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Remença

@tinker

A technology that when mature can make me not having to work anymore is "not asked for"? WTF

76 comments
Sami Juvonen

@remenca @tinker Which technology is that? How does blockchain make you not having to work?

Sami Juvonen

@remenca @tinker I’m honestly curious. How do you think large language models, or AI, is going to bring about a future without work? What are the steps from here to automated luxury space communism? Or any other definition of a future where humans can just chill?

Do you own OpenAI? Say they do create a human level intelligence. What then? Why would they share the profit and productivity with you, if you’re just one of 8 billion nobodies?

What about doctors, nurses, plumbers, sanitation workers? Or is it only knowledge workers who “get to” be out of a job? What kind of political and economic system are you talking about?

@remenca @tinker I’m honestly curious. How do you think large language models, or AI, is going to bring about a future without work? What are the steps from here to automated luxury space communism? Or any other definition of a future where humans can just chill?

Do you own OpenAI? Say they do create a human level intelligence. What then? Why would they share the profit and productivity with you, if you’re just one of 8 billion nobodies?

Remença

@sjuvonen @tinker

Very good comment that serves as motivation for my main point, which expressed in polite terms would something like THE PROBLEM IS NOT AI THE PROBLEM IS F*CKING CAPITALISM. As you accurately describe, what incentive has Sam Altman to share his AI, there is it none. The solution is eliminating Sam Altman and all their ilk. In other words, getting rid of capitalism would solve all of this problems.

Remença

@sjuvonen @tinker

Oh, I see you have a good job and you are probably happy living in capitalism, I understand it now.

Remença

@tinker @sjuvonen

It is not an ad-hominem (or at least not entirely), I am just implying that he might be having a conflict of interests here.

Remença

@sjuvonen @tinker

Therefore I do not understand why you seem to criticize my answer of "what we need to do is to get rid of capitalists"

Sami Juvonen replied to Remença

@remenca @tinker You didn’t answer any of my questions with your “smash capitalism!” response.

Current AI tech is capitalism distilled, so I don’t understand how you think it is going to free you from toil, or capitalism.

DMTea replied to Sami

@sjuvonen @remenca @tinker nuclear power and nuclear medicine, which both save an incredible number of lives, are here because the tech started as a weapon of mass death.

Nobody wants mass death. But the science was good and matured into something very useful.

AI can do just that if it’s not strangled by capitalism along the way. Thats why it’s important to point to good applications while criticizing theft and energy use. We can do both.

Remença replied to DMTea

@DMTea @sjuvonen @tinker

I totally agree with you what means that I must have expressed myself horribly.

DMTea replied to Remença

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker it’s okay- I wasn’t very patient with my reply, so sorry if I misunderstood. If you agree, then I have no problem with you or your post. I hope wherever you are, you have a good day :)

Remença replied to DMTea

@DMTea @sjuvonen @tinker

Don't apologize, it is not your fault, it is really my English :) I normally engage in debates in internet that are often beyond my level and from time to time it just happens that I do not explain myself correctly, but it is a good practice anyway.

Have a nice weekend. Greetings from Barcelona.

Remença replied to Sami

@sjuvonen @tinker

That is because it is in capitalist hands, which is my entire point. We only need to seize it, like any other means of production, and socialize it's benefits. For instance, if you are an artist and you work has been used for training an AI, you should perceive the proportional part of whatever it would have been paid to generate an image with that AI.

Remença replied to Remença

@sjuvonen @tinker

Finally, if we theorize on what would happening AI would reach parity with humans, we could just put AI to do all the work while we could spend our days doing whatever we enjoy, be it drawing or being at the bar.

Sami Juvonen replied to Remença

@remenca @tinker You would be OK with enslaving human level intelligences?

Remença replied to Sami

@sjuvonen @tinker

I would be ok with a AI that makes the work I do not want to do.

Sami Juvonen replied to Remença

@remenca @tinker You better be careful what you wish for. You wish to be made redundant by an AI.

When you dig down, there appear to be two kinds of AI boosters (who are not shareholders in a hot company).

One group wants slaves.

One group wants to build a god and become its priesthood.

The common thread is that both enforce and encode a strict hierarchy in society.

