"With a superintelligence there would be no need for anyone to work. Wealth would be created so quickly and efficiently that we’d be living, at least materially, like kings. While this would solve a tonne of problems, there’s a load it would leave open, people would need to find other ways that work to find meaning."
This kind of thinking is short-sighted and ignores the fact that the vast majority of people around the world do not do work that can be easily automated and replaced by AI (or to put it another way, the tech world =/= The World). Physical labor, conservation + environmental work, and services aren't going to be replaced by AI + robotics anytime soon (if ever), at least not without wholesale changes to the way we structure our physical environments. If we look at futurisms where basic needs are met by replicators and increasingly powerful computers fulfill most of our tasks (eg. Star Trek), what we find within them are modes of organization and values that prioritize human ingenuity, physical labor, and exploration, even when it's much more rational to send an unmanned probe to Ceti Alpha V than the Enterprise.
AI might very well eliminate a lot of white-collar 'bullshit jobs', or at the very least increase productivity levels to the point where revenue growth is completely decoupled from headcount. It will probably also clear out a lot of mediocre content creators, exacerbating the pareto distribution that already exists on their favorite platforms. I suspect this is where a lot of the paranoia around AI eating the world comes from. But the world is made of atoms, not bits, and at some point one has to get into the business of moving atoms in order to create wealth and have an impact.
Hey Arnav! Completely agree with you that physical work is the work at least risk from AI. I think in the near-term there is no chance that jobs such as plumbers, electricians or that involve emotional labour (like nurses) would ever be replaced.
This article is specifically about what happens when we get to an AI of superintelligence, that is an AI so smart it makes the human brain look like an ant in comparison. This will happen when we reach the 'singularity', the moment when an AI is created that is as smart as a human, because from then the explosion of progress will be so great.
At this inflexion point an AI would easily be able to recreate human bodies, control them, or make robots that look identical to us, becaause it's knowledge will be so advanced, it would be as easy for it to make replications of us as it is for us to make dolls. This is where AI advanced from atoms to bits, as you put it.
I'm not saying this is happening anytime soon, just that we might be closer than we think, and when we do, all labour will be replaced.
Hope I've made myself clear there, and you are right about 'bullshit jobs' being the first to go and manual being the last!
"With a superintelligence there would be no need for anyone to work. Wealth would be created so quickly and efficiently that we’d be living, at least materially, like kings. While this would solve a tonne of problems, there’s a load it would leave open, people would need to find other ways that work to find meaning."
This kind of thinking is short-sighted and ignores the fact that the vast majority of people around the world do not do work that can be easily automated and replaced by AI (or to put it another way, the tech world =/= The World). Physical labor, conservation + environmental work, and services aren't going to be replaced by AI + robotics anytime soon (if ever), at least not without wholesale changes to the way we structure our physical environments. If we look at futurisms where basic needs are met by replicators and increasingly powerful computers fulfill most of our tasks (eg. Star Trek), what we find within them are modes of organization and values that prioritize human ingenuity, physical labor, and exploration, even when it's much more rational to send an unmanned probe to Ceti Alpha V than the Enterprise.
AI might very well eliminate a lot of white-collar 'bullshit jobs', or at the very least increase productivity levels to the point where revenue growth is completely decoupled from headcount. It will probably also clear out a lot of mediocre content creators, exacerbating the pareto distribution that already exists on their favorite platforms. I suspect this is where a lot of the paranoia around AI eating the world comes from. But the world is made of atoms, not bits, and at some point one has to get into the business of moving atoms in order to create wealth and have an impact.
Hey Arnav! Completely agree with you that physical work is the work at least risk from AI. I think in the near-term there is no chance that jobs such as plumbers, electricians or that involve emotional labour (like nurses) would ever be replaced.
This article is specifically about what happens when we get to an AI of superintelligence, that is an AI so smart it makes the human brain look like an ant in comparison. This will happen when we reach the 'singularity', the moment when an AI is created that is as smart as a human, because from then the explosion of progress will be so great.
At this inflexion point an AI would easily be able to recreate human bodies, control them, or make robots that look identical to us, becaause it's knowledge will be so advanced, it would be as easy for it to make replications of us as it is for us to make dolls. This is where AI advanced from atoms to bits, as you put it.
I'm not saying this is happening anytime soon, just that we might be closer than we think, and when we do, all labour will be replaced.
Hope I've made myself clear there, and you are right about 'bullshit jobs' being the first to go and manual being the last!