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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33387 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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The advent of generative AI heralds the single largest change in the structure of human society since the neolithic revolution (ie. the invention of agriculture and the settled society) 12,000 years ago.

I would actually argue this is a closer parallel to the cognitive revolution, or homo sapiens first discovery of culture, language, and general cognitive technology. The difference is that with the revolution from fire, or the agricultural revolution, or the industrial revolution, or even the internet, the AI revolution deals with intelligence and a paradigm of thinking itself. The Scientific revolution could also be a close contender, since it dramatically increase our ability to think and use our knowledge.

The only thing that seems certain is that it will radically reshape the life of every single human being on earth in the next 5-50 years.

Agree strongly here.

Currently, we're focused on the application of modern LLMs and other generative models to create media (writing, images, video etc) and to perform knowledge roles that involve a combination of text and data manipulation and basic social interaction (ie. the vast majority of PMC labor sometimes derogatorily referred to as 'email jobs'). But current models are so generalizable, and LLMs already appear to translate so well to robotics that even relatively complex physical labor is only a few years behind the automation of the PMC, especially given rapid improvements in battery technology and small motors, which are some of the other major bottlenecks for robotic labor.

The real step change in my opinion is once these models get good at things like drug discovery, mathematical proofs, and building models of physics. We have essentially been locked into a paradigm almost 100 years old in physics, and haven't found many fundamental changes in mathematical or chemical theory since then either, to my knowledge.

In the past, every time we had a major breakthrough in one of these fields it was enough to reshape the world entirely. Chemistry led to the industrial revolution, Newtonian Mechanics led to the scientific revolution. (or was the beginning, whatever.)

There is a (relatively persuasive) case to be made that the invention of agriculture led to a decline in the quality of life for the vast majority of human beings that lasted until the late 19th or early 20th century. It took 11,900 years for the neolithic revolution to pay quality of life dividends, in other words. We can only hope that the period of relative decline in quality of life is shorter this time round, or perhaps avoidable altogether.

As I mention above, I think the comparison to the agricultural revolution falls flat for a number of reasons. Admittedly most revolutions follow a pattern of short term negative issues with long term positive outcomes however.

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