It kind of felt that way for me, at first, but then I thought about the types of houses that fit the bill: secondary residences in NYC. I can't imagine that those houses are going to be affordable to the "regular folks" that need them, even if they go on the market.
I think it's more a "you clearly have enough money to burn, so more taxes aren't going to impact your lifestyle" thing than opening up these properties to buy. (Which works for me.)
I didn't realize you meant that. In my mind humans could drag stuff and catch fish but the inventions made it easier or more efficient.
In that view, pretty much anything on a computer can be done easier or more efficient with AI. Same as a net or a wheel. Just Google anything it is you might want to do on a computer and add "using AI" and you're likely to find a tool to do it. If you have the computer for it, you can download an open weight model to do locally (though probably not as well as using the crazy compute associated with using an API model.
Also, as agentic AI improves, we'll see the scarcity of attention decrease and maybe vanish entirely. It's not always obvious, but much of how our society is structured assuming that people have limited agency.
Again, you're using 400+ years of hindsight to inform your conclusion. "Looking at small things" doesn't immediately imply "unlocking the secrets of the universe", it's only after hundreds of years of building on that invention that you can easily point to that conclusion.
And admittedly the analogy was not great, I'm just trying to get across that you're looking at the output of the invention and asking "is that it"? But we've only had this technology for a decade or so, and it's only really been public facing for, what, 4 years?
These various technologies we refer to as "AI" are not yet at the point where they can replace any human at any task, but they can replace some humans at some tasks, and as far as the evidence shows, we can continue to improve it with more training and more compute. They are writing prose well enough to pass as humans, solving math problems we haven't been able to solve for decades, writing medium complexity code in minutes instead of days-- the technology isn't solving all the world's problems and ushering in a post-scarcity utopia, but no one is claiming it is, today. Will it? I doubt it, but that's more to do with capitalism corrupting everything it touches than anything else.
If you think "AI" is not useful, you're probably considering a very narrowly defined type of "AI" in a very narrowly defined scenario where AI does not perform well.
Edit: I want to take a second to say that I've enjoyed this conversation with you. I can't say that about many conversations on this topic. This isn't me ending the conversation.
When they invented the microscope, hey could instantly demonstrate its utility in it's ability to observe previously invisibly tiny things.
I assure you that 400 some odd years ago, most people would not have grasped the utility in the microscope. Just like many people today don't understand what the transformer has done for machine learning.
Elon Musk is an idiot, and you've already noted that the market doesn't track reality.
The paradigm shifting invention was the transformer (the T in GPT). If you'll forgive a shitty analogy, it's like someone invented a microscope and you're asking why we don't yet have insulin. Not having insulin doesn't make the microscope useless.
As far as these things go, AI is improving at a breakneck speed-- hence why so many people in the field are begging for a pause in development. We don't really understand why this technology works as well as if does, and that has a lot of people worried that we're going to do something dangerous without understanding what we did.
There would necessarily be a lag time between layoffs and unchanged productivity. And even then, if we're being fair, that's not conclusive evidence of AI being useful; it could just be that they had more employees than they needed.
My point is more that I'm not sure we'd see an obvious sign that AI was changing the market yet.
They are using the same playbook as antivaxxers. There's no way around the comparison. It wasn't meant as an insult, but as an observation. Notice they didn't correct me, but instead indicated that it hurt their feelings.
I'm not arguing with anyone; they have not yet made a point that required more than a factual correction, or a point that was just a conspiracy theory.
You definitely shouldn't get mad about it though, haha.
What it would look like is layoffs from a company without a change in output/productivity. Notably, we're not at AGI yet, so I wouldn't expect sci-fi levels of change.
You haven't answered my questions, hence why I still have questions. I promise you that, even if it's the last comment I make to you, I will answer your questions. They're not the gotcha you apparently believe them to be and are essentially a waste of time to answer, but they appear super important so I will get to them.
First I want to understand your stance. All I've got now is that a blog said AI isn't actually dangerous, and you concur. Why do you think this?
I know it has already been said, but even your tactics resemble anti-intellectualism. You don't need to keep hammering the same questions; I will get to them. Calm down, there isn't a prize at the end; there is no winner or loser. We're just having a discussion. Breathe.
That link didn't answer my question, so I have to ask more questions. Are you saying that AI will not (can not?) be a threat to humanity, ever? And is the rationale for that conclusion because you don't think AI actually works?
I dont believe it requires sapience; that is what the marketers are saying. The AI boom (and many historic boom cycles) is predicated on marketing and sentiment, not facts and data. That is why they always pop; the facts dont back up the hype.
I think there is some confusion. I do not believe AGI implies sapience, nor does Google, and now it seems that you don't either. So who is discussing sapience?
If this is working, where's the company with runaway success creating unimagined leaps in productivity and technology?
Hypothetically speaking, what do you think this would look like?
I don't understand the question. Yudkowsky's book is on my reading list, but judging by the title, I assumed it to be more on the side of restricting AI research, which best aligns with what I think (but suspiciously you refuse to clarify) your stance is.
When I said "the experts" I meant all the people working on AI at these frontier AI companies. You know, the experts?
As far as I am aware, AGI does not imply sapience, consciousness, or whatever. You seem to believe it does. A high level Google search seems to suggest that I'm correct. Is there some reason you are lumping sapience with AGI?
I'm not sure if the rest of your comment presupposes this, so I'll wait to comment on where I think you're mistaken.
It kind of felt that way for me, at first, but then I thought about the types of houses that fit the bill: secondary residences in NYC. I can't imagine that those houses are going to be affordable to the "regular folks" that need them, even if they go on the market.
I think it's more a "you clearly have enough money to burn, so more taxes aren't going to impact your lifestyle" thing than opening up these properties to buy. (Which works for me.)