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Notes -
The greater replacement
I've completed SIGNALIS the other day, on account of it being an internationally acclaimed piece of contemporary German art (something I've previously claimed barely exists, to my chargin); better yet, consciously Old World art, cleansed of the HFCS-heavy «Universal» American culture to the limit of the authors' ability. It was good. Not exactly my glass-in-podstakannik of tea, and sadly compressing the Old World spirit into a thick layer of totalitarian dread covering all aspects of the «Eusan Nation», but compelling.
This isn't a SIGNALIS review.
The core plot device of the game, and the only one relevant to the post, is Replikas – in a nutshell, synthetic-flesh cyborgs driven by uploads of humans deemed particularly well-suited for some jobs; there exist like a dozen models, from the mass-produced laborer Allzweck-Reparatur-Arbeiter «Ara» to the towering BDSM fetish fuel Führungskommando-Leitenheit «Falke». Replikas, often described in home appliance-like terms, aren't superhuman in any interesting sense, but boast «860% higher survivability» in harsh environments (very economical too: can be repaired on the go with an expanding foam gun), predictable well-documented response to stimuli, and are contrasted to legacy Eusians, «Gestalts», whom they're actively replacing in many niches by the time of the game's events, and seem to dominate politically, as befits their greater utility in the glorious struggle against the accursed Empire.
All of this is to say: I think Peter Zeihan might eat crow with his thesis that Demographics is Destiny and a political entity needs a ton of working age people to be relevant in the foreseeable future (and specifically that China is doomed due to its aging population). The whole demographic discourse as we know it, and the complementary geopolitics angle, will likely be derailed quite rapidly. Not the first time: we've gone through population bomb/Limits To Growth delusion, then through the HBD naivete and expectation for nations to grow which never could. Now, mired in comical obstinance of credentialed prognosticators and noise of «democratic» dissent, having failed to reckon with these mistakes, we're going through the Humans-Need-Not-Apply-Denial stage.
Today, I've thought this while watching the vid about the GR-1 (General Robotics?) device by the Chinese startup Fourier Intelligence. Fourier is mostly known for their rehab equipment designs – lower body exoskeletons for people with mobility problems. They've come a long way since 2015 – it so happens that you can keep adding details to the lower body support system and, well, before you know it… Kinda reminds me of Xiaomi's path from bloated Android ROMs to a general electronics and hardware giant. Anyway, they're but one competitor in a space that is rapidly heating up. There's Tesla Optimus, Boston Dynamics' Atlas (admittedly a hydraulic monstrousity that'd never be economically viable outside of a more realistic Terminator reenactment), and lesser-known DIGIT, 1X Eve, Xiaomi CyberOne and probably others I've missed. All (except Atlas) have similar basic powertrain specs comparable to a short human (and leagues above gimmicky old prototypes like ASIMO), and all rely on the promise of AI to make it more adroit; AI that is plummeting in training costs, even faster than USG can kneecap Chinese semiconductors industry. What's unusual in Fouriers is that they're still putting this in the medical frame: «caregiver for the elderly, therapy assistant». The same message had been pushed by Everyday Robots, a Google X company (recent victim to tech cuts).
Technology has delivered us from the Population Explosion Doom. Tech may well deliver us from the Population Implosion Doom too. But… who «us»?
And speaking of Boston Dynamics, there's this thing, Unitree Go2, shamelessly ripping off MIT's Mini Cheetah (rip real Cheetah) and making it sexy. Hardware-wise it's just a very decent quadruped bot, on the smaller side, can carry 7-8 kg, run at ≤5m/s, do backflips and so on. There are two interesting things about it: cost ($1600-$5000, to wit, 15-45x cheaper than BD Spot) and advertised parallel AI training, no doubt inspired by Tesla's fleet-scale data flywheel idea. Well, that and how fucking well it moves already – watch it to the end. It's not vaporware, you can see people using their previous gen robots, I regularly notice them in ML materials, even Western stuff like this. (For comparison, here's a Tencent equivalent).
Here's the deal. I believe this is it, after so many false starts. Robot adoption will accelerate in an exponential manner from now on; the only realistic constraint on this is investor money remaining mostly tied up in AI/Big Tech, but I do not think this'll be enough. There have been two main mutually reinforcing obstacles: software that's laughably inadequate for the task, and extremely expensive actuators, owing to small-scale production and the whole business being tied in institutional deals (and high-liability crap like power plant inspections). Software side is being improved by AI very quickly. Quadruped movement, even over complex terrain, has been independently solved many times over in the post-COVID era (add this to all examples above); simulation and big data approaches like Unitree's will no doubt iron out remaining kinks. Biped movement is lagging but starts to move onto the same curve. As this happens, demand for components will surge, and their price will crash; first for quadrupeds, then for androids. There really isn't any legitimate reason why crappy robots must cost more like a Tesla than a Macbook; it's just a matter of economies of scale. Remaining issues (chiefly: hands; robot hands still suck) will yield to the usual market magic of finding cheap paths through a multidimensional R&D landscape. Did you know that Facebook has developed and opensourced superhuman, dirt cheap tactile sensors? There are oodles of such stuff, waiting to click together, the puzzle to resolve itself (I love watching it; I've been watching it ever so slowly move toward this stage for all my life; seeking for the same feel in toy short-term puzzles). Unitree Go2 relies on GPT for interpreting commands into motion. Have you known that China has like 4 projects to replicate GPT-4 running in parallel? But GPT-4 is already scientifically obsolete, soon to be commodified. This whole stack, whole paradigm will keep getting cheaper and cheaper faster and faster, standards rising, wires-out prototypes making way for slick productivized consumer goods that are about as useful as their users.
