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 -
In a way, AI is harder on nerds than it is on anyone else.
It is interesting to see, now that it is ingrained into the personal and professional lives of vast numbers of ‘normal’ people, how mundanely it slots into the daily existence of the average person. I don’t mean that critically, I mean that the average person (especially globally but probably also in the rich world) probably already believed there were ‘computers’ who were ‘smarter than them’. ChatGPT isn’t so different from, say, Jarvis in Iron Man (or countless other AIs in fiction), and the median 90-100IQ person may even have believed in 2007 that technology like that actually existed “for rich people” or at least didn’t seem much more advanced than what they had.
Most people do not seek or find intellectual satisfaction in their work. Intellectual achievement is not central to their identity. This is true even for many people with decent-IQ white collar jobs. They may be concerned (like many of us) with things like technological unemployment, but the fact that an AI might do everything intellectually that they can faster and better doesn’t cause them much consternation. A tool that builds their website from a prompt is a tool, like a microwave or a computer. To a lot of users of LLMs, the lines between human and AI aren’t really blurring together so much as irrelevant; the things most people seek from others, like physical intimacy, family and children, good food and mirth, are not intellectual.
This is much more emotionally healthy than the nerd’s response. A version of the Princeton story is now increasingly common on ‘intellectual’ forums and in spaces online as more and more intelligent people realize the social and cultural implications of mass automation that go beyond the coming economic challenge. Someone whose identity is built around being a member of their local community, a religious organization, a small sports team, their spouse and children, a small group of friends with whom they go drinking a couple of times a month, a calendar of festivals and birthdays, will fare much better than someone who has spent a lifetime cultivating an identity built around an intellect that is no longer useful to anyone, least of all themselves.
I was thinking recently that I’m proud of what I’ve done in my short career, but that smart-ish people in their mid/late twenties to perhaps mid/late forties are in the worst position with regards to the impact of AI on our personal identities. Those much older than us have lived and experienced full careers at a time when their work was useful and important, when they had value. Those much younger will either never work or, if they’re say 20 or 22 now, work for only a handful of years before AI can do all intellectual labor - and have in any case already had three years of LLMs for their own career funeral planning. But in this age range, baited to complete the long, painful, tiresome and often menial slog that characterizes the first decade of a white collar career, we have the double humiliation of never getting further than that and of having wasted so much of our lives preparing for this future that isn’t going to happen.
Probably I am arrogant bastard, but after AI I feel just like a superhero in an origin story that has just discovered its superpower. My appetite for knowledge and understanding is voracious. I have many side projects on which I am progressing. Just waiting for some properly uncensored local models to dab into chemistry and biology.
Do I feel threatened - I don't know. I know there are turbulent times ahead. I know that being a codemonkey is no future option. But I see huge potential in the technology and I want to be part of it.
I think that AI hurts not the smart people, but Taleb's IYI class. The guys and galls for which credentialism was important.
I feel roughly the same. I think that AI will destroy a bunch of jobs that were the intellectual equivalent of menial labor, but create an equal or greater number of creative jobs. If you're writing formulaic grant proposals or building websites with React then AI is coming for your job, but that's not a bad thing. An LLM can replace a web designer, but only a full-blown strong AI can replace the UX designer whose job it is to tell the LLM what website to make.
LLMs won't replace the actual nerds. It'll replace the 0.5X programmers, the offshore assets, the email-senders, the box-tickers, and the bureaucrats. On a fundamental level there will still need to be someone to tell the AI what to do.
This is only true if AI plateaus. If it gets even a couple dozen IQ points smarter, those creative jobs are gone, too. And I don't see any indication of AI plateauing.
All current generation AIs rely on someone telling them what to do. ChatGPT will do what you ask it to do and no more. Telling people what to do is surprisingly hard, and telling AIs what to do has most of the same challenges plus a bigger communication barrier.
For safety and legal reasons I would be really surprised if someone made a completely autonomous robot whose job it was to give orders to the other robots. That seems like tempting fate. On some level, bossing around a flock of robots is going to be a job until we develop trustworthy strong AI. The AI we currently have is neither strong nor trustworthy.
Sure, but that's true no matter what "AIs" stand for; Artificial Intelligences, Actually Indians, Average Interns...
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think that should be surprising at all. Look at moltbook - yes it's low stakes and yes it's LLMs which aren't remotely intelligent. But it's still clear that the people running it think it's cute to have the bots talk amongst themselves and everything. I think it's very likely that even if it was an actual AI and not a bag of words masquerading as one, there exist people who would see nothing wrong with doing the same sort of thing.
Also look at people running Claude in their shells with the ability to change stuff on the system. That is very obviously a terrible idea, as LLMs have no understanding of what they are doing at all. And yet, people think "yeah it's fine to let this thing touch my computer with potentially destructive commands" (and then they are shocked when the LLM deletes stuff because it's not actually intelligent). Again, if we had an actual AI then I don't see a reason to expect people would hold back from letting it touch things.
It's not clear whether or not we can develop true AI based on where the research is now. But what seems clear, to me at least, is that if we ever do develop a real AI there will be humans which are only too happy to recklessly hook it up to stuff.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link