alt Hacker NewsWe are building general thinking machines with the aim of replacing all human labour, ... but humans won't be replaced, they will find other jobs, because when we introduced tractors they were able to find other jobs, ... totally the same scenario.
I love the cognitive dissonance.
Even in the best case scenario where the generated wealth will be distributed, and somehow we will be able to keep them in check (unlikely), what would be the point of life in a world where machines can best us at everything?
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And remember if there aren't jobs, people probably won't just lay down and die.
It won't be Marvin saying, "Oh god I'm so depressed, what's the point?" We'll just start killing each other in massive numbers cause, well, if you can't create anything and there isn't enough for everyone, what else is there to do but fight over what there is
I mean, there is much more to life than work... so let's not pretend it's all about working.
Everyone in America is now fed and most children grow up spending a ton of time with both parents. This is because of automation greatly raising productivity and bringing costs down throughout the 20th century.
It's easy to think things are terrible, but they are actually insanely good. Just 100 years ago life was horrible for basically everyone by today's standards, now it's not.
AI will continue the trend, raise productivity and bring costs down. Now it's for white collar output, instead of manufacturing and agriculture.
The labor force disruption will be painful, as it always is, especially in a country without a strong social safety net, but things will be better on the other side because we just made a ton of work more efficient and can produce more with less.
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water just because it affects us this time...
Technology has been replacing manual and mental labor for millennia, and especially in the last 150 years. A farmer or accountant from 1875 would be utterly shocked by how much we depend on machines and the social and industrial instituitions they enable.
And all the benefits that brings. Not just in raw economic terms, but in quality of (family, community, recreational, commercial, ecological, medical) life.
Kind hard to imagine it will suck if another order-of-magnitude leap along that long line happens.