alt Hacker NewsI was enjoying the article until I got to this paragraph:
> Individual intelligence will mean nothing once we have superhuman AI, at which point the difference between an obscenely talented giga-nerd and an ordinary six-pack-drinking bozo will be about as meaningful as the difference between any two ants. If what you do involves anything related to the human capacity for reason, reflection, insight, creativity, or thought, you will be meat for the coltan mines.
Believing this feels incredibly unwise to me. I think it's going to do more damage than the AI itself will.
To any impressionable students reading this: the most valuable and important thing you can learn will be to think critically and communicate well. No AI can take it away from you, and the more powerful AI will get the more you will be able to harness it's potential. Don't let these people saying this ahit discourage you from building a good life.
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"the most valuable and important thing you can learn will be to think critically and communicate well."
I have heard some form this advice for over 30 years. Not one single penny I have earned in my career came from my critical thinking. It came from someone taking a big financial risk with the hope that they will come out ahead. In fact, I've had jobs that actively discouraged critical thinking. I have also been told that the advice to think critically wasn't meant for me.
<< Believing this feels incredibly unwise to me.
This. Just thinking that those with power would even allow that leveling seems on the verge of impossible. In a sense, you can already see it practice. Online models are carefully 'made safe' ( neutered is my preferred term ), while online inference is increasingly more expensive.
And that does not even account for whether, 'bozo' will be able to use the tool right.. because an expert with a tool will steal beat a non-expert.
It is a brain race. It may differ in details, but the shape remains very much the same.
In the context of the rest of the piece, I read this as sarcasm. The author is making fun of the species of narcissistic silly con valley techbro who actually believes such nonsense.
I don't think that this is supposed to be a statement of the author's beliefs. The whole article is dripping with contempt for AI bros and silicon valley culture in general.
Maybe if you read past these paragraph it would have been clearer?
I mean it’s theoretically true. Will we get there? Who knows.
The first time an LLM solves a truly significant, longstanding problem without help is when we will know we are at AGI.
Historically, tools that made thinking cheaper didn't eliminate thinkers...
This part was a long description of the zeitgeist in SF; it was not meant to be the author’s own opinion.