<story><title>Raising Children on the Eve of AI</title><url>https://juliawise.net/raising-children-on-the-eve-of-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>keiferski</author><text>For autonomous robots to replace the millions of tradesmen and workers, it would require vastly more resources than are being put toward this now. I wouldn’t expect human labor to be replaced in this way for a century or two.</text></item><item><author>alumic</author><text>I drove around today listening to the most recent Lex Fridman podcast, in which the founder of Boston Dynamics was describing replacing human labor with machines that were capable of learning by seeing. I have family in the trades. I pursued tech and fell in love with the field. Listening to the interviewee, I began to feel sick to my stomach at the glib description of what amounts to ripping away peoples&amp;#x27; livelihoods with plasticized fingers. Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two.&lt;p&gt;How easy it must be for Sam Altman to drag the world kicking and screaming into the future. How pretty his offices.</text></item><item><author>inference-lord</author><text>I became a parent about a year ago, completely unprepared for this future. My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffrey Hinton interviews which were really apocalyptic sounding, he is has a kind of kookie mad scientist vibe about him too. I remember thinking, like what the fuck just happened? Like I just woke up in a movie.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve learned to accept the situation, and realize that we can&amp;#x27;t really predict what will happen so I just try be the best, happiest parent I can to my kids that I can. But I never anticipated the &amp;quot;along for the ride&amp;quot; feeling I have now. Financially planning for 3 years ahead seems quite impossible as I have no idea what type of employment will or will not exist then.&lt;p&gt;It &lt;i&gt;seems&lt;/i&gt; like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. I say &amp;quot;seems like&amp;quot; because I have no idea if that&amp;#x27;s real or perceived but it&amp;#x27;s very hard plan ahead.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m kind of glad my child didn&amp;#x27;t just finished university and planning a career in something that is ripe for disruption because that must be pretty heart breaking, especially because we bring kids up thinking they need a purpose, having a purpose (in my opinion) is a stupid way to live, but not everyone feels that way.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t help feel a bit cynical too, like I&amp;#x27;m kind of annoyed that realistically, the tech elite of the world are just throwing money at this thing like it&amp;#x27;s no one else&amp;#x27; business and fuck what anyone else thinks about it and fuck how it might impact anyone else because, progress, which at the moment, is code for, &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re about to make copious amounts of money using everyone&amp;#x27;s IP, a bunch of open source software, and we might give something back, so fuck off.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m trying to put the cynicism down, look forwards and hope for the best.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>duccinator</author><text>Once you have autonomous robots you can use those robots to build more robots leading to an exponential curve. The day they make the first one, we will reach a million in 2-3 years and a billion in 2-4 years after that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Raising Children on the Eve of AI</title><url>https://juliawise.net/raising-children-on-the-eve-of-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>keiferski</author><text>For autonomous robots to replace the millions of tradesmen and workers, it would require vastly more resources than are being put toward this now. I wouldn’t expect human labor to be replaced in this way for a century or two.</text></item><item><author>alumic</author><text>I drove around today listening to the most recent Lex Fridman podcast, in which the founder of Boston Dynamics was describing replacing human labor with machines that were capable of learning by seeing. I have family in the trades. I pursued tech and fell in love with the field. Listening to the interviewee, I began to feel sick to my stomach at the glib description of what amounts to ripping away peoples&amp;#x27; livelihoods with plasticized fingers. Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two.&lt;p&gt;How easy it must be for Sam Altman to drag the world kicking and screaming into the future. How pretty his offices.</text></item><item><author>inference-lord</author><text>I became a parent about a year ago, completely unprepared for this future. My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffrey Hinton interviews which were really apocalyptic sounding, he is has a kind of kookie mad scientist vibe about him too. I remember thinking, like what the fuck just happened? Like I just woke up in a movie.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve learned to accept the situation, and realize that we can&amp;#x27;t really predict what will happen so I just try be the best, happiest parent I can to my kids that I can. But I never anticipated the &amp;quot;along for the ride&amp;quot; feeling I have now. Financially planning for 3 years ahead seems quite impossible as I have no idea what type of employment will or will not exist then.&lt;p&gt;It &lt;i&gt;seems&lt;/i&gt; like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. I say &amp;quot;seems like&amp;quot; because I have no idea if that&amp;#x27;s real or perceived but it&amp;#x27;s very hard plan ahead.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m kind of glad my child didn&amp;#x27;t just finished university and planning a career in something that is ripe for disruption because that must be pretty heart breaking, especially because we bring kids up thinking they need a purpose, having a purpose (in my opinion) is a stupid way to live, but not everyone feels that way.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t help feel a bit cynical too, like I&amp;#x27;m kind of annoyed that realistically, the tech elite of the world are just throwing money at this thing like it&amp;#x27;s no one else&amp;#x27; business and fuck what anyone else thinks about it and fuck how it might impact anyone else because, progress, which at the moment, is code for, &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re about to make copious amounts of money using everyone&amp;#x27;s IP, a bunch of open source software, and we might give something back, so fuck off.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m trying to put the cynicism down, look forwards and hope for the best.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>inference-lord</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s kicking the can down the road, will still be a problem in 200 years at the rate which our society is progressing, potentially even going backwards if the orange man wins in 2024.</text></comment>