mjm132 t1_j6sh46t wrote
Stop with the fear mongering. This sub is about the future and cool future technologies. It's not for doom and gloom
KeaboUltra t1_j6sk691 wrote
right? I hate it. I asked about a hypothetical situation for life extension, specifically asking people to ignore the doom and gloom shit for the sake of a regular discussion but then you get people like "Nope, climate change! Water wars! political greed!" Like I get it, but if its so fucking cemented into the future then what the fuck's the point of talking about it? there's a whole sub for people like that, why not go there instead of trying to defeat people? I'm aware that we have the potential for a messy future but If it happens, it happens. I'm not gonna waste my time bitching while doing nothing about it.
feb2023project t1_j6tovla wrote
Pretty much why i unsubscribed from all ai subs despite being a fan. This sub seems a bit better, more editorial, but still some pop culture fear-mongering finds its way through.
94746382926 t1_j6u5wfi wrote
The AI subs like /r/singularity are way more optimistic than this sub in my experience. This sub has a habit of devolving into a circle jerk about everything turning into a hopeless hellscape with climate collapse and immortal billionaires ruling over us for all eternity.
It gets real fucking old sometimes and only started to get real bad after it was made a default sub.
jazzageguy t1_j6wfqd8 wrote
I agree. What's a default sub?
94746382926 t1_j6wfwxy wrote
A sub that reddit subscribes every new account to by default.
jazzageguy t1_j6wm2bw wrote
Ohh thanks! Yeah that must be bad when suddenly the riffraff comes stampeding in, like there goes the neighborhood.
94746382926 t1_j6wqvu9 wrote
Yeah basically lol. It's reddit asking, "Hey do you want 10 million new users dumped on you at once?" What's that, you said no? Well too bad here they are!
jazzageguy t1_j6xgue3 wrote
People not self-selected, so not committed to the subject!
NotASuicidalRobot t1_j6u04oq wrote
Aren't ai subs relatively optimistic about them
throwawaysomeway t1_j6sujt9 wrote
I think awareness is key. Most people will be useless in the near future, what do the people in power do about that? Abuse it, or try to help us all? It's horrifying really.
KeaboUltra t1_j6svpf0 wrote
Awareness is fine. But this isn't awareness. reading scientific reports, keeping up with activist activity or become one and knowing what we can do to prevent or prepare is more useful than trying to spread fear. Fear is useful but not when it's meant to debilitate. If nothing else, at least allow people to enjoy the time they have.
LeafyWolf t1_j6syxb2 wrote
Frankly, most people are useless now. Subsistence farming and cottage industry make up a lot of undeveloped labor.
AI fundamentally represents change, which is abhorrent to most people. People in power fear change because the status quo benefits them. Other people fear change for other reasons (not many of them good).
If anything, leaps forward in productivity typically lead to greater standards of living. Look at world poverty rates over time.
SentientBread420 t1_j6tcdbe wrote
People in power are not afraid of being able to cut more workers off the payroll thanks to automation
L00525324 t1_j6syh2x wrote
Most people also thought they'd become useless after cars were invented or when certain factory functions became automated. Technological innovations allow us to produce more...I think people miss the point, AI a tool that will allow us to do more, not less.
StaleCanole t1_j6t5poo wrote
Techno-optimism once seemed to have a compelling vision, when AI was a hypothetical. But now that infant AI is here, and we can interact with it, i’m getting the creeping feeling that my optimism was delusion.
I think it’s because society has not prepared itself for what comes next. If government’s were proactively making sure that everyone benefits from these innovations, i’d be more comfortable with them.
But corporations have only advanced their interests, and their power over peoples’s lives, over the past couple of decades. Without some change in that trend, it’s difficult to be optimistic
SentientBread420 t1_j6tay23 wrote
Well-put.
The techno-optimists’ best arguments are plugging their fingers in their ears, replying to strawmanned versions of reasonable concerns, and calling everyone else “luddites” and “doomers.” It’s possible that things will go well, but I expect that not everything will, and we need to be prepared for that.
jazzageguy t1_j6wggim wrote
No, our best argument is a couple of hundred years of history, filled with inventions that shortsighted people have feared and loathed because they lack imagination. Tech make us vastly better off. Only people with, I dunno, fingers in their ears can't learn this.
