6 ms·

I'll offer up gifted salesperson. The kind who might not even fully understand say the tech they are selling but have innate skills at reading the room, knowing

I'll offer up gifted salesperson. The kind who might not even fully understand say the tech they are selling but have innate skills at reading the room, knowing what to chase/drop, etc. It's not like they teach this in college, but the training is self taught over years I suppose.

G_z9 3y ago
Why will we need to sell things to people if people have zero economic input/value?
- astrange 3y ago
  It's impossible that people could have zero economic value. You'll notice that this is the premise of Atlas Shrugged. That's because it is usually profitable to trade with someone even if you are better at their job than they are. However even if the AIs only traded with themselves, that just means the people are left to trade with each other - you can't make a mass of people unemployed for long, they will simply employ each other.
  - G_z9 3y ago
    It’s the premise of a shitty fictional book. Of course it’s possible. When humans are the best source of zero labor tasks, our economic value will be reduced to nothing and society will no longer cater to us. It’s bad.
    - astrange 3y ago
      Society frequently caters to the elderly who aren't actively engaged in labor. But humans will be, because we have inalienable comparative advantage in that none of our inputs require electricity or a chip fab. If anything happens to TSMC or any one of its tens of sole suppliers there go the AIs.
      - G_z9 3y ago
        Yes and we also feed dogs that have no labor input. And we harp on about social justice which is not totally related to labor. We have many nice things because we currently live in a human society and humans need to have nice things in order to be healthy and productive. Throwing old people into a giant blender as soon as they were no longer useful would not be advantageous. Your argument is that humans don’t need electricity. You could also add that humans are self replicating or self assembling. These are advantages in cost and efficiency. Humans won’t be the cheapest or the most efficient for very long after AGI. And we certainly won’t be the best fit economically even if we were slightly better in some ways. You’re in complete denial. Why is it so hard to admit the plain and obvious fact that the machines won’t be good for human society?
        astrange 3y ago
        "Best fit", "cheapest", "most efficient"… none of that matters! Please wait to panic until after you've learned how comparative advantage works. As I said, humans cannot become unemployed even if AGIs are better at every single task than humans are. You do not have your job because you are the best person in the world at your job. Although, I suspect most of the AI doomers have just forgotten to account for AI using any resources at all. They are very expensive to run if you count development costs, but if they become real agentic AGIs they'll also become consumerist and negotiate their pay…
        G_z9 3y ago
        [flagged]
        astrange 3y ago
        > Your mental gymnastics are Olympic level. Yes, when companies are hiring they do in fact choose the best candidate. You don't hire "the best person in the world" (absolute advantage), you hire the best person who accepts the job offer, or else noone. Anyone with something better to do won't take the job. Senior engineers don't take junior positions. Though of course it's not always the best person anyway - family businesses hire family or their friend's cousin, and interns aren't expected to be good at "their jobs" but instead to be good over time. If you're hiring someone specifically because they're good at one task, might as well get a contractor anyway. Nevertheless, US unemployment rate is about as good as it's ever been. So I suspect this fear is left over from the 2008 recession… > Are you familiar with the fact that things improve with time? And that technology ratchets forward, not backward. Yes, that's why it's good. Productivity enhancements and automation increases are associated with increased employment, because if you don't have them your entire country loses work to other countries. So the thing to be concerned about would be losing them.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I actually doubt we will end up where people have zero economic value or input. Either we have UBI and they can choose where to spend their income or trade it. Or then they will exist in their own economic system and trade with each other. Trading and thus sales is inherent to human condition. Unless we reach absolute post scarcity society and even then you get to bullshit like "authentic" and so on.
  - G_z9 3y ago
    UBI wont work. It’s intrinsically unstable in the context of AGI. UBI will prevent the inevitable for a very short time before collapsing. The other outcome is the most likely if AGI isn’t stopped. But the problem with that is that in the context of AGI, a world dominated by and inhabited by AGI creatures, human society becomes transient. Again, just delaying the inevitable. Human society is not transient now because no matter what happens, no matter what entity dominates the world, it has to have a human society embedded inside of it because human beings are the only and best source of intelligent signal. When that is no longer true, humanity will be effectively terminated. All other propositions besides stopping AGI are just delay tactics.

