So now that Tesla is clearly crashing, fold it into the more successful SpaceX and get to roll the dice again?
Classic Elon. This is the same thing that he did to rescue a failing Solar City by making it part of Tesla.
It takes a lot to get where Elon is. But it also takes a willingness to double down over and over again on big bets. And he himself will be the first to admit that the most likely outcome of his strategy was bankruptcy.
And it still is the most likely outcome; but now it wont be Elon losing 99% of his worth, it will be every pension and retirement, every index fund, every investment portfolio that 'must buy' into this simply because of the scale, regardless of the individual investors' best interests.
After losing 99%, Elon would still be worth 10B, but now the risk is with the investors? What is 1% remaining out of the portion of their individual net worth committed to one (or more) of these types of index funds out of a need for "safety?"
Oops, that's $100 remaining for every 10K invested; that's roughly the cost of a single steak dinner at a mid-grade chain restaurant.
I'm sorry, I just cant imagine that this really ends well. There simply isn't anything approaching reality in the profit:risks at SpaceX.
Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
Is any more proof needed that if you ride the coat tails of real engineers and have a propensity for screwing other people over that that is what success really is for a lot of people in business?
Just look to the number of huge companies with founding members or integral early members being forced out just as things are getting good ($$$).
> Look at how many fuck ups there are with basically no repercussions; the dude is still rich.
I read something that put it into perspective for me. Musk's current net worth is ~ $1 trillion. He could mess up and destroy 99% of his wealth and he would still be worth $10 billion.
If he did something stupid again and lost 99% of the remaining 1%, he would still be worth $100 million.
It would take him screwing up a third time and losing 99% once again to be down to a middle-class net worth of $1 million.
Just so that nobody jumps in with what I first wanted to jump in with, this estimate was done with the assumption that Elon Musk's Starship is built, works as advertised, and launch costs are at the lower end of the projected range.
It wasn't an order of magnitude more because of how expensive rocket launches currently are.
(I'm glad that I read the article before arguing this one...)
When the economy is growing, investment makes sense. Why put your money under the mattress when it could be out there, working for you?
When the reverse happens, investment stops making sense. Why risk your money when it becomes worth more while it is sitting under your mattress?
But stopping investment does not just mean stopping speculative investment. It means stopping investment in other things as well. Like maintenance. This guarantees that things are going to become worse over time. Which is a feedback loop that makes investment even less worthwhile.
This has happened in the USA before. The last time is called the Great Depression. Read through accounts of what it was like. Would you like to go through that now?
History also teaches that the longer it is between economic setbacks, the worse the next one tends to be. We've gone far longer since a depression than at any point in history. Our next one is likely to be correspondingly more terrible.
> When the economy is growing, investment makes sense. Why put your money under the mattress when it could be out there, working for you?
> When the reverse happens, investment stops making sense. Why risk your money when it becomes worth more while it is sitting under your mattress?
Is it necessary to have a growing population in order to have a growing economy?
For much of human history I'd guess the answer was yes, because the size of the economy was based almost entirely on how much physical work people did, but the modern economy is very different from historical economies.
> Is it necessary to have a growing population in order to have a growing economy?
Soon we will discover. I suspect the answer will be no, at least not for long. Markets are made of people. Can the economy grow despite a shrinking market losing economies of scale everywhere? I hope, but I don't count on it.
You've given a good explanation of how it works -- under a mode of production concerned primarily with the exchange value of goods, not their use value. If what you want to do is to provide adequate/growing use value, you can do that instead and allocate resources based on need rather than on investment value.
Use value and exchange value are highly correlated for basically all goods other than collectibles and luxury items, and even then their "use" often is providing an emotional boost to their owner.
It seems like you're recommending socialism without coming out and saying it?
I think I read several economic metrics are now worse than in the Great Depression, but I can't remember which ones. Probably something to do with energy prices.
Populations do not tend to grow to equilibrium and then stop. They tend to overgrow their environment, outstrip resources, and then collapse.
The result may not be extinction. But losing 90% of the human population won't feel that different if you're living through it.
A relevant book recommend, https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Rev.... It walks through a variety of past examples of human societies that went through this. There is no reason to believe that our current world-wide society will fare better.
> They tend to overgrow their environment, outstrip resources, and then collapse.