SentientBread420 t1_j6xhd6a wrote
Tech optimists ignore that technological advancement has improved and destroyed lives along the way. You don’t get only positive or only negative. Technology brought us life-saving medicines, the internet, and the nuclear bomb. AI is going to have many powerful effects on society ranging from positive and negative. The potential positive effects are incredible. The potential negative effects are absolutely worth fearing.
jazzageguy t1_j8k7532 wrote
OK, tech has had immediate bad effects in the sense of, cars replaced horses and what did all the carriage drivers do, or farm machinery made 80% of farmers obsolete, etc. But it turns out they find something else, usually safer, less tedious, and better compensated to do in short order. Partly because the economy grows as a result of the new tech. I didn't mean to imply that there was never displacement or inconvenience. But net net, as they say, the effects of tech are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. We live longer, healthier, freer, and richer with each advance in tech, and it's silly to pretend otherwise. I'd never be so foolish as to say potential negative effects should be ignored; they should be thought about and planned for and minimized, obv. But something new and magical shouldn't be thought of as "the thing that will take our jobs and immiserate us and out-evolve us and compete with us and take over" as one commenter or maybe the op pretty much said.
SentientBread420 t1_j8no688 wrote
There’s no guarantee that we follow the same course as before. AI is its own thing. AI will bring us good and bad things at the same time.
“Magical” isn’t inherently positive. The nuclear bomb is about as “magical” as anything humans have ever created. It’s also terrifying.
OP’s fears are reasonable. Hopefully they don’t come true.
jazzageguy t1_j8r7ioo wrote
Sure, I should have said something new shouldn't AUTOMATICALLY or reflexively be feared and loathed. I can respect informed, thoughtful opinions and concerns about potential problems of AI or really anything. But just to say, duh, it'lltakeourjobs based on nothing is to ignore the history of technology, in which every invention does someone's job, but increases wealth and development overall. To me it's like saying, socialism (or dictatorship etc) sounds like a swell idea, without accounting for the historical evidence that it's got a terrible track record everywhere and always.
"Magical" was a poor choice of words too for something that results from smart people working hard. I was thinking of the famous quote, "A sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Nuclear weapons are scary and we've come too close to using them by accident too often. But their very terror has almost certainly prevented various wars, It's unfortunate that the only way to keep us from killing each other seems to be scaring the shit out of us, more specifically ensuring that the attacker will perish just as surely as the defender if he/she attacks.
jazzageguy t1_j6wh6k4 wrote
So in the centuries since the industrial revolution, life has radically transformed for the better. Everybody "benefits from these innovations." Who did more to make that happen, corporations or governments? Government is inherently reactive, seldom proactive and never inventive. It's a blunt instrument. Governments determined to proactively ensure equality turned out to be socialist hellscapes, and people hated them, and they're almost all gone now. It's pretty much down to Cuba and Berkeley.
garry4321 t1_j6swa14 wrote
I dont see any subreddit rules or in the description that the subreddit is only about that. Maybe you should make your own sub called coolfuturology or something, because this article is clearly one that "seeks to hypothesize the possible, probable, preferable, or alternative future(s)"
TheLastSamurai t1_j6to3qc wrote
This is not fear mongering. It's a reasonable article. How about stop with the ridiculous techno optimism?
marketlurker t1_j6u4dpg wrote
I believe both positions are wrong. It should be about what the risks and benefits are about future technologies. That's how we end up judging if we continue to go down that path.
BeanAndBanoffeePie t1_j6tsd4u wrote
The future is looking more gloom and doom because of technology instead of in spite of it.
mjm132 t1_j6u8v9o wrote
Leave reddit. You'll have a better outlook on life
No-Quarter-3032 t1_j6uiaww wrote
Lol. “Stop paying attention to reality, hit yourself a few times on the head with a hammer and you will be fine!”
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