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CaringRationalist t1_j6utw26 wrote

Reply to comment by F0rtysxity in The steam engine changed the world. Artificial intelligence could destroy it. - The Boston Globe by GlobeOpinion

It's not comparable though. Technology before now only replaced physical power, something humans never had in spades anyway.

Now, AI is poised to surpass our intellectual power, which is our strongest evolutionary tool. Unless we drastically redistribute the gains from AI in a way that the global right would absolutely revolt against, AI is guaranteed to lead to widespread unemployment and poverty the likes of which will make the great depression look tame.

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mouserat_hat t1_j6v0ski wrote

Pardon me, dear scholar, but I think our strongest evolutionary tools are our Pee-Pees and our Hoo-Hahs.

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CaringRationalist t1_j6vq5ch wrote

Can't tell if this is a joke, but considering that's not a unique characteristic of our species and that asexual reproduction exists, on the chance that it isn't a joke that's silly AF.

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jazzageguy t1_j6wesgh wrote

"Technology before now only replaced physical power"

You typed those words into a computer. They've been around for 70 years. They don't replace physical power. They evolve about a million times faster than we do, yet they don't seem to be trying to eliminate or impoverish us.

"...guaranteed to lead to widespread unemployment and poverty..."

Just as mechanical looms were sure to impoverish everybody. And every other invention. They've said that about technology for centuries. Some artifact in our brains leads us to imagine imminent doom. Dial phones, farm machinery, every invention was going to be catastrophic. But wow, no doom! It turns out all that scary tech is great for our species. Unemployment? Jobs are both more numerous and more rewarding when technology takes care of the grunt work. The record is crystal clear on this. There's the occasional problematic invention (nuclear bombs and internal combustion engines spring to mind), but the bombs prevented a lot of wars and cars improve standards of living until we cook the planet.

AI will not replace our intellectual power but augment it. That's what tech does. It makes us richer, not poorer. Do you really imagine us in an existential evolutionary struggle for survival with the machines we build to sell each other cheeseburgers and make restaurant reservations? Competing for what sort of resource? It's a curious perspective. The grim future you imagine sounds like the alt-right nonsense about "replacement" by purportedly inferior ethnicities.

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Geog28 t1_j6vdit9 wrote

We don't have nor is it expected to have the type of A.I that you're talking about anytime soon.

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CaringRationalist t1_j6vpzqk wrote

We already have it. AI is replacing some art functions, is better at finding new oil reserves than PHDs, can nearly handle shipping, and will likely be able to replace most of the accounting and finance industries by the end of the decade

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Geog28 t1_j6x3s7n wrote

We might have some AI capable of some really cool stuff. But none of it is actual intellectual thought let alone some that surpasses our own. It's all just really good pattern recognition but not something that is able to actually solve problems.

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therealxris t1_j70zqx8 wrote

AI can’t surpass shit. It only spits back what we tell it and it’s not very good https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/01/wolframalpha-as-the-way-to-bring-computational-knowledge-superpowers-to-chatgpt/

Chat gpt for example gets so much basic stuff just blatantly wrong that no ai is taking over anything any time soon. And thinking they have any actual intellect is just wrong.

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CaringRationalist t1_j7254vq wrote

Compare Chat GPT to AI 5 years ago.

You're just wrong. AI is literally already replacing sophisticated labor, and companies are pumping billions more into their development than they were before specifically because of the positive results.

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therealxris t1_j794gxo wrote

What you said doesn’t contradict what I said though. Chat gpt is only as good as the data it’s fed and it can easily be fed wrong data that it will confidently repeat as fact. Yes people are using it for labor but that doesn’t mean it’s smart or self learning. I’m not wrong, you just don’t understand the tech.

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CaringRationalist t1_j796pps wrote

And humans can't be fed the wrong data that they confidently repeat as fact?...

I think I understand it just fine given that my original claim was about it being smart enough to replace our intellectual labor, which you've now agreed to, and not that it was either self learning or perfect.

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therealxris t1_j7a38eu wrote

No. You are wrong. Again.

The part of your post that I disagreed with is, and I quote:

>"AI is poised to surpass our intellectual power"

I still disagree with this. It is still a stupid thing for you to have said and has nothing to support it.

I also never said that AI is replacing "intellectual" labor, so whatever point you think you made there is equally stupid.

Funny for someone with rationalist in their name to be so out of their mind over AI

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CaringRationalist t1_j7a595x wrote

Nothing to support it? I specifically mentioned several fields in which AI is already better than highly educated labor. The qualifications for being a geologist capable of finding new oil reserves is a PHD, the highest level of education that very few laborers ever reach. AI is already better at doing their jobs than they are. That's what was funded first, and now the funding is on mainstream applications, it just hasn't caught up yet.

No, you didn't, I did, and you responded to me ignoring that. That's the context of what I said that you responded to.

Sorry that I'm not historically illiterate I guess.

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