success up until now.

When AI solves 100 frontier math problems, in some sense that's 100 lost opportunities for a human to feel proud and useful, having done something they can remember and talk about for the rest of their lives. I don't see where that loss gets made up.

> When AI solves 100 frontier math problems, in some sense that's 100 lost opportunities for a human to feel proud and useful, having done something they can remember and talk about for the rest of their lives. I don't see where that loss gets made up.

I agree completely and I think about it a lot. Our entire story as humans is built on the back of the great toil and accomplishment of other humans. What is going to go in the museums of the future? Just rows of placards that say "2107 - Opus 89.5 discovers X"?

AI might steal our glory as well as our jobs and I think that's just as tragic.

The AI "boom" has also been a net economic loss by all accounts, albeit the finances of the movers and shakers are opaque. The profits are all projected on the far side of a singularity that will make profits irrelevant.

It Will be like that movie zardos where everyone just keep looking at the sky

Isn't the author of The Culture series an interesting answer to this? I only read The Player of Games. To me it was fun to read that you could just play games your whole life.

This is an unbelievably nihilistic take.

I can tell you don't have anyone in your life suffering from debilitating disease, so I'll assume flippancy rather than malice here.

Alright, we can let the AI cure the diseases and we won't use it for anything else. Deal?

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