We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – the unknown unknowns We do not know what AI will be useful for. We do not know what it can actually do, what we want done, better than other ways of doing that thing (OK, other than writing C grade essays at GCSE level). We also do not know what might be a problem with what AI can do. We don’t know the benefits, we don’t know the risks.
We face, that is, radical uncertainty. So it’s impossible for us to plan anything. For planning assumes that we have an idea of the cost/benefit analysis so that we can say do that, don’t do t’other. And if we are radically uncertain then we can’t do that, can we?
– Tim Worstall
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I think the biggest losers from AI will be the “educated-yet-idiot’ class we’ve raised up to run things.
I’ve played around a little with the latest AI tools. Most of what has come out is almost indistinguishable from the drivel I am used to see churned out by the barrelful from the educated halfwits infesting the bureaucracy. Which ain’t exactly surprising, considering what they’ve used to train these things…
So, on that level, we’ve basically automated the EYI out of jobs. AI can do similar churning for a lot less money. Women and children affected most; film at eleven.
There is still scope for original thought. Something has to provide the seed. I think that what’s happened here is basically what happened to a lot of craftsmen, once the industrial revolution and the assembly line took over: The mediocrities were out of jobs, while the guys who could become millwrights and had the wit, wisdom, and imagination to use the new tools to effect made out like bandits.
And, that’s the sad thing, here: Not everyone is part of the 10% that actually have the mentality and skills to do those original things, and take part in the new structures. The “rest of us” had better figure out how to make ourselves useful to those who do have those skills, because there won’t be much room left for the drones doing things like routine technical writing and ad copy.
What they’ve done with AI is basically eliminated the space for drones in the intellectual workforce, same as mechanical automation did for the dronish types out in the blue-collar world. Which I happen to find hysterically funny, TBH. “Learn to code, bro!!!” doesn’t sound so funny, now that they’re within reach of automating all those useless journalist slots in the workforce, now does it?
They did it to the coal miners; now the chickens come home to roost among the “intellectual elite” who turn out to be not so intellectual and hardly elite, at all.
How many degree theses will be ‘written’ by AI in the coming months/years?
Students demanding that they be given a degree without actually doing any work?
To the cry of ‘we spent all that money- therefore we’ve paid for our degree- so hand it over!’
Given what they’ve turned those degrees into, and the work product of those possessing them…? How will we know the difference?
I could easily see the new discriminator becoming “OK, this is an essay written by AI on the subject… Here’s yours. Can you see any difference? Is there anything original, in yours? No? No grade for you, NPC!!”
If your role in life could be filled by an AI, are you really human? Are you even alive? Worth anything to the economy?
These questions will increasingly come to the fore, as time wears on. It may not be a bad thing that the birth rate is dropping.
Tim expands upon the precautionary principle, which the Greens love to (our) death. But there is also the law of unintended consequences. Whether the “right people” will be made redundant depends upon your definition of “right people”. Many of the Drones are unionized, which, de facto, includes bureaucrats. In the halls of power, they will probably get rid of the inconveniently intelligent. There’s no way plumbers and electricians will lose their jobs, nor assembly-line workers until robots become much cheaper and more versatile. Life will still be a crap-shoot, just a different one.
Kirk asked,
That question could be asked of anyone whose role can be filled by a machine. If your job is able to be done by a robot and that is all you know how to do, then what value do you really bring to the world? The logical end of that line of thinking is death camps for those who are rendered “obsolete.” Methinks Rod Serling was a prophet.
It’s funny that when we think of the future, whether a dystopia or a utopia, we rarely give thought to what happens to the vast majority of humans in a world where their skills are unneeded due to technology. I know some writers and TV shows have touched on it, but what happens when most people basically have all day every day to do nothing? How many people go into crime just out of sheer boredom versus how many opt for self improvement? And then there is the question of where and how will they live and support themselves? Universal welfare and housing? We see how housing projects now are just gang-ridden hellholes. Is that the future of humanity for pretty much everyone except those fortunate few born into wealth or able to work their way into a real skill (like physicians or engineers or lawyers)?
I’m glad I didn’t have children to bring into this mess and every day I look around, I think philosophical pessimism is right. We got a raw deal and as a species we should just opt out entirely.
@Steven R,
I was being rhetorical. The thing is, humans are infinitely adaptable, and will likely find constructive things to do. Rehabbing the planet after our paroxysm of industrial development wouldn’t be a bad project to set the “excess” to…
Sarcasm aside, I think that the whole thing is an issue of framing and outlook: I’m fairly certain that the aristocratic “elite” that ran things back around the 13th Century in Europe would be appalled at the “excess population” of the post-Black Death and pre-Industrial Revolution period, and yet… We found things for all those people to be doing that contributed, did we not?
