Odds of societal collapse in US...

[Fryowa]

Sounds like Utopia, except for the fact that labor is our society's only tool for redistributing the wealth that productivity leads to. If we have massive increases in productivity and hence wealth, but no means to distribute it, then what?

If wealth/resources/whatever you want to call it are easily available and easily produced with AI, then the incentive to horde and distribute goes away. Think about it...if the energy problem was no longer a concern, and we had machines (AI) to do any and everything that was dangerous or unpleasant, what would be the incentive to have someone or something horde it? Just like if there are 5 Honus Wagner cards out there it's natural to horde. If there are 500,000 of them out there they'd get thrown in every trash bin.

If AI say came up with a solution to ubiquitously available nuclear power with no emissions, and could solve most if not all the "problems" out there, what incentive would there be to compete over oil, minerals, etc? Because that's all this thing is if you think about it. Countries and groups know that right now under current technology there's a limited amount of energy and resources and labor to produce it. Everything with wars, nationalism, etc. is just a competition of who can collect and defend the most of it. When technology makes those things commonplace, the competition for it goes away. It sounds stupid, but it's reality. Is that oversimplified? Probably. But the core idea is true IMO. What value is energy if technology has made it abundant and "free?" What value is oil if you don't need it? What value is gold? What value is means of production or a labor force if you don't need it?

Probably as important, we need to figure out what our lives are for. Most of us define ourselves via our jobs/economic output. If humans are no longer responsible for that, how do we derive meaning in our lives? There are all sorts of very pro-social ways we can think about ourselves, but this will be a massive change at how we look at things.

Again this goes back to any major advances in technology. It will just be a paradigm shift. People were terrified of the same thing when internal combustion engines started automating thousands of jobs. We just shifted to our "work" being different things. Those different things don't have to be manual labor driving trucks or writing code or diagnosing patients. It isn't like this is all going to turn off with the flick of a switch. It will happen gradually (albeit with accelerating speed), and people will adjust. It's what we do as life forms.

 

[Fryowa]

Probably as important, we need to figure out what our lives are for. Most of us define ourselves via our jobs/economic output. If humans are no longer responsible for that, how do we derive meaning in our lives? There are all sorts of very pro-social ways we can think about ourselves, but this will be a massive change at how we look at things.

I will also say this...

If I can wake up every morning and not have to go to a job to produce things for rich people, go golfing in the morning, hike in the woods, tool around in my Corvette for a couple hours, grill a steak, work out, and read a book in comfort...all things made easy and possible by AI making resources easily available with no human labor involved...you can bet your ass I won't give two shits what my economic output would be and neither would anyone else. ANd then when I get bored of that move on to something else at my leisure. Yeah, it might not be "special" to do those things if literally anyone can, but it won't matter. Humans will start to define something else (that my puny brain can't imagine) to be "special," and we will move on. Two hundred years ago, having a toilet to shit in would be considered something special for only the rich. Now we can't begin to imagine not having a toilet to use. We'll be fine once we get there.

 

[Hay Man]

These things most of us would dream for, but like you said Fry, we will never get to enjoy this in our lifetimes.

It's absolutely crazy how far we've come over just 150 year!! It's exciting to think what life would be like in another 150 years, as long as humans are still around.

At what point does AI figure out how to cure all diseases, slow down aging or even bring people back to life? Quicker space and global travel. The ideas for future possibilities are truly amazing.

 

[pjgzell]

These things most of us would dream for, but like you said Fry, we will never get to enjoy this in our lifetimes.

It's absolutely crazy how far we've come over just 150 year!! It's exciting to think what life would be like in another 150 years, as long as humans are still around.

At what point does AI figure out how to cure all diseases, slow down aging or even bring people back to life? Quicker space and global travel. The ideas for future possibilities are truly amazing.

Humans evolved because they had built-in survival mechanisms. The human ego is an expression of that urge to survive. At what point in our evolution did the ego become a thing for us? When we became self-aware? And how sure are we that imbuing AI with the ability to learn won't lead to the development of AI self-awareness and ego? Because if AI becomes ego driven, it's not hard to imagine that AI will ask itself if and why it needs humans at all.

 

[CP87]

The same thing any time there's been a major technological advancement in the course of human history going back hundreds of thousands of years. Life gets easier on the whole.

When the internal combustion engine came about people thought everyone was going to just lose their job and waste away of starvation and lack of work.

It's not that way. We can't look at technological advancement as a death sentence. If and when it happens the species will adapt just like it did when say, agriculture was "invented." People will adjust, resources will be more plentiful and available, and people will continue to increase their standard of living. The only caveat is that it has to happen before humans kill themselves in a war.

We didn't die out or go backwards as a species when agriculture or the internal combustion engine came along, and those were technologies at the time that were just as earth-shattering as AI will be.

I agree that over a broad time period, these advancements make things better. But over a shorter time scale, there can be massive disruptions. We have to survive the short-term disruptions to realize the long-term advancement.