That's not what's happening here. Birth rates are below 2.1 in many countries who are no where close to "outstripping their resources". There are other factors causing the contraction which have nothing to do with resource limitations.
In fact it seems like it's the opposite: richer nations with more resources tend to have lower birth rates. That's the scary part because it means there's no equilibrium to be reached. Birth rates could, in theory, remain low until humanity ceases to exist.
Has any organism ever extinguished itself as you describe ? This whole human extinction thing… isn’t that catastrophising? We are a 7-8 billion individuals away from extinction.
All plausible theories I've heard for the cause of humanity's unprecedented, historically low birth rates are things that could not occur in less intelligent species. (Birth control, women's rights, hedonism enabled by modern technology, etc.)
> isn’t that catastrophising
Yes, I'm only putting that forward as the worst case scenario to make the point that this can't just be ignored. As I said in other comments, this almost certainly won't actually result in extinction because there are other corrective factors which would occur long before that, but none of those scenarios are particularly desirable either. (E.g. Civilizational collapse returning humanity to pre-industrical birth rates, global takeover by theocratic governments that ban birth control, etc.)
The only non-catastrophic corrective factors that sound plausible to me involve some kind of intentional collective action on our part that reverses the trend, which won't happen if everyone's attitude is the same as the root commenter's. (Granted, maybe there are other possible corrective factors I haven't thought of, but if so I'd like to discuss what those are rather than just have the problem dismissed with a hand wave.)
Neither the fall in birth rates nor its rise is intentional. I struggle to understand why people think a mega fauna of 7-8 billion people takes intentional decisions. An individual takes intentional decisions. Humanity … not so much I think.
Eventually Universe 25 took another disturbing turn. Mice born into the chaos couldn’t form normal social bonds or engage in complex social behaviors such as courtship, mating, and pup-rearing. Instead of interacting with their peers, males compulsively groomed themselves; females stopped getting pregnant. Effectively, says Ramsden, they became “trapped in an infantile state of early development,” even when removed from Universe 25 and introduced to “normal” mice. Ultimately, the colony died out. “There’s no recovery, and that’s what was so shocking to [Calhoun],” says Ramsden.
Like the mice, our population is going into reverse. And that description of behavior, looks awfully prescient when I compare to humans on social media today...
Lack of personal space is certainly not the cause of our declining birth rates. People in wealthy countries with lots of personal space actually tend to have lower birth rates than poorer countries with less. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_rec...
The other 99% is even more dependent on the machine than the top 1%. They can build themselves reinforced bunkers, just in case. What is your plan if, say, the food distribution infrastructure breaks down?
Does that sound like an extremely unlikely outcome? Back in 2008, we came within hours of credit cards stopping working. Projections say that if credit cards stop working, food distribution breaks down. Mass hunger is not far behind that. And there is nothing like mass hunger to destroy a society.
Esoteric problems in financial markets have real world consequences. We've gone nearly a century since the last real demonstration of that. Don't discount the possibility that the next demonstration will be within your lifetime. And in our more interconnected world, it's likely to be a lot worse.
This is a call for community and durable systems that serve the human instead of traditional systems built to aggregate and funnel capital to a few. The fertility crisis is a capital crisis (taxpayers needed to pay back debt issued today decades into the future, workers for corporate profits), not a crisis for the individual. I see it as an exciting opportunity to maintain and improve quality of life for humans while solving for decoupling from these suboptimal systems primarily built to extract and exploit. Solarpunk vibes.
(to your food example, the US harvests land the aggregate size of the state of Oregon just for biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel; this is, arguable, unnecessary, and there are many other examples of unnecessary economic activity that can be deprecated)
You're describing a systemic problem. An individual problem is: my paycheque is next week but I need to pay rent this week. That's a problem specific to me. A systemic problem is: paycheques aren't big enough to cover rent any more. It's a problem that affects a large number of people. Systems are comprised of individuals but describing a systemic problem from the perspective of one individual doesn't change the nature of the problem.
Having children in no way guarantees they will provide for you in old age. Stop by your local retirement home and ask how many kids stop by to see their parents. Free will is a thing, children are not assets.
I could rant about the stupidity of spending fossil fuels, to grow biofuels, for no net gain in energy. But with a definite cost in engine wear.
