I think there’s going to be a significant bifurcation between: The people who use AI to think better, do more, and end up with more time for socializing with real humans in person… and the people who use AI to think less, do less, and replace human to human interaction.
This was an open question with social media as well in the early days - would people use it to augment and improve their social lives or as a replacement for it? We’ve seen how that’s gone.
So this time around, the question on my mind is how do we drive more people to end up in the former camp than in the latter. I think AI makes it easier to leverage yourself up, but the temptation for many to use it as a means to disconnect and check out is massive.
I think that by the very nature of AI are that it will not be used to think more. At it's core it is meant for someone to do the work for you; summarize a list instead of reading through it yourself, do the coding for you, say what the themes were in an article or story, respond to a significant other instead of taking the time to respond yourself.
It might be human nature to want to use it that way (we're lazy creatures), but it definitely doesn't *have* to be that way. So, yes, for many people it will let them sink further and further into their couch cushions, but for others it'll empower them in exactly the opposite way. This is Jeremiah's show so not appropriate to link drop directly here but I just wrote about *how* it empowers that on my own blog if you're curious.
No shot I'm paying Mr the Boer to be able to comment on his post, but we agree his bet is absurd, right? Like I get that it being absurd is part of the point, but the ranges he gives for things that he says are "normal" are very much not normal. Total economic catastrophe contained within the ranges he gives for unemployment, inflation, GDP, etc
I agree the absurdity is the point - and I think it's a mechanism to show that people predicting crazy outcomes don't actually believe them.
When people say things about how there's going to be mass unemployment, AI will take half of all white collar jobs in the next five years, it will collapse the stock market, or cause economic to quadruple... it's just not serious. Economic growth might be a little higher or lower than normal, but it's not going to transform into a radically new thing overnight. Same with jobs and everything else - and yet there are people still blithely giving these kinds of absurd predictions.
The "stretch marks of birthing a new world" are often things like mass unemployment/poverty/starvation, a hundred years of brutal child labor, horrible abuses of power by the state, etc. etc. etc. Maybe things will be fine in the long term in a transformative AI scenario, but a lot of people will personally not be fine.
I enjoyed this article, even though it was CLEARLY written by AI. You can tell from the pixels. And just the way it is. Trust me I alone am capable of determining this with 100% certainty.
Now, whether one thinks that's a problem or not, that's a whole separate discussion, but I didn't think it very hard to identify multiple sections with hallmarks of AI writing.
He is doing all those things, but nobody is inside his head. Maybe he's just tired of working and since he doesn't need to, he doesn't feel like doing it anymore. It might say a lot that he's giving up what's, on paper, a dream job to go write poetry, but it might say nothing at all, because we're assuming he values the job to the degree we assume he should, and going off to be unemployed and write poetry is ostensibly a step down.
I think there’s going to be a significant bifurcation between: The people who use AI to think better, do more, and end up with more time for socializing with real humans in person… and the people who use AI to think less, do less, and replace human to human interaction.
This was an open question with social media as well in the early days - would people use it to augment and improve their social lives or as a replacement for it? We’ve seen how that’s gone.
So this time around, the question on my mind is how do we drive more people to end up in the former camp than in the latter. I think AI makes it easier to leverage yourself up, but the temptation for many to use it as a means to disconnect and check out is massive.
I think that by the very nature of AI are that it will not be used to think more. At it's core it is meant for someone to do the work for you; summarize a list instead of reading through it yourself, do the coding for you, say what the themes were in an article or story, respond to a significant other instead of taking the time to respond yourself.
It might be human nature to want to use it that way (we're lazy creatures), but it definitely doesn't *have* to be that way. So, yes, for many people it will let them sink further and further into their couch cushions, but for others it'll empower them in exactly the opposite way. This is Jeremiah's show so not appropriate to link drop directly here but I just wrote about *how* it empowers that on my own blog if you're curious.
Great stuff.
No shot I'm paying Mr the Boer to be able to comment on his post, but we agree his bet is absurd, right? Like I get that it being absurd is part of the point, but the ranges he gives for things that he says are "normal" are very much not normal. Total economic catastrophe contained within the ranges he gives for unemployment, inflation, GDP, etc
I agree the absurdity is the point - and I think it's a mechanism to show that people predicting crazy outcomes don't actually believe them.
When people say things about how there's going to be mass unemployment, AI will take half of all white collar jobs in the next five years, it will collapse the stock market, or cause economic to quadruple... it's just not serious. Economic growth might be a little higher or lower than normal, but it's not going to transform into a radically new thing overnight. Same with jobs and everything else - and yet there are people still blithely giving these kinds of absurd predictions.
Just in case you haven't read this piece, I feel like you might appreciate it:
https://www.normaltech.ai/p/a-guide-to-understanding-ai-as-normal
The "stretch marks of birthing a new world" are often things like mass unemployment/poverty/starvation, a hundred years of brutal child labor, horrible abuses of power by the state, etc. etc. etc. Maybe things will be fine in the long term in a transformative AI scenario, but a lot of people will personally not be fine.
I enjoyed this article, even though it was CLEARLY written by AI. You can tell from the pixels. And just the way it is. Trust me I alone am capable of determining this with 100% certainty.
Everything I Don't Like Is AI!
AI was significantly involved in writing Matt Shumer's article.
*We know this because he himself said this.* It's just also pretty obvious in many sections of the text:
https://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021304532710424738?s=20
Now, whether one thinks that's a problem or not, that's a whole separate discussion, but I didn't think it very hard to identify multiple sections with hallmarks of AI writing.
He is doing all those things, but nobody is inside his head. Maybe he's just tired of working and since he doesn't need to, he doesn't feel like doing it anymore. It might say a lot that he's giving up what's, on paper, a dream job to go write poetry, but it might say nothing at all, because we're assuming he values the job to the degree we assume he should, and going off to be unemployed and write poetry is ostensibly a step down.
Personally it sounds like a dream. But who knows!