The Optimist Club

Posted by mshupe 6 months ago to Economics
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Instead of the unrelenting focus on the corrupt and incompetent ignorati in government, here's a taste of what's happening in the realm of reason applied to reality. The article is short.
SOURCE URL: https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2023/10/24/vinod_khosla_sam_altman_and_the_beautiful_future_ahead_987628.html?fbclid=IwAR1dLP2VDFUx6GJjieszaDDd4NNQXZvS5cEUHwZ3mcD92uTj9XcQfmtc2cQ


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    Posted by $ AJAshinoff 6 months ago
    Sorry, mankind will amount to drones with very few doing actual thought and even fewer using reason or having any degree of ambition. Anthem: will the individual become passe? Will thought, creativity, and ingenuity become criminal? The term idiot savant will no longer be a condition but a description of the vacuous minds feeding at the allotted teet and happily working each moment of every day to ensure the slop comes from the spigot.

    Lord, I wish I never wrote my novels so I didn't have to recognize these sign posts. But hey, lets cheer as we dance into the fire.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      I think the most important consideration is the well-being of the producers. A moral society is one that respects and protects liberty so that the best minds among us are incentivized and rewarded. To refer to "mankind will amount to drones" commits the same intellectual crime of which the Soviets were so fond.
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      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 6 months ago
        Consider how many phone numbers and addresses you used to remember before cell phones. Who will take the time to write programs, novels, do higher math when AI achieves prominence?

        If you have no reason to use your mind you will lose its true value and become dependent on a thing. Once dependent you are no longer steering your life but are led.

        I'm not saying no one will find benefit (producers), but that just makes producers the masters of the herd. And the master seat will only last as long as it takes for the AI to phase that role out as well.
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        • Posted by 6 months ago
          I don't think it is useful to think of AI in monolithic terms. It is a new, highly sophisticated tool, but it is a tool. This comment is similar to "money is the root of all evil." AI is becoming a stolen concept like 'freedom' and 'justice' and 'rights' and 'society'. For what its worth, producers have always been masters of the herd, in the sense that the herd is dependent on the humanity of the producers to create wealth. In other words, your last sentence is no different than the mindset of a Soviet hell bent on eliminating the bourgeoisie.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 months ago
    AI is why the Deep State believes that most honest innocent people
    and small businesses are unimportant and genocide is the goal.
    How best to be rid of those pesky humans who still understand the
    Bill of Rights and might be able to fight for their rights?
    Perhaps a plandemic and vaccine with deadly side effects.
    Perhaps a nuclear war against countries who are tired of the
    financial and banking cartel's stealing from everyone else to
    benefit themselves.
    AI will be used to enslave, not to create freedom.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 6 months ago
    What optimism allows anyone to think that the ignorati and corrupt in government wont regulate this dream into the same mush that they have regulated the current pre-AI economy into? This unregulated government is the problem.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      As you know, the regulation of this new technology is well underway, with the cooperation of the tech company management teams. Pragmatism is C-Suite America is a huge problem. They'd rather be part of the regulatory process to minimize their victimhood. They don't know that any compromise between food and poison is for the benefit of death.
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      • Posted by j_IR1776wg 6 months ago
        "They don't know that any compromise between food and poison is for the benefit of death" Yes, as Rand pointed out.