That said, like Democracy, capitalism is the worst economic system, except all of the others that have been tried. And there have been enough alternate experiments that I wouldn't want to literally bet my life on the next one working better.
Europe has done fairly well imho balancing socialism with capitalism and free market mechanisms, good patterns exist today I argue, even if they need tweaks and improvement. Importantly, these demographic curves are locked in for decades into the future, so might as well get comfortable with forward curve of change, we aren't going back to the historical demographic growth curve in anyone's lifetime, if ever. Plan, forecast, and model accordingly.
(~71% of the world’s population now lives in countries with birth rates below the replacement level needed to maintain population size, the remainder will follow in time)
The free market is a very good starting point indeed, but it shouldn't be confused with Capitalism. Ironically, the free market best embodies the Communist slogan "let a million flowers bloom". Capitalism is more like giving Elon a lawnmower.
How does almost everyone pay for food at the grocery store? If stores don't have a good way to get money from customers, how do they pay the next step up the line?
During COVID we all saw how the government can just override all this and ensure what needs to be done is done and what cannot be done is avoided - something we always thought was impossible. Yet we all quickly forgot this happened and now we're back to assuming it can't happen.
During COVID we saw all sorts of insanity (semi trucks dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk into the drains because they couldn't travel to the closed packaging plants).
Food distribution will still continue until the raw resources necessary crap out. Shelves won't go empty immediately, but once there's no gas for the trucks and tractors, then you'll be happy to be near the Amish.
> What is your plan if, say, the food distribution infrastructure breaks down?
300 acres on the westward-facing slope of the interior cascade temperate rainforest. Even if the entire region sees extended drying over the next 50, there will still be sufficient rainfall for crops. All it will need are a few holding pools to reliably produce a year-round supply.
It’s also reasonably remote, difficult to reach unless you know of the specific path, and reasonably defensible.
It’s 30 minutes to the nearest town with a hospital. 2hrs from a moderate metro city with a large hospital. It’s isolated, not hundreds-of-km into the boonies.
The first thing that I did was zoomed out, surely Shakespeare wrote about something in the New World?
No. It is amazing how small his world was. He was born and grew to adulthood, in the world where Spanish dominance kept England from attempting to explore the world. While Jamestown was settled before he died, he never wrote about it.
I've updated my understanding of how (un)aware people were in this era of the larger world. I have no idea why I would have ever expected otherwise.
A lot of that is bias from the fact the whole map was vibed/hallucinated by an LLM instead of just sourced from (what I'm sure are many) concordances of Shakespeare's works.
For example, "The Tempest" famously mentions the "Bermoothes" (Bermuda), but that's not included in this LLM's output for some reason. Any decent subject-index of Shakespeare would include it.
The map contains a bunch of references to America, the West Indies, Guiana, and Mexico. (Often with a connotation of "faraway exotic place" or "exciting new international development".)
He may not have written about the British colonies but the New World was clearly at least somewhat present in his mind and his audience's minds.
The most far-flung pins on the map are further away than Shakespeare or his audience likely had in mind.
"America" looks like it's at the centroid of the modern continental USA, but Shakespeare was surely thinking of somewhere in the Caribbean. "Asia" is shown somewhere in Mongolia/Kazakhstan, but the quotes suggest Turkey or the Middle East, and Shakespeare surely would have said "Cathay" or "India" if he meant to go that far. Likewise "Russia" is shown in Siberia, but everyone in Russia lives near the European borders thousands of km west.
That said, the references to Ethiopia, India, and the Indies are very clear and can only be where they are shown on the map.
(Don't take any of this as criticism! The map is very cool, it just shows the limits of what a fully automated approach can do. A human approach would be limited by the human's biases instead.)
> Likewise "Russia" is shown in Siberia, but everyone in Russia lives near the European borders thousands of km west.
Yes, and "Love's Labour's Lost" specifically pairs/ contrasts "Russians" with "Muscovites": the "Russia" of St Petersburg is pretty far west of "Moscow."
The problem is that professors say "learn to think critically", then actually just want the students to learn to sound like them, and agree with them. Actual critical thought has been on the decline for some time.
This is especially true in the humanities and the social sciences. Where truth is hard to ascertain, and therefore it is easier to substitute political correctness for critical thought.
