6 ms·

It's hard for me not to think what's the point. I am a very average, even below average person in times of intelligence. What is even my value or reason to be i

It's hard for me not to think what's the point. I am a very average, even below average person in times of intelligence. What is even my value or reason to be if I know anything I can do, LLMs can do better? What is even my value both on job market and as a human?

vmg12 2mo ago
You have inherent value by virtue of being human. Unfortunately it seems like people have forgotten humanism.
munksbeer 2mo ago
Sorry to be nihilist, but you never had any objective value if you're thinking in these terms. As far as we know, the universe "just is". There is no universal objective value of human beings, at all, any one of us. You have to make or find your own value in the universe. I try not to think too hard about the nihilist side and try to appreciate that for some unfathomable reason, I seem to have what I call consciousness - the ability to observe the present and have it superimposed on the past, and what may be the future, leading me to "experience" things. I don't understand it, no-one does (some people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect think they do, but they don't), and yet, here we are. So it doesn't matter to me if machines perform better than I do, because already lots of other people do. Just try to find your own joy or meaning, somehow.
- adamtaylor_13 2mo ago
  > As far as we know, the universe "just is". I don't know this. In fact, billions of people around the world don't know this. In fact, all evidence points to the contrary. You have objective value being made in the image of a personal God. Denying that leads to a lot of pain, namely nihilistic suffering because it's on you to "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" in any endeavor involving your own self-worth.
  - Chu4eeno 2mo ago
    To cite the famed Russian philosopher Norm Macdonald; "Scripture. Faith. Grace. Christ, Glory of God. Smart man says nothing is a miracle. I say everything is."
  - honeycrispy 2mo ago
    This is one reason why I can't stand hn. Edgelord nihilistic comments that say nothing matters and take everything for granted get up-voted while credible and rational statements about God get down-voted.
    - Madmallard 2mo ago
      What? What is rational about faith-based comments? Literally nothing is rational about that. It's also just flat out off-topic.
    - munksbeer 2mo ago
      That is an incredibly insulting comment. I am married, two children, have lead a fantastic fulfilling life. Just because I don't believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe doesn't mean I am an "Edgelord". Remember the phrase, you also don't believe in God. There are hundreds of gods you don't believe in.
      - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
        Bringing up the Flying Spaghetti Monster does make you an edgelord though.
        OrangeMusic 2mo ago
        Because it reminds you that your specific deity is just as ridiculous?
        munksbeer 2mo ago
        Which deities don't you believe in? I don't believe in all of them. Presumably you don't believe in almost all of them?
benlivengood 2mo ago
There are smarter and better humans at just about everything you or I could want to do, that's just life. Most of life isn't about comparative advantages, it's about enjoying life with people we like.
- Thanemate 2mo ago
  I can't enjoy life with my people if I can't eat, drink, and have a roof over my head.
yunwal 2mo ago
Do you have friends or people in your life that are also not geniuses? Do you think about them this way? Why or why not?
breezybottom 2mo ago
Manual labor
- swat535 2mo ago
  Even that is being automated now, it was one of the thing being automated very early on in factories..
  - breezybottom 2mo ago
    And yet we still have human laborers. Robots are a lot more expensive than AI inference.
- hoppp 2mo ago
  Anti-ai sentiment won't be automated out haha
- StefanBatory 2mo ago
  Military will always like warm bodies ;) Sometimes it's easy for me to imagine a bad future like this; where most of the men are forced into military as the only org that still has use for wetware, and women are valued only for their ability to birth new people...
WhitneyLand 2mo ago
Your value is intrinsic as a human being. We’re capable of love and shared experiences that a machine will never know.
mapontosevenths 2mo ago
This is a great question. Thanks for asking it. It really got people talking. My $0.02: Your value as a person never had anything to do with your value to the economy. It's time to relearn that fact. Check out some of Tom Hodgkins books for more. Or maybe anxietyculture.com.
- tock 2mo ago
  Yeah but what is a persons value economically anymore? What skillsets will enable us to continue to make a decent living till we are old?
  - hoppp 2mo ago
    It's funny because if people get replaced and don't have money they won't pay for API tokens either so the retail AI business collapses too, there won't be enough demand because people rather buy food.
- achierius 2mo ago
  Sorry, but most of us need to work to eat. This idea that our "value" is has nothing to do with the economy is an idea rooted in deep privilege, in the ability to say -- if I don't like my job, if I'm not employable, I can just retire, and the only problem will be figuring out how to live life afterwards.
- StefanBatory 2mo ago
  But it is. My worth is based on what my value is, what I can do. What when I can no longer have any value on the job market?
  - mapontosevenths 2mo ago
    Your economic value and your value as human being are two different things. Yeah, you gotta eat, but some of us have been slaves for so long that we've started to believe that our self worth is defined by what we will fetch at auction. It is not. Read more about the Protestant work ethic, it's history, and what life was like before men began to assume it was the one true view of life. Not very long ago nobody had clocks, and the idea that work was an ethic was a fringe, almost cult-like belief system. Now most humans routinely take stimulants every morning to be better servants, and mistake their job for their purpose on earth. That's just nonsense our culture invented though. If the master wants you to do something, force him get out the whip. Don't let him live in your head rent free by adopting his crazy belief system. YOU decide what your value is. Don't abdicate the decision to someone else.
Retr0id 2mo ago
AI will never be better than me at appreciating a good sunset.
- ralusek 2mo ago
  Claude performs 50 microappreciations per second
- pingou 2mo ago
  Perhaps it will. And perhaps countless animals are already better than us at appreciating a good sunset, yet we do not seem to value them much.
  - hoppp 2mo ago
    Animals sure but they evolve with us for hundreds of millions of years so they get a break. They did their part.
frankohn 2mo ago
You are a human being, one of the most wonderful thing the nature has ever created, besides all the other living beings and the wonderful earth we live in. Do not tell yourself you have a value just because some company may want to hire you or not. Companies and industries already use tools and machinery for tasks were once done by human beings. AI is just another tool they will use and it will probably replace human beings from some intelligence related tasks. However that may bring more disruption to the society if the government in your country do not protect and help people and leave free rein to capitalistic greed. I'm my opinion that already happened in the US, not by using AI, but merely by using H1B visa to get intelligence worker from abroad. What happened is that the companies are doing great and getting the best smart people in the world but American people and society have been disrupted. Live your life fully, be good to yourself and to others. Don't worry about the market.
arational 2mo ago
Well, you provide training data to the savior and our Lord AI. /s
Chinjut 2mo ago
Remember that the most valuable human in the world is Elon Musk. What it means to be valuable is to be like Elon Musk. Calibrate your goals accordingly.

