This is really a microcosm of one particular problem that AI presents to the world: what do people do when their labour is not required any longer?
Here the worry is the social structures of mathematics are eroded such that fewer humans become able to do the work and less well, similarly to how juniors are being recruited less in software engineering, breaking the ladder and leading to fewer seniors in the years to come.
The answer to this really depends strongly on what AI can actually accomplish, but I’ll assume the maximal case and say that AI can do everything economically necessary, and further even those things just desired, such that human labour isn’t required for anything that anyone wants in a practical sense.
Here, we don’t need a human understanding of mathematics to give people a perfect standard of living. We also don’t need humans involved with anything else.
Everything therefore becomes a hobby or a game. People do things because they enjoy them for their own sake, or because they are endeavours used as vehicles to socialise and enjoy others’ company, or because a shared social belief exists and is cultivated such that doing such and such a thing confers social status.
And I think that’s more or less it. I predict we may see some fairly strange sorts of things, such as games where the team structure looks like the descendant of a company org and they compete in an artificial economy. Likewise we may see gamified versions of universities and academia. All of these would be “tamed” such that the rougher parts of the experiences were sanded off.
Sort of like how we evolved in an ancestral environment, and we have certain drives and expectations driven by that environment even though they no longer matter for survival. Our social structures may be derived similarly from those of today, even after they have ceased to serve a real purpose, but changed and repurposed to give meaning and community.
I agree with your argument of expected societal shift, but it's important to keep in mind that this is largely a developed country issue. It'll be a while before child-staffed cobalt mines or whatever is superseded. A significant amount of poverty could be alleviated through improved resource distribution and policy, without really needing improved productivity/increased resource production.
> A significant amount of poverty could be alleviated through improved resource distribution and policy, without really needing improved productivity/increased resource production.
reply
The concern is that AI will further reduce the leverage we have to improve resource distribution, and that we'll return to something that more closely resembles feudalism (IIRC, wealth inequality is already close to where it was in feudal times, albeit we're all richer overall). And/or that (because people won't accept that) we'll end up in a war situation.
You'd think the people who own the technology would be smart enough to avoid that outcome, but so far they aren't showing any signs of it.
This is a picture of washed up unwanted clothes in Africa: <a href="https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/07/27/15/sdfgfdghgh.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/07/27/15/sdfgfdghgh.jp...
When society gets to point where creating things like food, clean water, and medication becomes near-zero and over-abundant, just like the amount of clothing waste in the photo, then the tech bro overlords won't hesitate to dump a bunch of free useful shit to the masses to sedate them. Right now, societies in developed countries throw out 25% of all food. There is no one in the west starving, the poorer you are the more likely you are to be obese. We are being sedated by youtube and tiktok every day, everyone has a phone. Poor in the first world is like being a king 200 years ago, everyone has plumbing which would be considered a miracle in the 1700s, so we continue to up our standards more and more. Once giving someone a house and land becomes genuinely dirt cheap due to interplanetary expansion- people will get houses and LAND as welfare.
Meanwhile there are kids in Africa that would consider their prayers answered if we developed AGI so they could stop sending their 6 year old son out in the dunes to mine cobalt. They couldn't care less about wealth inequality in the first world, they want what the poorest American has. Someone's grandma who has terminal illness does not give one fuck about slowing down AI, they want AI to give them their cure medicine now.
Chance-Device · · focus · HN ↗
Here the worry is the social structures of mathematics are eroded such that fewer humans become able to do the work and less well, similarly to how juniors are being recruited less in software engineering, breaking the ladder and leading to fewer seniors in the years to come.
The answer to this really depends strongly on what AI can actually accomplish, but I’ll assume the maximal case and say that AI can do everything economically necessary, and further even those things just desired, such that human labour isn’t required for anything that anyone wants in a practical sense.
Here, we don’t need a human understanding of mathematics to give people a perfect standard of living. We also don’t need humans involved with anything else.
Everything therefore becomes a hobby or a game. People do things because they enjoy them for their own sake, or because they are endeavours used as vehicles to socialise and enjoy others’ company, or because a shared social belief exists and is cultivated such that doing such and such a thing confers social status.
And I think that’s more or less it. I predict we may see some fairly strange sorts of things, such as games where the team structure looks like the descendant of a company org and they compete in an artificial economy. Likewise we may see gamified versions of universities and academia. All of these would be “tamed” such that the rougher parts of the experiences were sanded off.
Sort of like how we evolved in an ancestral environment, and we have certain drives and expectations driven by that environment even though they no longer matter for survival. Our social structures may be derived similarly from those of today, even after they have ceased to serve a real purpose, but changed and repurposed to give meaning and community.
grufkork · · focus · HN ↗
nicoburns · · focus · HN ↗
The concern is that AI will further reduce the leverage we have to improve resource distribution, and that we'll return to something that more closely resembles feudalism (IIRC, wealth inequality is already close to where it was in feudal times, albeit we're all richer overall). And/or that (because people won't accept that) we'll end up in a war situation.
You'd think the people who own the technology would be smart enough to avoid that outcome, but so far they aren't showing any signs of it.
ceasesurthinko · · focus · HN ↗
When society gets to point where creating things like food, clean water, and medication becomes near-zero and over-abundant, just like the amount of clothing waste in the photo, then the tech bro overlords won't hesitate to dump a bunch of free useful shit to the masses to sedate them. Right now, societies in developed countries throw out 25% of all food. There is no one in the west starving, the poorer you are the more likely you are to be obese. We are being sedated by youtube and tiktok every day, everyone has a phone. Poor in the first world is like being a king 200 years ago, everyone has plumbing which would be considered a miracle in the 1700s, so we continue to up our standards more and more. Once giving someone a house and land becomes genuinely dirt cheap due to interplanetary expansion- people will get houses and LAND as welfare.
Meanwhile there are kids in Africa that would consider their prayers answered if we developed AGI so they could stop sending their 6 year old son out in the dunes to mine cobalt. They couldn't care less about wealth inequality in the first world, they want what the poorest American has. Someone's grandma who has terminal illness does not give one fuck about slowing down AI, they want AI to give them their cure medicine now.