Programmers here seem excited about the potential of this new version...but I can't help but wonder at how naive this attitude really is. Even if AI never becomes intelligent like us, if it can emulate this intelligence in enough domains, then it has a serious chance of being dangerous. It's already pretty much guaranteed that it will put almost everyone out of a job, turning the vast majority of humans into content-consuming sloths.
Does it really make sense to play with this kind of power?
It bothers me a little bit as a programmer, but the rational part of my mind is aware that there's literally never been a major technological advancement in human history that didn't ultimately result in more people being employed, not less. Improvements in productivity just result in people realizing there's a whole new world of stuff they can now build that wasn't feasible before, and the market will eat that up.
The shape of my career might change, but I doubt I'll be unable to find a job.
there's literally never been a major technological advancement in human history that didn't ultimately result in more people being employed, not less.
In the past, new automation technologies often open up new possibilities in production capabilities in turn creating new jobs - specifically jobs that have not been automated yet.
AI though promises to be the universal automation, i.e. it can do any job. Thus even if new jobs show up, they will be taken over by AI too.
Then what?
The shape of my career might change, but I doubt I'll be unable to find a job.
Question you should ask is why would anyone hire you when they can get AI to do the same job.
AI though promises to be the universal automation, i.e. it can do any job.
An AI can't do any job that requires a body, so clearly that isn't true.
If you mean mental jobs, this could be true in the future, but right now, it's hard to say. You can imagine scenarios where an AI does 95% of a job but a human is still required for the last 5% (without which the first 95% is useless).
These tools are recent, but not THAT recent. GPT3 is nearly 4 years old, Copilot is 2 years old, ChatGPT is a year old, GPT4 is 8 months old. No large-scale employment changes resulting from AI are visible so far.
an AI does 95% of a job but a human is still required for the last 5%
This is the kind of scenario I was talking about in my initial comment.
The naive assumption about this scenario is that it would result in 95% of jobs disappearing, but based on history it's more likely that we just do 2000% more stuff with the same amount of human effort.
And if AI really replaces 100% of human labor, are we really going to retain an economic system that only works when humans are doing labor?
Question you should ask is why would anyone hire you when they can get AI to do the same job.
My guess is that some people will always be stubborn and prefer me over an AI giving them massages every now and then, even if I won't do them as perfectly.
But at that point in time, I think me giving one massage would perhaps be enough for me to retire for life, as long as I can abstain from buying luxury goods or services, i.e. those provided manually by other people (instead of AIs, whose labor would be practically free).
My guess is that some people will always be stubborn and prefer me over an AI giving them massages every now and then, even if I won't do them as perfectly.
But why you? There are billions of other people who are out of work they could hire for the “authentic human experience”.
AI labor is effectively free at that point, didn't you get the memo? :)
It’s not. Machines need power to run. Even if it was super cheap, there is no reason for their owners to share its output with anyone unless they have something to give in return. You know “trade”.
Did you forget about all the endless solar panels and wind turbines that the AI robots progressively built over the years, for an increasingly cheaper price? Energy is abundant now.
They also built a bunch of AI robot factories, so now we have effectively limitless AI robot labor. Everyone has AI robot assistants/friends now.
Even if it was super cheap, there is no reason for their owners to share its output with anyone unless they have something to give in return. You know “trade”.
But they have something to give in return. These owners want authentic human experiences, which can only be provided by other people, not AI robots.
Authentic human experiences (or hand-built goods) are thus now much scarcer, since most people don't need to work anymore. They're sort of luxury goods/services. In this world, imagine how much you'd be willing to pay to have an exclusive, authentic house maid or hairdresser for one day, rather than just another AI robot, no matter how good it is.
Or imagine dining at a restaurant where every waiter and every cook are authentic humans, wow! An unforgettable (and prohibitively expensive) experience.
Of course, not everyone could afford that, unless they themselves are willing to provide such a service. Most people would eat at home (with food farmed, prepared/cooked and delivered by the AI robots and drones, of course), or just go to regular AI robot restaurants if they're feeling especially fancy.
I think you might be overvaluing “authentic human experiences”. It’s a luxury, not a necessity.
Rich people are notorious for seeking luxuries.
There will also be an over supply of people willing to offer it because they have nothing else to offer in trade for basic necessities.
I don't know, perhaps you are right. I do hope you are wrong, though... :)
Also, I'm hoping if such an extreme situation would present itself, governments would be forced to step in and somehow ensure people would always have their basic needs met by, say, a strategic national AI army dedicated to provide those basic needs.