Some will probably dismiss your comment as partisan but it is very hard to (honestly) argue that this isn’t the case. “Think critically…” but only about the cliché punching bags of academia: capitalism, Western culture, American foreign policy, The Patriarchy, etc. I didn’t witness any college classes that encouraged us to think critically about socialism, or think critically about Islam, or think critically about non-Western countries’ foreign policy aims, or think critically about third-wave feminism’s impact on society. Instead, even questioning any of those sacred cows usually brands you as “far right” and professors sometimes even get fired for making others “feel unsafe” if they even try.
Note: you can still be an avowed and serious leftist and have my respect if you allow your ideas to be questioned, hold yourself to a standard of proof, and tolerate dissent. What I’m criticizing is the way especially in universities, people jump right to “You’re a Nazi/fascist and the only acceptable response is to shut you down and eject you from the community” if someone doesn’t embrace all the same political dogma as you.
"I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them."
Those on the left have been trying to advance their power through creating new taboos that cement their position. But they've misjudged. As a result Trump, by simply speaking to the resulting pain points, has been put on a potential course towards dictator. (Note, he doesn't have to do anything about it - just name the pain.) Will he succeed? Probably not, but he's certainly making a try of it.
Very few on the left are willing to engage in the self-reflection to realize how they have contributed to Trump's rise. It should be obvious - if Trump is an existential threat then you should reach out to people you dislike, who dislike Trump more than you. But no. We've been doubling down on ideological purity. And the horrible result is in the (currently partially demolished) White House.
100% agree. But this seems to be standard now for most political dialog. Either one group will call you a racist or the other group will call you communist. Or maybe antisemitic.
"The world is full of heavy things, and yet most of us aren't ripped."
AI is an opportunity. On the one hand, it can be used to let our minds and social lives atrophy. On the other hand, it is an opportunity to help our minds grow. Most people will make the lazy choice. But you can choose to do otherwise.
Take, for example, speeches. I do not let AI write my speeches. But my speeches are better for having been critiqued by AI. But the result is still my speech. My thoughts, my ideas, my words, and my meaning. Just improved with rounds of feedback about where it fell flat, where I was likely to lose people, and so on. Feedback that I had to fix.
So do not let AI write your speeches. But do use it to push yourself harder.
>Take, for example, speeches. I do not let AI write my speeches. But my speeches are better for having been critiqued by AI. But the result is still my speech. My thoughts, my ideas, my words, and my meaning. Just improved with rounds of feedback about where it fell flat, where I was likely to lose people, and so on. Feedback that I had to fix.
> So do not let AI write your speeches. But do use it to push yourself harder.
This used to be the job of our friends, families, and coworkers: To push us harder. I think we are losing something.
Odd. I never had any friends, families, or coworkers who were willing to be available for a dozen rough drafts. I've only had ones who were willing to talk during the idea stage, or after it was closer to a final speech.
For me, AI gives me feedback at places that I wouldn't have received it before. It does not replace the human feedback that I still look for.
Less about the draft/writing and more about human interaction on all levels.
I don't see how AI becoming a mentor or a coach to push me harder is helpful in the long run. I would be missing out on opportunity to learn from real life experience. I'd rather listen to my brother or my coworker or whomever human, pick their brain, riff, dig deeper, understand their perspective from life experiences and actual meaningful thought and moral compass than have AI (take intelligence with a grain of salt) influence me.
I just acted as an amateur editor for my friend's new novel. It took a long time to get through with hundreds or thousands of minor corrections and notes. I'm certain I outperformed an LLM for a lot of that in terms of quality.
You don’t need to outperform an LLM tho. The experience of working on it together is incredibly meaningful.
I generally reject this litmus test that someone has to be “better” and an LLM in order for the human interaction and effort to be worthwhile.
You’re now part of the journey of this novel. They will thank you in the acknowledgements section. It’s this foundation upon which our lives, communities, culture and societies are built.
You do not need to be better. This act you did for a friend is not suddenly pointless and meaningless upon the release of the next model.
> You’re now part of the journey of this novel. They will thank you in the acknowledgements section. It’s this foundation upon which our lives, communities, culture and societies are built.
Beautifully said.
