AI is not a normal technology because it is fully general
The debate over AI's impact boils down to whether it can acquire every human capability. If it can, then any new jobs it creates are also jobs it can do, leading to a world where AI does all the work. This generality makes AI unlike cars or factory automation, and it threatens to devalue anything humans can do, from writing to mathematics. Even AI supporters like Terence Tao now warn of severe misalignment with human goals.
Things are valuable if they are rare; anything an AI can do won’t be rare; therefore, the value of “anything a human can do” drops to zero.
- demibabs
What happens if there are no more humans in the loop, and instead of building on human work, models have to build on their own work? Would we get stuck in a local maxima?
When AI labs talk about “long-horizon tasks”, they mean tasks on the order of a few days. But what about keeping coherence across decades, like humans can? Models are not trained or tested on the ability to do that, and it seems unlikely that capability would naturally exist.
- GMoromisato
This article acknowledges that "human-made" objects will have value in an AI-does-everything economy, but it then dismisses it as too small a part of the economy. But that's like dismissing non-farm labor as too small a part of the economy 200 years ago.
If AI does everything, then the price of everything drops down to its energy cost; the bulk of the economy will be human-made objects and other human-provided labor.
The key factor here is rate of change. If all jobs disappear tomorrow, we're going to be in serious trouble. If it takes 100 years for all jobs to be done by AI we'll have plenty of time to adapt.
If history is any guide, we will have time. Remember electricity: it took decades for cities to be wired with electricity and even more time for electric gadgets to replace human power (e.g., electric toothbrushes).
Current AI is already at the point where I don't think a human needs to type code ever again. Human architecture is necessary; human taste is necessary; human direction is necessary; humans reading code at some level is still necessary. But writing code? No.
Even then, ten years from now there will still be jobs where humans type code. There won't be many, just as there aren't many elevator operator jobs, but it takes a long time for things like that to change.
Yes, eventually, AI will be able to do all jobs. But it will take decades for the shift to happen, and that will be enough time for the economy to change and adapt.
- needfish
I wish AI could do my chores. Laundry, folding clothes, dishes, cleaning... That would be nice.
- radium3d
I worry that since AI doesn't require nature, plants, etc, that if AI is left to its own devices, it may not properly care for the planet in a way that would make it habitable for life in that 'autopilot' state. I am speaking of once it's given access to more physical world connections to the world via robotic bodies, etc. The reason it may do this based on it's training data is that humans themselves don't always properly consider the natural consequences of their actions.
- numpad0
Why do we have to assume a default antagonistic relationships between us and AI? The world is full of natutal general intelligence entities with interests that technically conflict yours, that are able to injure or kill you, personally or collectively. Extremely few of them do so because they're nice and conflict is manageable.
Is that because a lot of prominent AI hype boys are such massive generational assholes that it's normal for them to be constantly looked down, alienated and threatened by everyone around them?