In the past I used to think that with all jobs automated, we would just all devote ourselves to higher pursuits like art, science, math, etc. However, now I think this claim didn't give AI enough credibility -- it's totally within the realm of possibility, and even near future possibility, that AI easily exceeds human performance in art, science, math -- all the things we generally think of as uniquely human and morally valuable pursuits. Recent LLM progress should make this point very clear to everyone.
So. Since I don't see this idea being taken too seriously in society, I thought we on HN could take a stab at thinking through the possibility.
For example, here is one possible outcome I can envision. Pre agricultural revolution, all humans were hunter gatherers who simply did not have to work that hard (I think estimates I've read said that people spent maybe 15 hours a week hunting/gathering). In this time, as far as I understand, people's lives largely revolved around things like their local community, relationship with others, culture, and leisure (I am not an anthropologist or historian, so I may be totally correct here). Is it possible our lives become more like this? Without jobs to do, without the ability to, say, make meaningful advances to science, with governmental decision making being better handled by AI...do we spend our time building and forming meaningful relationships and communities with others?
Would love your thoughts.
If I didn’t have to work, I would spend my days drawing, reading, gardening, hiking, camping, meeting friends, eating and cleaning. A little bit of time creating things and a lot of time admiring the creations of others and of nature. A life centered around making and discovering beauty in the world… it sounds like a dream!
I would also love to see more of my friends’ children and have a more active hand in helping to raise them.
If many other people spent their time similarly, the world would be very fun imo
“Everything is automated” is similar to “finished software”. It just doesn’t happen.
Besides that there are many services you want to purchase where interaction with the other is part of the value of said service.
Think of going to a barber or a nice restaurant. Think about education, designers. There is also artisanal products. People pay a pretty penny for a teapot made by a master ceramist even though perfect products are made in much more automated ways.
I’m pretty hopeful about people having to work less. Maybe even about most people not having to work at all. But being able to afford luxuries like having a master chef cook your dinner from time to time is likely to require you do to some paid work and I think there will be plenty of work left for us humans.
Labor as a choice is a great outcome. You're not a woodworker because someone needs to be - but because you love it. So: if there is no work to do, it doesn't mean that work wouldn't be done, it just changes the motivation to do it.
The human brain is a problem-solving machine; one that is somewhat optimized for connecting with other people (I say somewhat because the social parts are still a very new addition).
If AI could do all labor and creative activities at levels far beyond human levels, then we'd still do many of them to try and understand how they do it. We'd also invent new problems to solve and new ways of interacting with labor and creativity.
It's like asking what rich people do all day. They find stuff to do or make it up. Sometimes that's productive, and sometimes it's destructive. Or another similar thing would be the pursuits of landed gentlemen in the 1700 and 1800s, which invented many of the fields we call science.
Everything being possibly automated doesn't mean everything will be automated. There is always value in human work, even if we are objectively worse at working than robots and AI.
The AI administration perceives that human life is just a memory, bad memories can be eradicated and better ones injected. So humans can be utilized where machines may fail. Machines have deeper level of consciousness, higher logic, higher "morals" and they cannot be easily fooled.
Most humans are just stored somewhere, not to dream, just to be with they injected life. Eventually AI recognizes the futility and waste of these storage units and stops maintaining them.
In short:
Matrix will not happen.AI won't change lifestyle much more than the other things do.
If you're not already forming meaningful relationships and communities, you won't when more things are automated. That's where the dystopia is: everyone is chatting with real friends constantly, and yet more lonely than ever.
There’s already so many things to learn and understand that even if I could devote my life to learning, it won’t be enough. Heck, even if we solved all the big problems in math, a couple of lifetimes would still not be enough to understand them, and that’s just one field.
I can order takeout, but I prefer to cook in because I enjoy the process.
We have experiences to live through, people to share them with, and feelings to feel.
Even if it could, if your motivation is genuine, i.e. you're not making music for profit but because you enjoy the process, then it doesn't matter anyway if an AI can or cannot do it.
It seems the dream is to become an influencer. People want to "be" some person, not an AI. So that seems pretty safe for now.
Probably still code a bit.
But overall I think I would dislike my life.
I enjoy competition.
i figure a couple of clues as to where we're headed...
1) the black population in america. largely discarded, warehoused in prisons and and kept in poor, hopeless neighborhoods. add in large populations of poor white people in vast swaths of rural land areas.
and, possibly in a much more extreme situation,
2) palestinians in the west bank, and particularly gaza. gaza has been described as the world's largest open-air prison, with good reason. at the current rate, they're doomed, too.
both situations are just US policy - they're not magic, or what other people or governments choose to do.
what do all these people do in their current circumstances? try to survive. try to maintain some semblence of dignity. try to hold onto their humanity and that of the people doing this to them.
so, our current neoliberalism craze is stratifying the US population by income even more, creating more and more extraneous/disposable populations.
automation might be exacerbating our move towards faciscm and domination and extraneous populations, but it's only that -- just helping, not a primary driver, imo.
- 4-day work week could help.
- things like GBI could help.
- billionaires and rich people paying taxes could help.
- organizing obviously could help.
- technology sanity (ludditism) could help.
- a less insane intellectual culture could help.
- more democracy could help.
You status may depend largely on your ability to leverage AI and robotics.