I'm hoping if such an extreme situation would present itself, governments would be forced to step in and somehow ensure people would always have their basic needs met by, say, a strategic national AI army dedicated to provide those basic needs
Ask horses how they're doing these days... just because we've always found a use for humans because of their unique cognitive abilities doesn't mean we always will find a use.
I think it's critical to be thinking about how to make sure wealth isn't simply funneled to a few capitalists who own everything simply by virtue of them being first, because it seems that's the future we're heading for if we aren't careful.
I think you, and I, and everyone on HN will be fine (more or less...) but I am worried about a wide swath of people who will get "left behind."
"The [horse] population peaked in 1910 at 27.5 million, more than 600% higher than in 1840. What does the overall growth of horses and mules during the nineteenth century suggest about the relationship between animal power and the introduction of new mechanical technologies, including the steam engine?"
You are assuming that the whole existence of humanity is to work? because, without working, they would be sloths?
What about expending more time having healthy habits like working out, meeting more often with family and friends, discovering the world, learning new stuff?
So retired people are just sloths?
I’m more worried about people not being able to feed themselves because their labor became worthless. They will effectively be frozen out of the economy as they have nothing to trade with.
If AI does everything, the economic won't make sense anymore. Maybe there would be a basic rent or just anyone will ask for what they want and AI will provide it.
We though AI would replace the low level jobs first, but it seems creative jobs are gone first (art, software developers, etc). Bear that in mind.
No matter who gets replaced first, someone is getting screwed.
Frankly, if it's the higher end jobs getting replaced first that would likely spill over to the lower end ones as the those people who lost their jobs resort to taking lower end work to survive, flooding the market.
That's under the assumption that nothing else will change. But it is not the case, the system would have to adapt. One possibility is that we wont use money anymore, and there are a lot of in betweens in the middle. But for sure what you cannot do is to stop the change that is coming.
Frankly, I think eventually machines will do it all. I see AGI as the universal automation that can do everything a human can - apart from “being human”.
How many working horses are there today vs before automobiles?
Well, exactly. The less working horses there are, the more expensive and exclusive it would be to ride them.
There could be 1 trillion automobiles and I bet you, none of these automobiles would compare to riding a real, live horse.
Similarly, there could be 1 trillion AI robots, they could do everything better than a human, and yet I bet you'd still want to ride (or otherwise experience) a real, live human.
My point is that if automobiles were always better than horses in every way, then nobody would want horses. But even today, with the amazing automobiles that we have, some of which even faster and more reliable than most horses, it's clear that we still want horses.
My question is, if horses were as intelligent as us and they could have their basic needs met extremely cheaply, would they be willing to work at all, apart from the occasional ride? Because the horse labor pool would shrink immensely if they didn't really want to work.
It’s way too late to pretend AI won’t have an impact on programming as a profession.
Better to be excited and learn the tool as it develops than to stick your head in the sand.
A world where AI has put literally everyone “out of a job,” meanwhile, is still so far from our current reality that IMO, it’s not worth making practical day-to-day decisions on unless you are directly involved in the development or regulation of AI.
I understand your broader point, which is that progress in this space will be discontinuous and hard to see until it’s already happened.
But two years ago, GPT-3 was already astounding. ChatGPT made some pretty huge gains, and GPT4 more still, but the thing that exists today was relatively predictable, compared to a world where human effort is no longer important.
Analogous viewpoint in the Eighteenth Century: "90% of the human race consists of agricultural laborers, mostly unfree (slaves or serfs). Steam-powered machinery will put almost all of those people out of work, turning the vast majority of humans into food-consuming sloths".
Agriculture's share of the labor force went from something like 70% in the early 20th century to something like 5% now. You have a higher purpose than doing a robot's job badly -- or a farmer's. Find it.
Comments
Programmers here seem excited about the potential of this new version...but I can't help but wonder at how naive this attitude really is. Even if AI never becomes intelligent like us, if it can emulate this intelligence in enough domains, then it has a serious chance of being dangerous. It's already pretty much guaranteed that it will put almost everyone out of a job, turning the vast majority of humans into content-consuming sloths.
Does it really make sense to play with this kind of power?
It bothers me a little bit as a programmer, but the rational part of my mind is aware that there's literally never been a major technological advancement in human history that didn't ultimately result in more people being employed, not less. Improvements in productivity just result in people realizing there's a whole new world of stuff they can now build that wasn't feasible before, and the market will eat that up.
