faceh
7hr ago
Yep.
The implied lack of upward mobility is probably the part that would make it unbearable.
You're a waiter because that's the only role you are capable of serving in this world. You cannot ever expect to get recognized for more than that. Not even luck will save you.
The patrons who use your services may even treat you with basic dignity, but yeah, your status will never approach theirs, and you both know it.
faceh
8hr ago
Right, but I don't see the incentive for governments to expand the existing systems, which are already getting seriously backlogged (at least around here).
I just don't see anyway to sustain the pipeline if fresh Associates CANNOT outperform the LLMs, especially on price.
If a law firm can spin up an arbitrary amount of 'agents' that have all the requisite knowledge to handle a given legal issue, maybe they hire some attorneys to wrangle the agents and sign off on their output.
But that doesn't give those attorneys good legal experience they can translate into advancing their career. That's a step above doc review.
Hell, AI should be able to replace most Law School professors. It SHOULD become possible to become a competent lawyer without setting foot in a law school campus.
So naively, what I see coming down the pike is a massive spike in the 'supply' of legal knowledge that is on tap... and no clear reason why people should prefer the person who got a 6-figure loan for law school (and has to bill accordingly) over the $20-$200/month uberexpert that lives in their pocket. So from whence comes demand for human lawyer?
Basically one thing: Accountability. They can be punished for screwups.
One of the dirty little secrets of the US Court system is that a lot of the time judges throw out meritorious cases because they believe the system is just too busy to be bothered. A lot of wrongs never get litigated simply because there just aren't enough lawyers and judges to handle them.
One possible outcome is that governments spend money beefing up their legal systems, staffing out enough judges and clerks and such to actually meet the surge.
But courts are a pure cost center, so I just doubt it happens. Instead I think more disputes go to private arbitration, or maybe AI Mediators become a popular option. I think the demand for NONJUDICIAL resolutions surges! They're cheaper and possibly even more accurate. And if mediation and arbitration becomes popular... guess what all those rules about attorneys being needed to argue for a jury or represent a corpo get sidestepped very neatly.
faceh
9hr ago
Yeah, and that's the existential horror of the situation to me.
You can dissent from the Culture, you can rebel, you can even try to kill yourself.
But none of that will change the outcome.
Its still there. Everywhere. Inevitable. And all alternatives are inherently worse.
I have before said that the inverse of the Culture might be a civilization of pure P-zombies whose whole, entire goal is removing sentience from the universe. Not intelligence, just sentience.
Assuming they're technologically equivalent to the culture, would the Culture win that fight?
For all you or I know, we're currently in an alpha version of that simulation right now.
Or... the final version.
I actually had that thought as I was pondering this, along the lines of "oh shit what if the singularity happened in 2025 and the superintelligence is just A/B testing or Beta testing the environment to find the ideal amount of suffering, adventure, surprise, intrigue, and danger for human 'thriving.'
Its trying out things like the Moon mission and prediction markets/gambling and weight loss drugs and seeing how we react. Its moving oil prices around, its delaying GTA 6, its generating ridiculous amounts of AI "slop" to see which ones click with us.
(Oh wait, I just invented the plot of The Amazing Digital Circus from first principles)
faceh
10hr ago
That is 5000% my own objection to the Culture as portrayed.
The ONLY entities with true volition in that universe are the minds. No human ever makes a meaningful choice, and whatever influence they have on their own fate is inherently pre-calculated in by the minds.
And somehow the humans are 100% aware of the arrangement and there are few dissenters, although they can get uppity from time to time.
It honestly makes me sympathetic to Culture opponents just on the basis of "yes, maybe they're sadistic, evil, and backwards, but at least they're the masters of their own fate dammit!"
I think that's the precise objection leveled by the main character of the first book, actually.
I had a young guy in my office last month, with his dad (the client), who was apparently been accepted to Georgetown Law and was pretty hyped to be going.
I couldn't bring myself to tell him how badly I expected that to turn out for him in the end.
