<story><title>The Arrival of AI</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2017/the-arrival-of-artificial-intelligence/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>altonzheng</author><text>&amp;gt; How many will care if artificial intelligence destroys life if it has already destroyed meaning?&lt;p&gt;This line sounds deep, but I think it incorrectly conflates work with life having meaning. If eventually there isn&amp;#x27;t a need for large swaths of the population to work, then so what? I don&amp;#x27;t think the elite aristocrats in previous centuries had any problem with not working. Humanity can adapt to find other sources of meaning, like the pursuit of art in its various forms (although I&amp;#x27;m assuming that computers can&amp;#x27;t replace art). I think a better question is if society can adapt quick enough to fill the void left by the absence of work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Banthum</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting that your counterexample - doing art - is indeed a form of work. Because it is. Doing good art is painfully hard work, in fact.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s nothing in principle that stops a machine from creating art. Even, better art than any person could do. So once that happens, where are we left?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Meaning&lt;/i&gt; isn&amp;#x27;t something physical in the universe. Meaning is an emotion. It&amp;#x27;s what you feel when you&amp;#x27;re working towards something that you believe has some greater importance. With all opportunity to work towards anything taken away, life will become meaningless by definition, unless humans are left with some pseudo-artificial challenges to push against.&lt;p&gt;Zookeepers put the animals&amp;#x27; food inside a metal box with a small hole, so the animals have to do work to get it out. It&amp;#x27;s good for the animals to have something to work towards, and they&amp;#x27;re too dumb to realize they&amp;#x27;re being manipulated. Maybe that&amp;#x27;s our future. With WoW and Clash of Clans, etc, sometimes it feels like we&amp;#x27;re already halfway there.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Arrival of AI</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2017/the-arrival-of-artificial-intelligence/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>altonzheng</author><text>&amp;gt; How many will care if artificial intelligence destroys life if it has already destroyed meaning?&lt;p&gt;This line sounds deep, but I think it incorrectly conflates work with life having meaning. If eventually there isn&amp;#x27;t a need for large swaths of the population to work, then so what? I don&amp;#x27;t think the elite aristocrats in previous centuries had any problem with not working. Humanity can adapt to find other sources of meaning, like the pursuit of art in its various forms (although I&amp;#x27;m assuming that computers can&amp;#x27;t replace art). I think a better question is if society can adapt quick enough to fill the void left by the absence of work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>harryh</author><text>Didn&amp;#x27;t elite aristocrats in previous centuries spend a lot of time sleeping with each others spouses and playing arbitrary power games? Looking to them as a source of what a post work world could look like isn&amp;#x27;t particularly inspiring.</text></comment>