Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Jon Stokes
Thanks for the shoutout!
All the people in my life, save for maybe one, found retirement a blessing; let it be beekeeping, or just working "gig" jobs while practically backed by a safety net equal UBI, keeping the churn optional, their day-to-day perspective on life improved.
Pensioners working their hobbies or gigs are not too dissimilar to uni students enjoying making some extra cash at the local car wash.
Regarding the prospect of AI (not AGI) upsetting the labour market, a lot more realistic near-future (present) outcome, and a definite stepping-stone to AGI: as I look at these careless pensioners, their lived experience removes any dread I would have felt if I still thought being a more productive software engineer would somehow be the key to success and happiness in life.
No. Being a smarter software engineer, maybe. I was completely burnt out as a programmer, CTO, you name it. Both personally and as far as herding subordinates go. I gladly left the field in 2019.
In 2023, ChatGPT made me enjoy software development once again. It does make me antisocial, preferring machines to people, when it comes to interaction. At first sight. But those who might see it this way never had the dread of going to a software dev community (forum) and needing to ask the real people there a question. That experience would turn Mother Theresa a misanthrope.
Do I welcome our new AI overlords? Sure, as long as they are open source.
I don't think a great human retirement will happen. Consider chess. Machines have dominated that game for over 20 years, but chess tournaments happen all the same, chess players can still become celebrities such as Magnus Carlsen, and there has been no exodus of chess fans to watching machine chess, even though, in theory, that should be better chess. It isn't, because chess is not about chess, it's about seeing what humans can do. We will always be interested in that.
We still have chess celebrities. And I don't think the decline can be attributed to chess AIs, it's not like chess audiences switched to watching machines play, it seems they just dropped it.
But my point is that humanity does not lose value because machines can do things better than us. Unless you think the decline of chess is explained by machine chess, but I don't think that is in evidence.
Thanks for the shoutout!
All the people in my life, save for maybe one, found retirement a blessing; let it be beekeeping, or just working "gig" jobs while practically backed by a safety net equal UBI, keeping the churn optional, their day-to-day perspective on life improved.
Pensioners working their hobbies or gigs are not too dissimilar to uni students enjoying making some extra cash at the local car wash.
Regarding the prospect of AI (not AGI) upsetting the labour market, a lot more realistic near-future (present) outcome, and a definite stepping-stone to AGI: as I look at these careless pensioners, their lived experience removes any dread I would have felt if I still thought being a more productive software engineer would somehow be the key to success and happiness in life.
No. Being a smarter software engineer, maybe. I was completely burnt out as a programmer, CTO, you name it. Both personally and as far as herding subordinates go. I gladly left the field in 2019.
In 2023, ChatGPT made me enjoy software development once again. It does make me antisocial, preferring machines to people, when it comes to interaction. At first sight. But those who might see it this way never had the dread of going to a software dev community (forum) and needing to ask the real people there a question. That experience would turn Mother Theresa a misanthrope.
Do I welcome our new AI overlords? Sure, as long as they are open source.
Keep it open source:
https://open-assistant.io/dashboard
I'm not affiliated with this project, I'm a nobody contributor who signed up.
Those images are indescribable
Big drop in quality and doomerism, turns out you’re an IYI as well
In the end, the human desire to suicide humanity continues ever ahead.
I don't think a great human retirement will happen. Consider chess. Machines have dominated that game for over 20 years, but chess tournaments happen all the same, chess players can still become celebrities such as Magnus Carlsen, and there has been no exodus of chess fans to watching machine chess, even though, in theory, that should be better chess. It isn't, because chess is not about chess, it's about seeing what humans can do. We will always be interested in that.
Chess has lost status to what it was before. A world with AI that does all of what humans do is a world without meaning.
We still have chess celebrities. And I don't think the decline can be attributed to chess AIs, it's not like chess audiences switched to watching machines play, it seems they just dropped it.
This does not contradict anything I said.
Meditate on the value of humanity and if we should give up on it so easily.
But my point is that humanity does not lose value because machines can do things better than us. Unless you think the decline of chess is explained by machine chess, but I don't think that is in evidence.