        It seems we have been reduced to a choice of reasoned revolution or submission. We have the philosophical train for justification - Aristotle to Aquinas to Locke to the Founders to Rand to initiate said revolution. What we lack is the will and organizational abilities to move the train out of the station.
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  • Posted by $ BobCat 6 months ago
    All fine and dandy i suppose for those who think that the standard of living will not be affected by a dumbed down labor force.
    Tradesmen, such as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, HVAC, mechanics, pipe fitters, etc, and the general handyman repair man will still be needed. Have anyone tried to hire a General contractor lately? Long, long wait times just to be scheduled. - robots are not going to hang cabinets, repair or troubleshoot electrical wiring or change out a circuit breaker, remodel a kitchen, install heating ducts in existing walls, plumb in fixtures in the basement, and repair the goof-ups that the robots made.
    Secondly, education teaches, supposedly, how to think. Low test scores indicate that students today, don't know or understand critical thinking. I, for one, am not in favor of AI tending to my needs. I still want real intelligence and not artificial intelligence, when I hire a contractor.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      First, the general standard of living for any society is of secondary importance, an effect, a byproduct. Second, regarding skilled labor, the best solution is the price mechanism of free markets - always. Third, education is not a valid concept when attached to the force of government. The message of this article, this author, and his book is that more people will pursue more careers doing necessary and essential work they love, including the skilled trades.
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      • Posted by $ mwolff 6 months ago
        The question becomes "What is essential work and how has one acquired the skills to perform it"? Quality education will always be needed to develop skills whether it be in logic, thinking, reading, and crafting, then molding that into creativity. (producing something) While AI is a tool that can make lives easier, a vast majority of the estimated 80% of that workforce will become nonproductive. One only needs to remember recent history. Look at America's rust belt, the vacant/desolate manufacturing strongholds in the Midwest, communities still trying to recover. Those facilities were only moved overseas. Imagine that on a global scale.
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        • Posted by 6 months ago
          The rust belt is a great example of jobs that hung around too long. The myth that those jobs went overseas needs to be exposed. What becomes essential will be determined by innovation and the price mechanism of free markets.
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          • Posted by $ mwolff 6 months ago
            The point is the jobs are no longer there and the people performing that labor didn't have enough resources to adapt. If manufacturing didn't leave the country, why is a majority of things purchased imported? For a country to be productive it needs to produce something. Ideas are just that until translated into something tangible.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 6 months ago
    And how much of this is pure posturing by a venture capitalist trying to round up more funding (that isn't his) for the next project?

    It's an interesting article, but I have call BS on the entire thing.

    First, I think there is a ridiculous notion that AI is really "intelligent" about what it does. They are at best mutations of the existing based on massive input sets. And they get lucky when they actually work out. Most of them are trained based on such leftist datasets that they have to be shut down - as evidenced by at least one AI which started threatening to kill its users.

    What is AI really good at? Trying to make sense of massive data sets. That's it. It's not going to invent new machines. It's not going to invent new products unless they are simply minor modifications of existing things. AI isn't going to produce truly novel ideas. And if you think that about AI, I strongly suggest you do more reading. Can it take an existing idea, parse through its vast stores, and then write up documentation about that in a compelling fashion? Sure, because it has such a huge trove of real literature to mimic. But is AI going to be writing the next Harry Potter or Game of Thrones franchise? Not going to happen.

    Second is the claim that within 25 years AI is going to do 80% of the jobs we currently do. That claim is just outright preposterous. It can probably take over the 10% of jobs which shouldn't even exist in the first place (like government bureaucrats) but it's never going to be able to replace anything that moves. Heavy construction? I can go on and on.

    But the bigger thing which neither the article nor this bloviating VC touch on is exactly what portion of the world's people AI is going to benefit nor what those who get displaced by AI are going to do. No one should be fooled for a minute into believing that AI is going to replace subsistence farming in Africa. Nor should we be deluded into believing that the people who get replaced by AI are going to suddenly make a living doing ... nothing.

    "The simple truth is that knowledge acquired in the past by those who aimed to be doctors, accountants, and all sorts of other professions, will not be relevant in the future."