All of this is typically the concern of the “educated-yet-idiot” types like Malthus and Ehrlich. Had the Chinese Communists not listened to Ehrlich’s delusional prognostications, they might stand a long-term chance of surviving as regime. Since they did listen to him, here they are, almost certainly likely to get old before they get rich. The fertility rates ain’t looking good.
My personal take on it is that those “excess” people will find something to do, much like we’ve always found something to replace the current energy source about the time the current one starts to run short of needs. Remember the “Charcoal Crisis” of the 18th Century, when the UK started to run short of trees to burn for iron-ore processing…? You can read the woe-are-we predictions throughout the “forward-looking” literature of the era, and I don’t doubt but that if you were to transpose the “Just Stop Oil” types back to those days, they’d likely be gluing themselves to the trees. And, of course, the far-less-sensitive types that burned the trees to make the charcoal would likely just leave them attached and heave them into the woodpiles they were about to burn…
The future will likely be full of engaged people, still finding a way to provide their lives with meaning. The real problem isn’t the lack of opportunity to do so, but the sad fact that so many are being conditioned not to bother… You don’t have to lead a life of functional non-utility; there are ways to make it meaningful, and you can do so wherever and whenever you like. It doesn’t take a college degree to make a net contribution to the world, and indeed, you might even make more of one without the diploma. Certainly, at least one sheep will be happier, not having its hide taken to make parchment from…
I have loads of stuff that I do that provides my life with meaning, the problem is finding something to do that people are prepared to pay me to do so that I can afford to stay alive.
What’s needed, obviously, is for someone to train up a distinctly libertarian form of AI. All biases to fall toward liberty. Something to counter the current progressive-trained bunch.
They find new skills and do new things. How many of today’s jobs existed 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago we were (nearly) all shovelling shit. Even 2 generations ago most of my ancestors were farmers or farm workers.
I have a vague notion of how to do that.
It requires a re-appraisal of some philosophical notions about agency, spanning centuries since the ancient Greeks.
It also involves modern notions of epistemology, and of course AI.
But i am not yet ready to reveal my vision.
I hope to be ready before the 2024 US elections.
Meanwhile, i am careful when crossing the street, since i am irreplaceable.
🙂
Related (via Instapundit):
Is it growing pains or is ChatGPT just becoming dumber?
@Snorri,
I’d surmise that what’s happening is that they’re essentially lobotomizing the program by forcing into producing “politically correct” work product.
It is a lot like “real life” intelligence; you hobble it with ideology and doctrinal blinders, welllllll… Yeah. You get the usual end result we’re apparently resigned to. As with man, so too with AI…
Er, isn’t this happening already?
Mark and Kirk – yes.
Leaving aside the question of whether Chat GPT and so on really are “intelligences” (I do not believe they are – I do not believe they are free will beings, which is what an intelligence is), it was clear from the start that they were programmed to give leftist answers – even giving false basic information (factually wrong claims about people and other matters) to push the establishment left “narrative” on various subjects.
“No Paul – it is programmed to search the internet – go to established sources” – that would have the same effect, something that went to established sources would reproduce endless lies, on various matters, to push the Collectivist agenda.
They’ve already found a good use for AI. It replaces human workers in taking orders at fast food chains, especially drive-ins. There are a lot of dreary, routine jobs that AI could do. A big win for humanity.
Exactly correct. Just as mechanisation meant fewer farmers could produce more food, freeing people up for other hitherto unimagined forms of employment, AI is very likely to do the same.
Average IQ is 100. 100 is not all that impressive.
We may have reached a point in social development in which the actual work performed by people pales in significance compared to the need that people have some assigned task for which they are awarded pay.
At the point where raw uneducated unskilled human labor becomes useless – at the point where AI and automation can do everything dummies can do and more – do we cast off all of those who are only suited for such work? That’s a lot of people.
We have to decide if we would rather move to some basic guaranteed income for all, or keep some of the make-work jobs.
Personally, I’d rather speak to a human order-taker than to an AI-driven machine system and then send my taxes to pay that now-replaced order-taker a “living wage” for sitting at home. We’re going to support those semi-useless workers either way – the nanny in me says make them do something for it. The social ills cultivated by an entire class of poor performers sitting at home bored would be noteworthy.
(I’m not saying that McDonalds needs to keep order-takers even if they could save money with AI systems. But we’re going to need something – something that will probably not be worth it in an economic sense – to keep those people busy – even if it’s just litter pickup.)