Whether it’s neighbors blocking housing, union bosses blocking port automation at the height of COVID, medical association’s controlling doctor quotas it’s the same sentiment, a fear of change.
I grant that a healthy distrust of the parties involved is fine but the reaction when given power is the same, veto: Stop everything now. Change is scary.
The "abundance" is not all positive valence. It is a flood of superficial good with an unmanaged ratio of negative byproduct mixed in.
Some of the "change" is not merely doing things a bit differently. The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.
I think there are several more dangerous sentiments coursing through civilization these days:
1. That people bear no moral responsibility to act in good faith, and the corollary that one can enjoy the fruits of production while externalizing all the liabilities.
2. That strategies like "move fast and break things" and "fake it until you make it" are universally applicable and appropriate, rather than only in the low-stakes entertainment/media/marketing fields where they flourished in recent decades.
3. That mere acquisition of capital gives one the right to perform N=1 experiments on global civilization, the economy, and the enviromment.
There are definitely transient upheavals as civilization adapts to the new norm and we can do much to reduce those effects.
But the end result is the same, more of everything made cheaper for the working class.
We are at the tail end of a 50 year productivity plateau and rising costs. We’re looking down the barrel of the first reduction in the QoL for our kids. I for one want to see what this tech has to offer.
If sentiment around people is that they don't want this (and that seems to be the case, based on many many articles like the above, as well as opinion surveys), then who are you to tell them what's good for them?
People don't seem to want an improverishment of mind and soul in exchange for vague promises of some sort of other abundance.
Why are they being forced to that dubious trade?
Because it's just the prisoner's dilemma in disguise. Most people don't really like the idea of AI, a lot of people especially outside of programming hate it, and I bet deep down inside a lot of programmers would prefer if AI never existed.
But it's easier to say that AI will bring great wonders because the alternative is acknowledging the reality - the diminishing returns of technology. And that brings a lot of cognitive dissonance if you're a programmer.
I’m talking housing, infrastructure, shipping, medical care, all critical services and sectors where fixing decades of lagging productivity will help the working class the most.
I mean, just look at the sequence of events you’re expecting here:
1. Ai companies achieve their stated goals
2. ???
3. Housing, infrastructure, medical care, etc get better for the working class
Are you the king of the underpants gnomes or something? How could it ever turn out this way? Why does anyone think it would? Am I taking crazy pills?
If those goals are fully eliminating need for human labor, then I agree it probably won't be good for most people. But that will probably take at least decades.
Anything short of that, and I think economy will be pretty similar to what it is now. You still need working class and need it to be productive, so you do need them to be reasonably happy, housed, healthy, and you need good infrastructure. With lower cost for all this, why wouldn't things improve, like all times throughout history?
No I’m just at the frontlines of this so called “replacement” and all I’m seeing is people doing more with less with no possibility of replacement. I have no idea what all this marketing pablum about TAM replacement is. All I’m seeing is growing businesses serving more people with less resources.
Could it be that CEO’s of struggling businesses are lying about why they’re doing the layoffs? Why are we suddenly believing them on this one issue?
… is a pretty grotesque straw man, but sure, fight it if you want.