alt Hacker NewsThe gap is important because of its special and devastating economic consequences. When the gap becomes truly zero, all human knowledge work is replaceable. From there, with robots, its a short step to all work is replaceable.
I don’t know why statements like this are just taken as gospel fact. There are plenty of economic activities which do not disappear even if an AI can do them.
Here’s one: I support certain artists because I care about their particular life story and have seen them perform live. I don’t care if an AI can replicate their music because the AI didn’t experience life.
Here’s another: positions that have deep experience in certain industries and have valuable networks; or that derive power by being in certain positions. You could build a model that incorporates every single thing the US president, any president, ever said, and it still wouldn’t get you in the position of being president. Many roles are contextual, not knowledge-based.
The idea that AGI replaces all work only makes sense if you’re talking about a world with completely open, free information access. I don’t just mean in the obvious sense; I mean also “inside your head.” AI can only use data it has access to, and it’s never going to have access to everyone’s individual brain everywhere at all times.
So here’s a better prediction: markets will gradually shift to adjust to this, information will become more secretive, and attention-based entertainment economics will become a larger and larger share of the overall economy.
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> AI can only use data it has access to, and it’s never going to have access to everyone’s individual brain everywhere at all times.
Yeah, but obviously no human can clear that bar either.
> Here’s another: positions that have deep experience in certain industries and have valuable networks
What stops an AGI from gaining "deep experience in an industry"? Or forming networks? There's plenty of popular bot accounts across social media already.
it's just not binary. today's world is dominated by capitalistic competition and a lot of people earn a living by competing with their labor. If AI + robots can do the labor better, cheaper, faster, most (90%+) of today's jobs are gone without obvious replacement.
Very few artists or aspiring artists make enough money from their art to make a living -- even now, when the average person has a job and at least some disposable money and can support artists. This % will not get higher if we get 1000x more artists, and 1000x less employed people working in the general economy.
You can't get deep experience in any industry if there's a machine that can do the entry-level work for a fraction of the cost you can. And keep in mind that, by definition, this machine can learn to do everything you can, so it's in a much better position than you to get that deep experience you speak of.
If we get what's essentially mass-producable brains, and information gets more secretive as you say, if we have say 1000 machines for every person in the economy, they're in a better position than you to produce said valuable secret information.