I think this is what the poem is all about. Some people (bizarrely, in my opinion) sometimes focus on whether AI is good enough or whether it lets them be more productive with their projects, in some mad rush to optimize life. But I think that's a red herring, and I think so does the poem's author.
People who talk to LLMs too much, get used to them sucking up. Real humans feel jarring after that. (Just like people who get used to being in echo chambers, stop wanting to interact outside of those echo chambers.)
After someone has an answer from an LLM, often that replaces reasons we would have talked to others. (See the OP for examples.)
If this does not fit your personal experience, then I have no percentage in trying to convince you.
It does fit the personal experiences of a wide variety of people that I've talked to about it. Including therapists who are having to deal with the fallout within families of these dynamics.
If you wait a few years, I'm sure that peer reviewed research will catch up with the current social phenomena. But by then there will be some other fairly new social phenomena where common experience is ahead of the research.
It’s not mutually exclusive. LLMs aren’t doing the same job as social encouragement to do better.
There’s also limit to how much you can expect coworkers, friends, and family to review your work. An LLM can act as a rubber duck debug partner or a reviewer hundreds of times per time. You cannot have friends and family at your service all day.
> This used to be the job of our friends, families, and coworkers: To push us harder. I think we are losing something.
No, and if you think that, your friends, family, and coworkers probably don't like you that much. You can push yourself harder for someone else, but it is and has always been something you do. Making it everyone else's problem to improve you makes you a codependent asshole. You can and should find purpose and meaning, even motivation and inspiration in others. It is not anyone's "job" to make you a better person.
That's precisely the kind of thinking that's landed us in the mess we're in. Abdication of personal responsibility. Shifting blame and responsibility from yourself onto anyone nearby. It is your job to make yourself a better person for the people around you. Not the other way around.
I interpreted GP's message as "We used to lean-on and learn-from our friends, families, and coworkers, and insodoing we ourselves improved in a symbiotic way".
The "job" in the speech example would be "hey Joe, can I run this speech by you?"
In that scenario, the friend would:
* feel valued,
* connect with you,
* have something to do socially instead of "sooo uh whatcha been up to... uh... nice weather...", and
* get to hone their own speech skills by critiquing in a safe environment.
And.. yeah... it is the "job" of a friend/coworker to say "yes" to that question, right?
Ok; That's good feedback. Job may not have been the right word. I admit I didn't pass my comment through an LLM, so thank you for helping me improve and push harder. ;)
There's no abdication of personal responsibility. To be the kind of person who wants to constantly improve, it is incredibly important to surround yourself with similar people.
You will always grow faster spending time with someone who says "couldn't you also try X" than someone who always says "that's good enough, why don't you relax and watch some TV".
You could make the same argument for the internet pre-LLM; it could be relied upon over immediate connections. It's also reminiscent of Socrates's skepticism of written text over oral tradition.
Speeches haven't gone away, videos are more popular than ever, and consulting within our social circle will continue on.
I think there's something to be said about there being an isolationist phenomenon in society that might be contributing in part to low fertility, but that significantly pre-dates LLMs. It's easy and convenient for us to be alone - people create friction. We've been entertained by the TV set for a century now. That said, we remain social creatures and enduringly have a need to be with others, at least to some extent.
I’m not meeting with friends to work on our speeches, I’m meeting friends to do friends stuff. Go join toastmasters if you want to do work stuff as a fun pasttime.
> So do not let AI write your speeches. But do use it to push yourself harder.
Isn't the point of the poem that you should, instead, ask a human? You'll get sidetracked and drawn into unrelated conversations, sure, but that's what it means to be human. Trying to optimize these distractions away means you deprive yourself from human interactions. And why optimize anyway, what's the end goal?
The AI is available when humans aren't. We should not reduce how much we talk to humans. But we should not avoid using AI where it makes sense.
As for why optimize, we should each decide what we care about, then optimize for that. I have personal reasons why I want to be a better speaker. Why I want to be able to stand in front of people, and have them connect with things that I care about. So it likely makes more sense for me to optimize building that skill, than for most.
Why do you need it to be available now (for varying values of "now")? Why the urgency? What did you do before AI existed?
And why did you decide the AI makes you a better speaker than talking and getting feedback from your fellow humans?