Remença replied to Sami

@sjuvonen @tinker I guess that a third one uses false dichotomies to win discussions, because I see another option which is: the AI are socialized and the profits produced are distributed among the people.

http :verified: replied to Remença

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker That is exactly what will not happen. The exact same ("being able to relax and let the machines do the work") was predicted when steam engines and later electricity came up. And look at us now. Even more work and those things you can use the machines for are expected from you anyway, even if you don't need to spend many hours of your day washing clothes by hand or plowing a field with an ox. But yes, also AI will increase our overall productivity to a new level that will be expected from everyone. And you will still have no time to relax, but hopefully a slightly better life.

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker That is exactly what will not happen. The exact same ("being able to relax and let the machines do the work") was predicted when steam engines and later electricity came up. And look at us now. Even more work and those things you can use the machines for are expected from you anyway, even if you don't need to spend many hours of your day washing clothes by hand or plowing a field with an ox. But yes, also AI will increase our overall productivity to a new level that will...

Mx Verda replied to Remença

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker because that isn’t a plan, it’s an end-goal or ideal outcome.

Remença replied to Mx

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

It is a solution, which is what was asked. Another entire matter is how we get there, but even that I think that if we were only able to move to a less predatory capitalism like the one of the 60's if would be probably sufficient.

Mx Verda replied to Remença

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker
“how do I improve my life?” “Escape poverty.”
“Uh, ok, how do I do that?” “Get more money.”

We remove the rich people, by moving to a less predatory capitalism. Alright.
How do we move to a less predatory capitalism? It might seem like I’m being pedantic, but people need clear, distinct tasks before they can track progress towards a goal.

I don’t need micromanaging bs about 2:43 pm next Thursday, but “big goal” from “chunks of that goal” from “portioned out segments of those chunks” go a long way towards engaging people with making it happen. Even destructive criticism is still helpful as it at least highlights a problem (badly) in how others will perceive it.

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker
“how do I improve my life?” “Escape poverty.”
“Uh, ok, how do I do that?” “Get more money.”

We remove the rich people, by moving to a less predatory capitalism. Alright.
How do we move to a less predatory capitalism? It might seem like I’m being pedantic, but people need clear, distinct tasks before they can track progress towards a goal.

Remença replied to Mx

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

I think that your demands of greater clarity are fair, but replacing capitalism with something else is something very complicated, so my answer will be unavoidably incomplete and flawed.

Removing the rich people is something that has been attempted in the past and in many occasions succeeded. The secret I'd say is to have at least part of the military in your side. 1917 revolution, Paris commune, Burkina Faso, etc...all share this trait.

Remença replied to Remença

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

The tricky part seems to be twofold. First you need to avoid other powers that are friendly to the rich you have removed that will try do destroy you. This has also happened in failed revolutions like in Germany, Spain or the rest of the springtime of peoples. We could even consider the Napoleonic wars against the French revolution an instance of this. The only solution I see to this is again having the support of the military.

Remença replied to Remença

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

Finally, if you have not been destroyed by your capitalist enemies, the only problem is how to avoid becoming a capitalist yourself after you gain power. This is what in my understanding led to the USSR demise with the apparition of the Nomenklatura or the capitalist "communism" from China. Still, it can be argued that at least those systems ended being softer versions of capitalism that the ones that replaced, so it was not all in vain, but still.

Remença replied to Remença

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

Applying this to the current situation I think that a more or less clear picture arises. The military is split in two parts, one is the military industrial complex and the other is the cannon fodder that are extremely brainwashed with maga stuff in the bottom. Some years ago the brainwashing worked because USA was the most advanced country, but this seems to be ending due to the climate change, resource depletion and the apparition of emerging powers like the brics.

Remença replied to Remença

@MxVerda @sjuvonen @tinker

So far they have managed to keep the cannon fodder fooled by blaming minorities and woke people for everything. But this will not work forever, simply because the real causes of the American decline are not those, and they will run out of minorities to blame. What will happen when this happens and the bottom military realize they have been tricked? I don't know, but it could open an opportunity like the Kornilov affair where the military change sides.

DMTea

@remenca @sjuvonen @tinker I guess since I exist in this system I didn’t ask for, and made the best of it, it means I can’t suggest that we use a better system? Or point out the incredible problems in this one?

Thanks I’m cured!

Remença

@DMTea @sjuvonen @tinker
I'm sorry mate, but English is not my first language and I'm afraid I expressed myself poorly. What I meant is that the reluctance of admitting my point expressed in his "oh, that's simple" is probably due to a conflict of interest with his current status. Anyway, he expressed that this is not the case, so that's it.