The shape of my career might change, but I doubt I'll be unable to find a job.
In the past, new automation technologies often open up new possibilities in production capabilities in turn creating new jobs - specifically jobs that have not been automated yet.
AI though promises to be the universal automation, i.e. it can do any job. Thus even if new jobs show up, they will be taken over by AI too.
Then what?
Question you should ask is why would anyone hire you when they can get AI to do the same job.
An AI can't do any job that requires a body, so clearly that isn't true.
If you mean mental jobs, this could be true in the future, but right now, it's hard to say. You can imagine scenarios where an AI does 95% of a job but a human is still required for the last 5% (without which the first 95% is useless).
These tools are recent, but not THAT recent. GPT3 is nearly 4 years old, Copilot is 2 years old, ChatGPT is a year old, GPT4 is 8 months old. No large-scale employment changes resulting from AI are visible so far.
This is the kind of scenario I was talking about in my initial comment. The naive assumption about this scenario is that it would result in 95% of jobs disappearing, but based on history it's more likely that we just do 2000% more stuff with the same amount of human effort.
And if AI really replaces 100% of human labor, are we really going to retain an economic system that only works when humans are doing labor?
No reason they wouldn’t be provide physical bodies eventually.
My guess is that some people will always be stubborn and prefer me over an AI giving them massages every now and then, even if I won't do them as perfectly.
But at that point in time, I think me giving one massage would perhaps be enough for me to retire for life, as long as I can abstain from buying luxury goods or services, i.e. those provided manually by other people (instead of AIs, whose labor would be practically free).
But why you? There are billions of other people who are out of work they could hire for the “authentic human experience”.
Because other people don't need to give massages, so you can't pay them to do it.
They already gave one massage, so now they can afford AI-made stuff for the rest of their lives, including AI massages for themselves.
AI labor is effectively free at that point, didn't you get the memo? :)
It’s not. Machines need power to run. Even if it was super cheap, there is no reason for their owners to share its output with anyone unless they have something to give in return. You know “trade”.
Did you forget about all the endless solar panels and wind turbines that the AI robots progressively built over the years, for an increasingly cheaper price? Energy is abundant now.
They also built a bunch of AI robot factories, so now we have effectively limitless AI robot labor. Everyone has AI robot assistants/friends now.
But they have something to give in return. These owners want authentic human experiences, which can only be provided by other people, not AI robots.
Authentic human experiences (or hand-built goods) are thus now much scarcer, since most people don't need to work anymore. They're sort of luxury goods/services. In this world, imagine how much you'd be willing to pay to have an exclusive, authentic house maid or hairdresser for one day, rather than just another AI robot, no matter how good it is.
Or imagine dining at a restaurant where every waiter and every cook are authentic humans, wow! An unforgettable (and prohibitively expensive) experience.
Of course, not everyone could afford that, unless they themselves are willing to provide such a service. Most people would eat at home (with food farmed, prepared/cooked and delivered by the AI robots and drones, of course), or just go to regular AI robot restaurants if they're feeling especially fancy.
I think you might be overvaluing “authentic human experiences”. It’s a luxury, not a necessity.
There will also be an over supply of people willing to offer it because they have nothing else to offer in trade for basic necessities.
Rich people are notorious for seeking luxuries.
I don't know, perhaps you are right. I do hope you are wrong, though... :)
Also, I'm hoping if such an extreme situation would present itself, governments would be forced to step in and somehow ensure people would always have their basic needs met by, say, a strategic national AI army dedicated to provide those basic needs.
Speculating is fun, isn't it? lol
That would depend on who is your government.
Ask horses how they're doing these days... just because we've always found a use for humans because of their unique cognitive abilities doesn't mean we always will find a use.
I think it's critical to be thinking about how to make sure wealth isn't simply funneled to a few capitalists who own everything simply by virtue of them being first, because it seems that's the future we're heading for if we aren't careful.
I think you, and I, and everyone on HN will be fine (more or less...) but I am worried about a wide swath of people who will get "left behind."
It would be pointless. Do you even know that 99% of horses can't speak English?
Anyway, my own experience tells me they're mostly just horsing around.
A lot more leisure and a lot less work than a few centuries ago...
Good times!
"The [horse] population peaked in 1910 at 27.5 million, more than 600% higher than in 1840. What does the overall growth of horses and mules during the nineteenth century suggest about the relationship between animal power and the introduction of new mechanical technologies, including the steam engine?"
https://energyhistory.yale.edu/horse-and-mule-population-sta...