I think this is also what TFP (The Fine Poem) is about. Why the rush? I get wanting to become a better speaker, that's also part of being human, but why do you need to rush it with AI? Where are you going that you need to get there so fast, and taking shortcuts? This is what I meant by "optimizing".
It seems to me a sort of "productivity death cult". Productivity for what?
> And why did you decide the AI makes you a better speaker than talking and getting feedback from your fellow humans?
You've just demonstrated a lack of reading comprehension. The choice that I made wasn't humans, OR AI. It was humans, OR humans+AI. All else being equal, more feedback is better.
> It seems to me a sort of "productivity death cult". Productivity for what?
Are you having a discussion with me, or a strawman that you're projecting onto me? Right now it looks like you're debating a strawman. Who doesn't look anything like me.
I said that I had personal reasons to become better at connecting with an audience. A big source of those personal reasons is that I and my family have been through a mental health nightmare since COVID. I've learned a lot from the experience that I'd like to be able to talk about.
To give but one example, what I've shared with my local Toastmasters club has helped it become both the largest, and the fastest growing, community Toastmasters club in Orange County. People are joining because we're really good at helping them overcome social anxiety.
I care about helping people. I'd like to be able to help more than just the few dozen people that I've talked to already.
Do you really think that my desire to have a positive impact in more lives makes me part of a "productivity death cult"? If so, then we're going to have to disagree on what makes something a productivity death cult.
My position is this. Each of us should figure out what we really care about. (In healthy humans, human connection tends to be a big part of that.) After figuring out that, we should set priorities for ourselves. To the extent that AI is honestly helpful, we should use AI.
> You've just demonstrated a lack of reading comprehension
Why are you escalating this? I didn't personally attack you or question your comprehension, I'm challenging some of what you said. Not even all.
> Are you having a discussion with me, or a strawman that you're projecting onto me? Right now it looks like you're debating a strawman. Who doesn't look anything like me.
Not a strawman. I'm addressing a broader context than just you, while relating it to what you said about the AI being "available" when humans weren't. I didn't mean to imply you personally were engaged in a productivity cult, and if I came across that way, I apologize. (Don't tell me you haven't seen the productivity obsession being brought up frequently on HN, either criticizing it or embracing it)
> A big source of those personal reasons is that I and my family have been through a mental health nightmare since COVID. I've learned a lot from the experience that I'd like to be able to talk about.
None of this was in your initial comment, how could I guess? This is additional context that does, indeed, change some of our conversation.
> To the extent that AI is honestly helpful, we should use AI
Yes, but let's be honest about what "helpful" means here, and to what end. Perfecting a speech (or helping you perfect it) doesn't seem to me a particularly necessary use of AI. That's essentially what TFA (poem) is about.
> Why are you escalating this? I didn't personally attack you or question your comprehension, I'm challenging some of what you said.
On personal attacks, you literally said that it looked to you like I am part of a productivity death cult. How was that not you attacking first?
Moving on, What you challenged was not what I said. It was a misunderstanding of what I said. A misunderstanding that is directly contradicted by what I DID say.
To verify, re-read the thread. Note where I first said that we should not reduce human interactions. And then realize that if we're not reducing human interactions, we're certainly not replacing human interactions with AI interactions.
> Not a strawman. I'm addressing a broader context than just you, while relating it to what you said about the AI being "available" when humans weren't.
In other words what you had to say should have been addressed to some other group, for some other reason.
Meanwhile, what I said is true. I have a number of people I get feedback from. I value it. They're there for me, I'm there for them. But if I want an extra 5 rounds of feedback, I'll feel guilty for disrupting my friend that much. I won't feel guilty after asking that from an AI. And unless a friend is in crisis, I wouldn't be happy with a friend who regularly demanded that much from me.
AI connections are not as meaningful. But they are definitely more available.
> None of this was in your initial comment, how could I guess? This is additional context that does, indeed, change some of our conversation.
Bullshit.
I said up front that I have personal reasons for wanting to be a better speaker. The default assumption when someone says that they have personal reasons for something, should be that they have personal reasons for it. And that their reasons are at the very least meaningful to them.
You didn't. You assumed the worst of me. You then misread me to be worse still. And then were confrontational about it. And now are standing on, "Who me? How could I have guessed at all that?"
