That's an easy question. First, people will forget how to do anything and become highly dependent on AI. That's already happening. I already see people not able to finish their work without AI.
Then, once everything has become a "pay to do" business model (I know right, the wet dream of any CEO) we will be happy to pay to write code, write docs, do a presentation. We will pay both in money and environmental costs.
The last step is to just keep doing what we are doing with the environment. Let's not bother doing anything to reduce climate change.
The Protestant “laziness == death” thing just doesn’t really hold. Much, maybe most tech exists because someone was too lazy to ship file cabinets / walk 20 miles / carry buckets of water uphill. The strict “anything that makes life easier leads to laziness then death” is a moral opinion, not fact.
I am with you on the environment, which I as an entirely different problem. Even if it were desirable, feasible, and decided to completely eliminate all AI and ML forever, we’d still kill ourselves (really our descendants) by destroying the environment. It’s the ultimate externality: nobody alive today will see the costs.
It's interesting that on one hand, the labs decided to focus on oh, it could be AGI or oh, it could take all the jobs or oh, we're going to the singularity...
... without seeming to actually believe in any of the benefits. For example, why hasn't Altman shown up and said, "Sure, there's some environmental damage. It's a gamble. If this works, we can have AI build us the world's most efficient carbon cleanup system to absolute mathematical perfection and more than undo anything it cost. That's the kind of technology we're trying to build."
Exactly. Maybe it’s that kind of nuance doesn’t work in public discourse; today’s press would either run “we’re destroying the environment on a gamble” or “we can have AI do carbon cleanup” depending on ideological bias.
Or maybe, and I lean this way, it’s forest/trees and even Altman and crew haven’t really internalized this framing, and are operating strictly at the “what do I have to say to get the outcome I want” level.
Anyways, I really like your formulation here. So much better than “there’s no benefit, it will kill us all” and “there’s no downside, it’s a panacea” takes that are too common.
gonzalohm · · focus · HN ↗
The last step is to just keep doing what we are doing with the environment. Let's not bother doing anything to reduce climate change.
Just sit and relax boys
brookst · · focus · HN ↗
The Protestant “laziness == death” thing just doesn’t really hold. Much, maybe most tech exists because someone was too lazy to ship file cabinets / walk 20 miles / carry buckets of water uphill. The strict “anything that makes life easier leads to laziness then death” is a moral opinion, not fact.
I am with you on the environment, which I as an entirely different problem. Even if it were desirable, feasible, and decided to completely eliminate all AI and ML forever, we’d still kill ourselves (really our descendants) by destroying the environment. It’s the ultimate externality: nobody alive today will see the costs.
gjsman-1000 · · focus · HN ↗
... without seeming to actually believe in any of the benefits. For example, why hasn't Altman shown up and said, "Sure, there's some environmental damage. It's a gamble. If this works, we can have AI build us the world's most efficient carbon cleanup system to absolute mathematical perfection and more than undo anything it cost. That's the kind of technology we're trying to build."
brookst · · focus · HN ↗
Or maybe, and I lean this way, it’s forest/trees and even Altman and crew haven’t really internalized this framing, and are operating strictly at the “what do I have to say to get the outcome I want” level.
Anyways, I really like your formulation here. So much better than “there’s no benefit, it will kill us all” and “there’s no downside, it’s a panacea” takes that are too common.