G_z9 3y ago

Why will we need to sell things to people if people have zero economic input/value?

astrange 3y ago
It's impossible that people could have zero economic value. You'll notice that this is the premise of Atlas Shrugged. That's because it is usually profitable to trade with someone even if you are better at their job than they are. However even if the AIs only traded with themselves, that just means the people are left to trade with each other - you can't make a mass of people unemployed for long, they will simply employ each other.
- G_z9 3y ago
  It’s the premise of a shitty fictional book. Of course it’s possible. When humans are the best source of zero labor tasks, our economic value will be reduced to nothing and society will no longer cater to us. It’s bad.
  - astrange 3y ago
    Society frequently caters to the elderly who aren't actively engaged in labor. But humans will be, because we have inalienable comparative advantage in that none of our inputs require electricity or a chip fab. If anything happens to TSMC or any one of its tens of sole suppliers there go the AIs.
    - G_z9 3y ago
      Yes and we also feed dogs that have no labor input. And we harp on about social justice which is not totally related to labor. We have many nice things because we currently live in a human society and humans need to have nice things in order to be healthy and productive. Throwing old people into a giant blender as soon as they were no longer useful would not be advantageous. Your argument is that humans don’t need electricity. You could also add that humans are self replicating or self assembling. These are advantages in cost and efficiency. Humans won’t be the cheapest or the most efficient for very long after AGI. And we certainly won’t be the best fit economically even if we were slightly better in some ways. You’re in complete denial. Why is it so hard to admit the plain and obvious fact that the machines won’t be good for human society?
      - astrange 3y ago
        "Best fit", "cheapest", "most efficient"… none of that matters! Please wait to panic until after you've learned how comparative advantage works. As I said, humans cannot become unemployed even if AGIs are better at every single task than humans are. You do not have your job because you are the best person in the world at your job. Although, I suspect most of the AI doomers have just forgotten to account for AI using any resources at all. They are very expensive to run if you count development costs, but if they become real agentic AGIs they'll also become consumerist and negotiate their pay…
        G_z9 3y ago
        [flagged]
        astrange 3y ago
        > Your mental gymnastics are Olympic level. Yes, when companies are hiring they do in fact choose the best candidate. You don't hire "the best person in the world" (absolute advantage), you hire the best person who accepts the job offer, or else noone. Anyone with something better to do won't take the job. Senior engineers don't take junior positions. Though of course it's not always the best person anyway - family businesses hire family or their friend's cousin, and interns aren't expected to be good at "their jobs" but instead to be good over time. If you're hiring someone specifically because they're good at one task, might as well get a contractor anyway. Nevertheless, US unemployment rate is about as good as it's ever been. So I suspect this fear is left over from the 2008 recession… > Are you familiar with the fact that things improve with time? And that technology ratchets forward, not backward. Yes, that's why it's good. Productivity enhancements and automation increases are associated with increased employment, because if you don't have them your entire country loses work to other countries. So the thing to be concerned about would be losing them.
Ekaros 3y ago
I actually doubt we will end up where people have zero economic value or input. Either we have UBI and they can choose where to spend their income or trade it. Or then they will exist in their own economic system and trade with each other. Trading and thus sales is inherent to human condition. Unless we reach absolute post scarcity society and even then you get to bullshit like "authentic" and so on.
- G_z9 3y ago
  UBI wont work. It’s intrinsically unstable in the context of AGI. UBI will prevent the inevitable for a very short time before collapsing. The other outcome is the most likely if AGI isn’t stopped. But the problem with that is that in the context of AGI, a world dominated by and inhabited by AGI creatures, human society becomes transient. Again, just delaying the inevitable. Human society is not transient now because no matter what happens, no matter what entity dominates the world, it has to have a human society embedded inside of it because human beings are the only and best source of intelligent signal. When that is no longer true, humanity will be effectively terminated. All other propositions besides stopping AGI are just delay tactics.