> Yes, but let's be honest about what "helpful" means here, and to what end. Perfecting a speech (or helping you perfect it) doesn't seem to me a particularly necessary use of AI.
Since you've been honest, I'll be honest back. If you gave a shit, you'd know what my goal is. It isn't perfecting any given speech. You'd also know why it is important to me. And if that isn't enough in your books to justify what I'm using AI for, then I'll ignore your opinions on the matter.
Take something that someone else said. Come out swinging at a distortion of what they said. Then if they call you on it, say, "You seem very defensive and angry." Thereby dismissing what they said without having to engage in any self-reflection.
I'm sorry you feel this is a "strategy". Nothing was intended as personal. Something you said made me react with a reflection on AI and the productivity threadmill, but I wasn't criticizing your personal experience, much like the poem wasn't either.
Your insistence on framing this as someone "swinging" at you is a mistake.
That was what I was thinking when the conversation went to Derek of Veritasium. This poem was centered around humanity and our shared experiences as humans. Derek is consistently obsessed with technology, and will center every conversation around how technology will enhance the human experience (by which he probably means capitalism to be honest).
Taking the conversation to Derek of Veritasium feels like after having watched Koyaanisqatsi your mind goes to James Burke and how the invention of the plow has improved how we experience human society.
If that is what you think of Derek, then you really don't understand Derek.
The video that I linked to is over an hour on why new technologies never transform education. He has a number of videos that critique what capitalism has lead big industries to. For example he has one on Monsanto's war on farming, another on how forever chemicals are poisoning us, and a third on how short-sightedness on protecting the health of rubber trees could be an existential threat to civilization.
Your model of him says that he should have done none of those things. The fact that he did is strong evidence that you've got a cardboard cutout that you're using as a strawman. Because it's a convenient punching bag. And not because it matches a real human very well.
James Burke would also criticize technology. But compared to Koyaanisqatsi James Burke’s critiques feel very tame indeed. While James Burke would critique bad implementations of technology, or point at a place where technology was detrimental, Koyaanisqatsi would say: “humanity has lost its way in pursuit of technology”.
Reading this poem I saw a similar critique of AI as Koyaanisqatsi critiqued technology. And any advocate of this technology for whichever purpose, even the ones who occupationally critique some aspect of it, feel very tame in comparison, and off the mark.
I put my views of Derik in parentheses on purpose. I wanted to share my bias towards him, while also saying: “This is besides the point”.
> Most people will make the lazy choice. But you can choose to do otherwise
I'd like for it to be a choice. AI is injected into search now, when you install vscode they have a prompt input sitting there and they nudge you to use it. Of course you can opt out of this stuff but it has become the default.
As someone teaching their nephew how to code i really want him to struggle and exercise his problem solving skills instead of having every touchpoint offer him an instant answer.
> AI is an opportunity. On the one hand, it can be used to let our minds and social lives atrophy. On the other hand, it is an opportunity to help our minds grow. Most people will make the lazy choice. But you can choose to do otherwise.
Something that has a worse outcome for most people is worse for society.
Yeah it might be some antisocial hustler opportunity to get a leg up on everyone else. Huzzah.
Can SV Tech just make something that makes things better for society overall? No, impossible.
Every new technology promises to fundamentally change learning, education, personal growth and ends up being used in the laziest way by 99% of people. Radio, TV, internet, now AI. Eating right and exercise or GLP1?
I agree with the sentiment, however, by definition most people will not follow your advice.
That's exactly how I used "AI"... to augment my thinking and writing process.
On it's face, it seemed insane to not utilize this instant resource.
After a year I could no longer write for shit.
Now we're getting studies coining words like "deskilling" and "cognitive surrender", and I felt both acutely and personally despite guardrails I thought could keep me from those traps.
I mean, AI is necessarily pushing your speech towards its baked-in human soup average of what a speech should sound like. That's not a good thing unless you're doing a corporate presentation.
Personally, I find the idea of sounding even slightly more like ChatGPT repulsive. Would much rather just leave the gnarly bits in.
Classic Elon. This is the same thing that he did to rescue a failing Solar City by making it part of Tesla.
It takes a lot to get where Elon is. But it also takes a willingness to double down over and over again on big bets. And he himself will be the first to admit that the most likely outcome of his strategy was bankruptcy.
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