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.
> “anything that makes life easier leads to laziness then death” is a moral opinion, not fact
It's a moral opinion that we turn into an economic opinion when we mismanage a robust inelastic labor supply into soggy declining demand, which does great things for shareholder value but marginalizes most people in the economy. "Punish the workers because they aren't needed."
Extrapolating this along the trend of less and less work being needed leads to a dark place. One that's entirely of our own design. Or, rather, shareholder design. Better grab enough shares before you fall into the permanent underclass!
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.
smallmancontrov · · focus · HN ↗
It's a moral opinion that we turn into an economic opinion when we mismanage a robust inelastic labor supply into soggy declining demand, which does great things for shareholder value but marginalizes most people in the economy. "Punish the workers because they aren't needed."
Extrapolating this along the trend of less and less work being needed leads to a dark place. One that's entirely of our own design. Or, rather, shareholder design. Better grab enough shares before you fall into the permanent underclass!