Important detail: he's black, so my guess is that he's getting some financial support.
faceh
11hr ago
Yeahhhh the amount of support for the attempts coming out should be a wake up call of some kind.
I'm not sure he's going to heed it in any way other than boosting his personal security presence.
Funny enough, I've had the insight that the one thing you can do to increase your odds of success in the post-AI world is be pleasant and enjoyable to physically be around. Whatever that means for you. If other humans WANT to spend time with you and be in your presence, you can parlay that into success in whatever the situation becomes. Attractive women have a clear advantage.
As an introvert, the robot waiters work exceedingly well for me.
faceh
11hr ago
a law school dropout.
i.e. a genius.
I'm sure supply and demand have normalized a bit since then,
Yes and no. Hiring is up, but I think there's significant turnover too. Some law firms realized that when you have a surplus of desperate new grads, you can churn your associates harder and replace them easier.
faceh
11hr ago
That's a hard sell at this particular moment, for sure.
Might be worth a shot to see if he can get in the military industrial complex, maybe Palmer Luckey would hire him.
Okay.
As a lawyer, I am going to say no, don't do that.
His logic is not unsound, since we do in fact have control over how our profession is practiced and can use our guild authority to keep AI sidelined (for now). Here's a take I had three years ago that I still stand by. I've reiterated it. (holy crap GPT-3 was almost 6 years ago?)
Yes we can throw up barriers to AI adoption, and make the laws that protect us from AI competition. That's not as strong a moat as it seems. Even if lawyers are protected from AI competition... guess what your clients are doing.
And:
A) A bunch of other people are going to get a similar idea, so it'll be saturated, most likely. Already happening to an extent.
B) Most lawyers are miserable in their area of law. I am not, but I still had a long period of suck to get through, kept alive by my long-term goal of getting where I am now.
C) He will probably not become fabulously wealthy in this field even if AI doesn't supplant most entry-level legal jobs. MAKE HIM AWARE OF THE BIMODAL SALARY DISTRIBUTION FOR NEW GRADS. This was my big mistake early on.
There is now some evidence of downward pressure on new grad salaries.
I truly wish I had a more positive prescription to give out, but I am vehement about this negative one.
faceh
12hr ago
The current elite needs to either shape up or get replaced.
The realization hit me this weekend as I was hanging out with some friends at an artificial lagoon with temperature controlled water, lifeguards on duty, and basically everything optimized for keeping guests from getting hurt (and keep them spending money).
This is precisely how a 'beneficent' superintelligence is most likely to resolve the problem. Stick humans into a simulation, or maybe a completely artificial environment with all the edges that cause death and misery sanded off.
A permanent Disney World vacation. Maybe swap out the aesthetics often enough to make it feel novel.
faceh
12hr ago
I'm going to bring this up just because its in the back of my mind and I'm going to reserve some small amount of probability for it.
But I can imagine the scenario where Sam himself arranges for these (pretty ineffective, obviously) attacks against his home as a counter to the bad press and to make sure he keeps his grasp on power, as he's already been ousted once.
Yes, it's implausible that he'd pull a Jussie Smollet, it is VASTLY more likely to be actual random violence. But I have enough distrust for Altman that I think he'd be willing to do something like this, especially if it carried minimal risk of personal harm.
My youngest brother is a bright kid - top of his class, eagle scout, 1400+ on his SATs as a junior, the whole shebang. He's completely given up on his original goal of going to college for something software-related, and he's not only adrift about what he's going to do with his future, but he's angry about it. I hope he has a support network sufficient to keep him on the right track, but I don't like what I see.
Holy cow.
I guess the high achievers are technically the MOST likely to feel this anxiety, because they can directly perceive their competition is no longer just other high achievers... but this machine that can outperform them on every single metric that matters for success.
And as a former High School Valedictorian myself... I don't have a good answer here.
Its patently absurd to say he should toss out his academic achievement and instead divert into blue collar/physical work.
But to continue in academics would be a doomed play.
Uhhh get him in a gym and possibly doing some martial arts STAT, if only for the mental health benefits.
How do you trust a human assistant did so?
You verify.
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