vmg12 2mo ago

You have inherent value by virtue of being human. Unfortunately it seems like people have forgotten humanism.

munksbeer 2mo ago

Sorry to be nihilist, but you never had any objective value if you're thinking in these terms. As far as we know, the universe "just is". There is no universal objective value of human beings, at all, any one of us. You have to make or find your own value in the universe. I try not to think too hard about the nihilist side and try to appreciate that for some unfathomable reason, I seem to have what I call consciousness - the ability to observe the present and have it superimposed on the past, and what may be the future, leading me to "experience" things. I don't understand it, no-one does (some people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect think they do, but they don't), and yet, here we are. So it doesn't matter to me if machines perform better than I do, because already lots of other people do. Just try to find your own joy or meaning, somehow.

adamtaylor_13 2mo ago
> As far as we know, the universe "just is". I don't know this. In fact, billions of people around the world don't know this. In fact, all evidence points to the contrary. You have objective value being made in the image of a personal God. Denying that leads to a lot of pain, namely nihilistic suffering because it's on you to "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" in any endeavor involving your own self-worth.
- Chu4eeno 2mo ago
  To cite the famed Russian philosopher Norm Macdonald; "Scripture. Faith. Grace. Christ, Glory of God. Smart man says nothing is a miracle. I say everything is."
- honeycrispy 2mo ago
  This is one reason why I can't stand hn. Edgelord nihilistic comments that say nothing matters and take everything for granted get up-voted while credible and rational statements about God get down-voted.
  - Madmallard 2mo ago
    What? What is rational about faith-based comments? Literally nothing is rational about that. It's also just flat out off-topic.
  - munksbeer 2mo ago
    That is an incredibly insulting comment. I am married, two children, have lead a fantastic fulfilling life. Just because I don't believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe doesn't mean I am an "Edgelord". Remember the phrase, you also don't believe in God. There are hundreds of gods you don't believe in.
    - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
      Bringing up the Flying Spaghetti Monster does make you an edgelord though.
      - OrangeMusic 2mo ago
        Because it reminds you that your specific deity is just as ridiculous?
      - munksbeer 2mo ago
        Which deities don't you believe in? I don't believe in all of them. Presumably you don't believe in almost all of them?

benlivengood 2mo ago

There are smarter and better humans at just about everything you or I could want to do, that's just life. Most of life isn't about comparative advantages, it's about enjoying life with people we like.

