This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
While I do not think that ASI in this century is overly likely, I do not think that the present AI boom is over. It could be that we will look back on 2024 in a decade deep in the next AI winter and say "this was peak AI, we tried for a few years to throw more hardware at the LLMs had little to show for it with exponentially increasing costs"
But even then, the equilibrium with today's AI technology will transform our work lives at least as much as the digital revolution. Looking at security cameras and seeing if something bad is going on was a job, or at least a huge part of a job. Driving a truck for hours along the highway was a job. Converting a text to bullet points and back was a job. Making thematically appropriate illustrations to text-heavy articles was a job. Writing articles based on a press release was a job.
It used to be, human brains had cornered the market on general purpose neural networks. If it was to complicated to train a dog to do it (which would be another human job) you used a human.
AI does not have to become a better writer than Scott Alexander or a better narrator than Eneasz or a good programmer to put a good portion out of the population out of a job.
Perhaps we will find other niches because we have greater adaptability (i.e. require far less training) and have good manual dexterity and tend not to freak customers out. Or perhaps we will simply not return to the state where the vast majority of the adult population works. In which case governments may decide to pay people off to keep them from burning all the robots. Post-scarcity is a scale, and from the viewpoint of history we are already moving along that scale, even if we do not have a free Mars rocket for everyone and may never have.
And with regard to the paperclip maximizer, I feel it is premature to declare victory. If neural networks ever reach the same level of maturity as plumbing, where the pipes are generally the same way they were four decades ago, then you can tell us doomers that we should calm down because obviously nothing is going to happen any time soon.
See, this is where I thought AI risk would lie, if anywhere (apart from real people being stupid and greedy enough to think they could get AI to run the government or something) and I agree, this is where the actual application of AI is going to impact society.
The forecast fears for 'why we must make sure AI is aligned' were of AI getting out into the wild and taking over the fabric of global rule because now there was a rival intelligence to that of humanity, with its own cold alien goals and aims. What we have instead is chatbots that hallucinate and the people who love them.
More options
Context Copy link
The problem is of course that AI can take jobs faster than we can train people to do them. It’s just as adaptable as we are, maybe more so. Can an AI atttached to cooking utensils make a hamburger that’s as good as Five Guys? I think it probably could, given enough time. If it can do that I think it could probably make just about any food you wanted. I think it can also produce creative writing and movies and TV. What it takes is someone deciding to train it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link