…In conclusion, we might be tempted to think in more detail of current destinations of working-age Chinese, like EU, Canada and the US. I can't recall who said this first, probably some guy on Twitter. The point is sound: a nation (or culture) that is willing to replace its population with immigrants when that's economically advantageous – instead of seriously trying to improve demography – may prove equally willing to replace immigrants with robots and AI next. Sure, robots have the demerit of not being able to vote for more of themselves. On the flipside, they can remain plentiful even as the stream of immigrants dries up with their mothers becoming barren, and the global population pyramid inverts and stands on a sharp point. And Dementia Villages (that the Developed World may largely turn into) will be easy to coax to vote for maintenance of their modest palliative creature comforts and pension/UBI. The Glorious Eusian Nation, this future is not; but one not worth living in, it might well be.
If I am right, the Culture War of the near future will be increasingly influenced by this issue.
People I otherwise respect cock an eyebrow when I point out that GPT-4 being a competent clinician and programmer is a cause for concern, reasoning that since it lacks appendages or a means of communication outside text (multimedia output aside), it can't replace human labor or human hands.
Firstly, they're the SOTA today, anyone wanting to bet that GPT-5 won't be another leap ahead within a couple years is welcome to take it up with me, I could use the money.
Secondly, advances in both soft and hardbody robotics continue apace, including hooking them up to LLMs, such as PaLM-e, at which point the LLM is also writing some of the code for controlling the robot, giving it goals, and using it to manifest itself in a live environment.
I've certainly expounded before on why demographics are unlikely to matter in the least, since as you've also pointed out, automation and widespread robotics will make an aging population much easier to bear, let alone retain the need for large numbers of skilled and unskilled immigrants many nations have come to rely on to bolster their numbers and maintain their QOL. Be it industry or military might, we're unlikely to be competing in either by throwing humans at the problem.
As usual, you pack the citations to back up the intuitions and fears I've developed from years of being an observant bystander, so I can only endorse this wholeheartedly.
From a personal standpoint, all of this is concerning to say the least, I am a skilled immigrant to the UK, and on one hand, Rishi Sunak and co are trying to desperately alleviate Britain's ever greater irrelevance by jumping on the AI bandwagon first, and on the other hand, threatening their uppity doctors that they better accept their lot in life, because they'll be replaced with cheaper AI and bots if they don't behave. Said British doctors are laughing at the threat, I could only wish I was half as blasé about it. They might not be able to pull it off today, but in a handful of years? 5 years? Yes. Add in the trained monkeys in lab coats who are already undercutting doctors, PAs and NPs, who will be able to compete with us on manual dexterity when the easy job of merely thinking is better done in a datacenter on the outskirts of London. Or imagine a deskilled doctor who uses AR glasses and AI-cues to do pretty much everything, with any attempt at deviation or display of artistic skill being a strict negative in terms of outcome. 90% of us becoming useless is almost as bad as 100% of us. Curses that the one place where the British government shows a degree of foresight and wisdom is the one that fucks me over the most. They've already shown their willingness to screw over their own doctors, hence the rampant demand for IMGs like me, who still see even the declining NHS as an upgrade, albeit a less appealing one each day.
To the extent that the immigration pathways I have rely on me bringing in great value as a trained and ready to work doctor, my impending economic obsolescence threatens all available pathways to remaining in a Western country, barring throwing my lot in with outright refugees.
Things like a need for human interaction or touch don't matter, when the economic incentives are so gargantuan, and especially since we already have a paucity of doctors globally, with new human ones needing to go through a lengthy training and deployment phase. You've already gone from the genteel days when most doctors could take their sweet time gossiping with patients and sipping tea, to a far more aggressive and target oriented approach where most people are given just as much time as needed. The market bore going from half an hour consults to 5-10 minutes with a frazzled GP, it'll go from 5 to 0 even faster. Even the people with a sentimental attachment to us can't keep us going, since they're likely to become economically obsolete themselves.
I can only hope I make enough money to insulate myself from the coming troubles, or at least become a citizen somewhere in the West so they'll put me on UBI. Ah, what I would give to be 5 years older, with enough runway to mess about and take my time. But at least I have alpha in knowing what's coming, and that puts me miles ahead of those who will be introduced to automation-induced unemployment when it comes for their "skilled" job.
You guys have no idea that how terrifying it is to see the curtains drawing close before your eyes, without the modest safety of a government committed to taking care of you when you're nothing but a drag. The Indian government certainly engages in welfare, but it has absolutely no hope of doing so when literally >90% of its citizens will end up unemployed, and even the UK will have to cut down on people who've outlived their usefulness. All I can say is that I'm grateful to have gotten this far, when I still have a fighting chance. God knows my little brother will likely never get to specialize into anything, if he even manages to practise as a junior for a handful of years.
I wasn't born a Doomer, quite the opposite. I spent most of my life looking forward to the bright future that technology can bring about, where we come to rule the Earth and the stars, and I still think that's more likely than not, it just comes with a significant risk of killing or starving me along the way. Pour one out if I don't make it, if you do, you can afford it.
I don't bet. And actually, someone independently posted pointing out that most LW-style bets are irrational from the point of view of profit motive and are signalling.
Also, they said the same thing about self-driving cars. It turns out that the last bit is a lot harder to get right than the first bit.
For what it's worth, Brockman and Altman seem to say that GPT-5 will be in an entirely different format, either a purely B2B offer or something direct-to-research institutions, so I am not sure if that bet would be resolvable.
where did you learn that from?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=65zOlQV1qto&t=1854
Looking back at it I've read too much into his words. I do think it's a possible interpretation though.
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