Donnodubus

@sjuvonen @remenca @tinker LLMs are conceptually incapable of delivering on their promises and the hopes people have been fooled to put in them.

They can't solve basic issues like "hallucinations" because they are just not designed to actually know or understand anything. They are a fundamentally useless parlor trick.

Remença

@donnodubus @sjuvonen @tinker

That's bullshit, LLMs of sufficient size paired with enough data are universal approximators, which mean that conceptually it is possible. The only catch is the cost and that we do not know if we have enough data. But conceptually I do not know why a machine should be unable to surpass any human in any intellectual task.

Remença

@donnodubus @sjuvonen @tinker

And they can and are currently solving the hallucination problem. As a matter of fact they have managed to get like 70% hallucinations on the benchmarks with the latest techniques, I can find the paper for you if you want to read it. How much of that improvement will be preserved in real life I dont know, but they are fixing the problem, unlike you state.

Donnodubus

@remenca @sjuvonen I didn't say a machine could never match human intelligence, I said an LLM can't.

An LLM has no intelligence.

The simple fact of what it is and how it works means it will never stop "hallucinating," no matter how much processing power or data you throw at it.

Remença

@donnodubus @sjuvonen

This is mathematically incorrect and demonstrates a lack of understanding of what universal approximation means.

Donnodubus

@remenca All an LLM does is resynthesize content from its training set that corresponds to words in the query it receives.

It understands nothing. It does no reasoning. It can't even use a calculator or look things up in a database, which much simpler and lower powered machines are able to do.

LLMs are incapable of intelligence BY DESIGN. They are literally not AI at all:

link.springer.com/article/10.1

Remença

@donnodubus

I am sorry mate, but this article all it does is just to frame the problem of hallucinations (which is being solved as we speak) as some interpretation of some guy about what is "bullshit". It does not talk about scaling laws, nor approximation, nor pac nor nothing. Please, do not embarass yourself citing articles you do not understand.

Donnodubus replied to Remença

@remenca LLM's don't do any reasoning in the first place, so what they do can't be scaled up into "intelligence".

Pretty simple!

Kenneth

@sjuvonen
Along these lines I highly recommend Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase, because you've touched on two of them, perhaps three.
librarything.com/work/16092483
@remenca @tinker

Tinker ☀️

@remenca - Oh, I'm all for automation, especially for mundane things.

But the current iteration of AI is "automate the art and poetry" while forcing people to do the drudgery, as opposed to "automate the drudgery" and allow people to create the art and poetry.

#ai #solarpunk

Remença

@tinker

I disagree. AI is not forcing anyone do the drudgery. It is our capitalist overlords.

Tinker ☀️

@remenca - I think we both agree.

AI as a neutral and generalized concept can absolutely be employed in many wonderful ways.

AI in the current sense - LLMs and similar - that steal from people and shit out trash and use a fuck ton of energy (and employed by our 'capitalist overlords' as you say) is bad.

I'm not referring to the concept of a neutral tool removed from the context of politics or use. I'm referring to the current iteration of AI specifically how it is being used in this moment within the context of its politics and economics.

@remenca - I think we both agree.

AI as a neutral and generalized concept can absolutely be employed in many wonderful ways.

AI in the current sense - LLMs and similar - that steal from people and shit out trash and use a fuck ton of energy (and employed by our 'capitalist overlords' as you say) is bad.

Remença

@tinker

Absolutely. Actually, I am very mad at how AI is being presented to society. Years ago I'd say I work in AI and it was like "wow, that's cool". Now people look at me like some kind of thief, worried that the things that my peer do will take over their jobs. It's just so fucked up. And all for Sam Altman to have a sightly better yatch. I

rateexportpilot

@tinker @remenca I don't know who I cribbed this from, but the best characterization of this I've heard is that AI is fine when it's used to help creative people do tedious tasks, not when it's helping tedious people do creative tasks.

Remença

@rateexportpilot @tinker

But again, this is not AI's fault, this caused because AI is employed according to capitalist greediness. But strangely, AI criticizists rarely mention capitalism. I do not understand it.

Tinker ☀️

@remenca @rateexportpilot - But tech is never removed from politics or its use.

So you can't meaningfully discuss tech removed from how that tech is used.

Criticisms of AI are specifically criticisms of how they're being used right now.

Remença

@tinker @rateexportpilot

Exactly, but the problem is that the ones that misuse AI are never mentioned. And that makes no sense, at least if you want to solve the problem.

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