Thanemate 2mo ago
I can't enjoy life with my people if I can't eat, drink, and have a roof over my head.

yunwal 2mo ago

Do you have friends or people in your life that are also not geniuses? Do you think about them this way? Why or why not?

breezybottom 2mo ago

Manual labor

swat535 2mo ago
Even that is being automated now, it was one of the thing being automated very early on in factories..
- breezybottom 2mo ago
  And yet we still have human laborers. Robots are a lot more expensive than AI inference.
hoppp 2mo ago
Anti-ai sentiment won't be automated out haha
StefanBatory 2mo ago
Military will always like warm bodies ;) Sometimes it's easy for me to imagine a bad future like this; where most of the men are forced into military as the only org that still has use for wetware, and women are valued only for their ability to birth new people...

WhitneyLand 2mo ago

Your value is intrinsic as a human being. We’re capable of love and shared experiences that a machine will never know.

mapontosevenths 2mo ago

This is a great question. Thanks for asking it. It really got people talking. My $0.02: Your value as a person never had anything to do with your value to the economy. It's time to relearn that fact. Check out some of Tom Hodgkins books for more. Or maybe anxietyculture.com.

tock 2mo ago
Yeah but what is a persons value economically anymore? What skillsets will enable us to continue to make a decent living till we are old?
- hoppp 2mo ago
  It's funny because if people get replaced and don't have money they won't pay for API tokens either so the retail AI business collapses too, there won't be enough demand because people rather buy food.
achierius 2mo ago
Sorry, but most of us need to work to eat. This idea that our "value" is has nothing to do with the economy is an idea rooted in deep privilege, in the ability to say -- if I don't like my job, if I'm not employable, I can just retire, and the only problem will be figuring out how to live life afterwards.
StefanBatory 2mo ago
But it is. My worth is based on what my value is, what I can do. What when I can no longer have any value on the job market?
- mapontosevenths 2mo ago
  Your economic value and your value as human being are two different things. Yeah, you gotta eat, but some of us have been slaves for so long that we've started to believe that our self worth is defined by what we will fetch at auction. It is not. Read more about the Protestant work ethic, it's history, and what life was like before men began to assume it was the one true view of life. Not very long ago nobody had clocks, and the idea that work was an ethic was a fringe, almost cult-like belief system. Now most humans routinely take stimulants every morning to be better servants, and mistake their job for their purpose on earth. That's just nonsense our culture invented though. If the master wants you to do something, force him get out the whip. Don't let him live in your head rent free by adopting his crazy belief system. YOU decide what your value is. Don't abdicate the decision to someone else.

Retr0id 2mo ago

AI will never be better than me at appreciating a good sunset.

ralusek 2mo ago
Claude performs 50 microappreciations per second
pingou 2mo ago
Perhaps it will. And perhaps countless animals are already better than us at appreciating a good sunset, yet we do not seem to value them much.
- hoppp 2mo ago
  Animals sure but they evolve with us for hundreds of millions of years so they get a break. They did their part.

frankohn 2mo ago

You are a human being, one of the most wonderful thing the nature has ever created, besides all the other living beings and the wonderful earth we live in. Do not tell yourself you have a value just because some company may want to hire you or not. Companies and industries already use tools and machinery for tasks were once done by human beings. AI is just another tool they will use and it will probably replace human beings from some intelligence related tasks. However that may bring more disruption to the society if the government in your country do not protect and help people and leave free rein to capitalistic greed. I'm my opinion that already happened in the US, not by using AI, but merely by using H1B visa to get intelligence worker from abroad. What happened is that the companies are doing great and getting the best smart people in the world but American people and society have been disrupted. Live your life fully, be good to yourself and to others. Don't worry about the market.

arational 2mo ago

Well, you provide training data to the savior and our Lord AI. /s

Chinjut 2mo ago

Remember that the most valuable human in the world is Elon Musk. What it means to be valuable is to be like Elon Musk. Calibrate your goals accordingly.