Clearly unsustainable, so I'm glad that problem solved itself. Phew! Can you imagine what it'd be like if they continued reproducing like a plague?
Anyway, the real question is: were they happier in 1910 when they were our slaves or are they happier now that they have more leisure?
How do you even measure happiness in a horse?
How do you measure happiness in humans?
Is happiness even real?
What is the meaning of life?
What does "42" mean?
You are assuming that the whole existence of humanity is to work? because, without working, they would be sloths? What about expending more time having healthy habits like working out, meeting more often with family and friends, discovering the world, learning new stuff? So retired people are just sloths?
I’m more worried about people not being able to feed themselves because their labor became worthless. They will effectively be frozen out of the economy as they have nothing to trade with.
If AI does everything, the economic won't make sense anymore. Maybe there would be a basic rent or just anyone will ask for what they want and AI will provide it.
We though AI would replace the low level jobs first, but it seems creative jobs are gone first (art, software developers, etc). Bear that in mind.
No matter who gets replaced first, someone is getting screwed.
Frankly, if it's the higher end jobs getting replaced first that would likely spill over to the lower end ones as the those people who lost their jobs resort to taking lower end work to survive, flooding the market.
That's under the assumption that nothing else will change. But it is not the case, the system would have to adapt. One possibility is that we wont use money anymore, and there are a lot of in betweens in the middle. But for sure what you cannot do is to stop the change that is coming.
How to adapt the system is the big question. In the worst case the system doesn’t adapt and lots of people are plunged into poverty.
So you think that in a world of AGI, humans will have all our needs met by machines?
Or do you think there will always be space for humans to provide value to other humans, even if machines surpass us in intelligence?
Frankly, I think eventually machines will do it all. I see AGI as the universal automation that can do everything a human can - apart from “being human”.
Well, that's it, isn't it?
Even if AI can do everything, you'd still want the authentic human experience.
99% of people are far smarter than horses but people still pay to ride horses.
I don't see why someone wouldn't want to pay to... ride me... uh, in a matter of speaking, of course (of course). I mean, look at me.
How many working horses are there today vs before automobiles?
Heck, how many domestic horses are there today vs before automobiles?
Well, exactly. The less working horses there are, the more expensive and exclusive it would be to ride them.
There could be 1 trillion automobiles and I bet you, none of these automobiles would compare to riding a real, live horse.
Similarly, there could be 1 trillion AI robots, they could do everything better than a human, and yet I bet you'd still want to ride (or otherwise experience) a real, live human.
My point is that if automobiles were always better than horses in every way, then nobody would want horses. But even today, with the amazing automobiles that we have, some of which even faster and more reliable than most horses, it's clear that we still want horses.
My question is, if horses were as intelligent as us and they could have their basic needs met extremely cheaply, would they be willing to work at all, apart from the occasional ride? Because the horse labor pool would shrink immensely if they didn't really want to work.
So you expect there to be less of us?
Imagine everyone who is selling labor today out of a job.
Less working people, not less people.
If it's because they don't need it anymore, that's great!
What are the people not work going to eat?
If they get hungry enough, the working ones.
It’s way too late to pretend AI won’t have an impact on programming as a profession.
Better to be excited and learn the tool as it develops than to stick your head in the sand.
A world where AI has put literally everyone “out of a job,” meanwhile, is still so far from our current reality that IMO, it’s not worth making practical day-to-day decisions on unless you are directly involved in the development or regulation of AI.
2 years ago something like ChatGPT (as limited as it is) was “far from our current reality”.
I think it’s worthwhile to think ahead.
I understand your broader point, which is that progress in this space will be discontinuous and hard to see until it’s already happened.
But two years ago, GPT-3 was already astounding. ChatGPT made some pretty huge gains, and GPT4 more still, but the thing that exists today was relatively predictable, compared to a world where human effort is no longer important.
That is exactly the prisoner's dilemma. Besides, I already quit being a programmer this year :)
Hey, fair enough, more power to you then. Have fun touching some grass, friend!
Analogous viewpoint in the Eighteenth Century: "90% of the human race consists of agricultural laborers, mostly unfree (slaves or serfs). Steam-powered machinery will put almost all of those people out of work, turning the vast majority of humans into food-consuming sloths".
Somehow that didn't happen, though.
it didnt happen?? not sure if you missed the /s ??
It did happen, and... it was fine.
Agriculture's share of the labor force went from something like 70% in the early 20th century to something like 5% now. You have a higher purpose than doing a robot's job badly -- or a farmer's. Find it.