webdood90

The system does not reward deep understanding. It's too slow.

An analogy that I think helps describe how I feel about it all:

AI is like having cheat codes in a video game. You don't have to try hard and develop a deep understanding of how the game works. You aren't challenged anymore and it doesn't feel like you earned winning the game.

It doesn't matter because nobody cares. Businesses truly do not care. You are a cog, a means to an end. It's only about "winning". Now it's no longer fun to play the game.

> I did not live through that era

Then you probably don't fully understand where he's coming from, do you?

So true - same for me. Maybe because I'm older now? Not sure.

I think this translates to a few different mediums. I'm thinking about modern matchmaking in video games today.

I used to play a game called SOCOM II back on the PS2 and it was all lobby based. You had to jump around to find the right lobby with the game mode you liked, find people to play with and build community. There was time between games for banter.

Now everything is automatic and instantaneous. It has its advantages, just like with music, but something was definitely lost.

The root of all our evils, right here. We only want the fastest cheapest thing possible, without thinking about how it impacts literally everything else about our world.

[flagged]

You can have a fulfilling and rewarding career in tech without working for a monster.

The mental gymnastics people do to justify their decisions are hilarious. Just admit you have no morals and love money.

This, but take a bike ride or a bus instead of driving.

Why would you accept this? Who does this serve?

I want to believe the world is full of good people but I read stuff like this and realize otherwise.

It's okay to do things that don't maximize your return.

Everybody is so obsessed with squeezing out the maximum amount of money from everything, it's exhausting.

Who are you protecting here?

You realize a very small subset of the population can afford a million dollar home, let alone a five million dollar home?

The majority of the city does not give a shit.

Fair!

Why do people stan for billionaires? I don't get it - what motivates you to say this stuff?

Most of what you said is greatly exaggerated or simply not true. It's like you cherry picked Fox News talking points.

> Increasing the tax to just inflate a bureaucracy helps nobody

Bureaucracy = jobs, at least. I'd rather that than having it concentrated at the top.

Crazy how many people have their heads in the sand.

I'm glad you could think of a couple examples where AI might not replace humans. It's almost an entirely useless point to make.

The cat is already out of the bag. The information is out there and the models are trained. Even where we stand today will bring massive disruption in time.

The economy is being propped up by the wealthy few that have money to spend and now their legs are being cut out from under them with this technology. We're in for a reckoning.

> These people are absolutely lost, with administration totally sold on the idea that "AI is the future" ...

Doesn't sound that different from my tech job

> The single biggest potential productivity gain though I think is being able to do something else while the agent is coding, like you can go review a PR and then when you come back check out what the agent produced

Ugh, sounds awful. Constantly context switching and juggling multiple tasks is a sure-fire way to burn me out.

The human element in all of this never seems to be discussed. Maybe this will weed out those that are unworthy of the new process but I simply don't want to be "on" all the time. I don't want to be optimized like this.

Oh, the irony.

I've shifted my mindset to abandon this idea that humanity will survive forever, or that we should strive to live as long as we can.

Intelligence is a scarcity and it cannot overcome the majority of people that are incredibly stupid or ignorant. So accepting that we are doomed relieves some of the stress. I won't have children to worry about their future, either.

I still live my life in such a way that minimizes my impact on the world as much as possible. I still surround myself with folks that want a better world. But there is no stopping the impending doom and I'm trying not to be miserable with the time I have.

can't imagine getting this riled up over lowercase text. some serious fist-shaking-at-clouds energy.

it's meant to convey a casual, laid back tone - it's not that big of a deal.

Just sounds absolutely miserable to prioritize that way of living that is so car dependent. So many negatives come from it:

- pollution

- traffic deaths

- heat generation from all the infra

- inefficient use of space

- ugly aesthetic of strip malls and parking lots

It doesn't have to be this way. We can do better to build diverse housing in our cities, leverage space at the ground level for businesses, invest in our transit to make it safer and more convenient.

Instead we just go with what's easy and continue to build roads and sprawl.

How many human drivers do you think would pass the bar you're setting?

IMO, the bar should be that the technology is a significant improvement over the average performance of human drivers (which I don't think is that hard), not necessarily perfect.

The signal-to-noise ratio is going crazy. How do you stand out when there are 10x as many people trying to make the same buck as you? There is so much garbage being created, it's insane.

> blue collar work

I don't think it's fair to qualify this as blue collar work

I think that's a fair point.

Is the discussion about only one particular kind of poor person?

The system is a trap to keep people poor. A lot of people make the wrong decisions that keep them there. Can we not talk about that? It doesn't belittle the subset of folks that it doesn't apply to.

I grew up this way and saw it first-hand. A dead-beat step dad who didn't work for literally _years_. A mother with the only income of less than $40k/year for 3.

Cigarettes and beer every night. Fancy, financed cars with ridiculous interest rates because their credit scores were shit. Rent-a-center furniture payments. The newest phones and other bullshit that they couldn't truly afford.

So many people in our circles lived this way or worse. And I'm not trying to come forward and say "I got out of it so everyone can!" - just that people have a small amount of control and they regularly make the wrong decisions.

I'm not disputing those things happen or that luck plays a big part. I'm commenting on what people have control over.

I'm not sure what is compelling you to be so rude to a complete stranger on the internet. I'm here to discuss, have my ideas challenged, and learn.

> I wonder why folks who start with roughly the same skills, intelligence and opportunities (and bank account balance!) can nevertheless end up in very different places?

I am answering this question.

Perhaps you could reply with something useful instead of attacking my comment.

> I wonder why folks who start with roughly the same skills, intelligence and opportunities (and bank account balance!) can nevertheless end up in very different places?

I actually think a lot of it comes down to self control.

Can you resist the allure of consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses? Are you buying liabilities that actually make your life harder? Are you living outside of your means?

IMO it matters little how much you earn if you don't know how to spend it.

There are ~160 million working adults in the US. Jobs numbers being off by 100k in either direction doesn't seem that bad when you consider that.