I feel like AI is already changing how we work and live - I've been using it myself for a lot of my development work. Though, what I'm really concerned about is what happens when it gets smart enough to do pretty much everything better (or even close) than humans can. We're talking about a huge shift where first knowledge workers get automated, then physical work too. The thing is, our whole society is built around people working to earn money, so what happens when AI can do most jobs? It's not just about losing jobs - it's about how people will pay for basic stuff like food and housing, and what they'll do with their lives when work isn't really a thing anymore. Or do people feel like there will be jobs safe from AI? (hopefully also fulfilling)
Some folks say we could fix this with universal basic income, where everyone gets enough money to live on, but I'm not optimistic that it'll be an easy transition. Plus, there's this possibility that whoever controls these 'AGI' systems basically controls everything. We definitely need to figure this stuff out before it hits us, because once these changes start happening, they're probably going to happen really fast. It's kind of like we're building this awesome but potentially dangerous new technology without really thinking through how it's going to affect regular people's lives. I feel like we need a parachute before we attempt a skydive. Some people feel pretty safe about their jobs and think they can't be replaced. I don't think that will be the case. Even if AI doesn't take your job, you now have a lot more unemployed people competing for the same job that is safe from AI.
I spend quite a lot of time noodling on this. The thing that became really clear from this o3 announcement is that the "throw a lot of compute at it and it can do insane things" line of thinking continues to hold very true. If that is true, is the right thing to do productize it (use the compute more generally) or apply it (use the compute for very specific incredibly hard and ground breaking problems)? I don't know if any of this thinking is logical or not, but if it's a matter of where to apply the compute, I feel like I'd be more inclined to say: don't give me AI, instead use AI to very fundamentally shift things.
I get LLMs to make k8s manifests for me. It gets it wrong, sometimes hilariously so, but still saves me time. That's because the manifests are in yaml, a language. The leap between that and inventing Kubernetes is one I can't see yet.
From IT bubble it’s very easy to have impression that AI will replace most people. Most of people on my street do not work in IT. Teacher, nurse, hobby shop owner, construction workers, etc. Surely programming and other virtual work may become less paid job but it’s not end of the world.
Honestly with o3 levels of reasoning generating control software for robots on the fly, none of the above seem safe. For a decade or two at the most if that.
I am pretty sure we will have a deep cultural repulsion from it and people will pay serious money to have an AI free experience, If AI becomes actually useful there is alot of areas that we dont even know how to tackle like medicine and biology, I dont think anything would change otherwise, AI will take jobs but it will open alot more jobs at much higher abstraction, 50 years ago the idea that a software engineer would become a get rich quick job would have been insane imo
A possibility is a coalition: of people who refuse to use AI and who refuse to do business with those who use AI. If the coalition grows large enough, AI can be stopped by economic attrition.
AI could be different. At least, I'm willing to try to form a coalition.
Besides, AI researchers failed to make anything like a real Chatbot until recently, yet they've been trying since the Eliza days. I'm willing to put in at least as much effort as them.
Some folks say we could fix this with universal basic income, where everyone gets enough money to live on, but I'm not optimistic that it'll be an easy transition. Plus, there's this possibility that whoever controls these 'AGI' systems basically controls everything. We definitely need to figure this stuff out before it hits us, because once these changes start happening, they're probably going to happen really fast. It's kind of like we're building this awesome but potentially dangerous new technology without really thinking through how it's going to affect regular people's lives. I feel like we need a parachute before we attempt a skydive. Some people feel pretty safe about their jobs and think they can't be replaced. I don't think that will be the case. Even if AI doesn't take your job, you now have a lot more unemployed people competing for the same job that is safe from AI.