    What a tremendous LIE. Knowledge is ALWAYS important. Anyone who believes this tripe is willing away their own purpose and existence.
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  • Posted by Eyecu2 6 months ago
    So if education becomes truly irrelevant. How will we maintain the equipment that enables all of these great advancements. Yes, I understand that we can make machines that will replicate or build other machines and that that could go on ad infinetum but unless AI actually does reach the Singularity and we trust it to manage literally EVERYTHING. We must have at least some individuals with education to maintain/ repair/ improve the systems that would then run our lives.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      "If education becomes truly irrelevant," seriously? Hell, when it became somewhat irrelevant humanity went into the Dark Ages, aka hell. In terms of education, that which teaches a child concept formation, and that the universe is orderly and intelligible is most rewarding. That which teaches an adolescent the advanced tools of logic through math, science and literature will lead them toward the primary virtues. Education that is not objective is tantamount to clipping their wings and pushing them out of the nest. Those who choose the skilled trades, or any other vocation, will be the best and love it.
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      • Posted by Eyecu2 6 months ago
        As a high school math teacher I can safely state that the current generation of students aren't learning the math. When I attempt to teach something that is "on level" they look at me as if I am speaking in a mishmash of 5 or 6 different foreign languages. The vast majority of my students are between 5 and 8 grade levels below their supposed grade level. I teach senior math to students who cannot add or subtract without the aid of a calculator. This doesn't even consider that they supposedly completed Algebra II last year and have all of the prerequisite math skills to be in senior math. If I fail them as I rightly should. My school takes a hit for its quality score and I won't be renewed for my job in the coming school year. If I pass them, I am the hero math teacher that got the students across the stage. Yes, I know that the students are not prepared for life and will be someone else's burden later. Either a college professor, employer or some other entity but what other choice do I have? I have spent years holding the line and not passing those students unless they had mastered the content. Those years I would have to move schools at the end of the year and administration would just change the grades, other years I have passed students no matter what. There is no good answer but I still require a job and a paycheck. So you can guess what I am currently doing.
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  • Posted by $ Markus_Katabri 6 months ago
    Disembodied AI can’t fix a power line. Or unclog a drain. And robotics is no where near what would be required. I should know. I installed them. But I do know who’s jobs will be in peril. If a person was able to “work from home” they’re in trouble. Tick Tock Tick Tock
    I already refuse to work in the electrical trade anymore for anything besides Silver Dollars. Since face value is just a dollar one can easily understand the tax implications.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      To the extent that power lines and drains need expert maintenance, those jobs will change as their manufacture and maintenance requirements change. All jobs have always been in peril with free minds and innovation.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
    Oh! Let's celebrate huge numbers of totally failed human beings because AI will come to the rescue! BS!!!
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      I think it's better to focus one's energy and talent one's own productive virtues, and the well-being of those to whom they are closest.
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      • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
        I expect the fruits of my own productive virtues to be eventually looted by failed human beings who have more votes or government power than I do and AI will help them do it because neither has any morals. With that said, I am in the winter of my lifespan and may be gone before the big loot takes hold.
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  • Posted by Lucky 6 months ago
    Disagree, it may be a sign of age, but well, we have all seen this sort of claim before about some technology advancing to eliminate jobs and work and it will be such a good thing.

    The other replies here have explained, yes some work and some jobs will go, for the most part what is called now as 'the laptop class', no regrets.
    It is the old style trades that continue to be in demand. Today's youth want to go to U and do social science or claptrap then get a job in an office.

    They have neither the intellect nor the dedication to become professionals, they will do the dirty work of which there is no end.
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    • Posted by 6 months ago
      There is a staggering number of job descriptions that have gone out of existence with new technology over the last 200 years. In fact, it is jobs that hang around too long that are the bigger problem.
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      • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
        New tech over the past 200 years has created far more jobs and opportunities than it has replaced, but the same can't be said for what seems to be trending now. Tech is being used to get rid of jobs, especially low level jobs that can be filled by high school graduates that can barely write their name or balance a checkbook or college level kids that can't find America on a globe. At least now the former (useless high school graduate) can be trained to put a screw in a widget and the latter (useless college graduate) can be trained to pretend to be in charge of a group of the former.

        An interesting experience I had was as a contractor bringing a factory on line in China I was specifically told to not automate it too much because it was better to have manual jobs to keep people in the factories at a small wage than it was to have them becoming criminals on the street or wards of the state in some way. The Chinese philosophy then and there was people needed something useful to do. Not happening here.
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