[sho_hn]

I'm still on the fence. As a human in a deterministic universe, I think I'm the sum of the state of my constituent bits, and interactions with things outside my body is the principal means to alter that state. The direction these state changes take depends on the interactions, i.e. what I am exposed to changes the results. That makes intuitive sense: If I see something sad, I feel sad. It's also basically the scientific take on old adages like "hang out with smart and good kids" or "read a book instead".

So ... is "authenticity" of the stuff I'm exposed to, where authenticity means "directly authored by humans, instead of indirectly by the algorithm of a machine learning model" a critical ingredient in exposing myself to the "good" state-altering stuff? Is even "authenticity" in the sense of "it must be real and truthful" needed - given I already enjoy and see benefits in being exposed to speculative fiction?

I'm not so sure. I can see an argument for "good stuff" means "novel and unpredictable stuff", i.e. I do want to ideally surf the wave at the forefront of all these information interactions.

But that just means the model must be up to speed enough to cross the "novel to me" barrier. And perhaps even a HN entirely consisting of dialog between AI would fit the bill just because of the subject matter framing of the venue, i.e. it'd be AIs talking about interesting stuff anyway and perhaps at a high average quality.

Bottom line: Yes, AIs will literally enter the conversation. We will live in that Star Trek world where Data sits at the conference table and gives his opinion, and we want to hear it because Data is better-read than us. And maybe that's OK. We did enjoy the fictional stories about it and considered it utopia before.

A prediction: Within the next two years, HN will come up with some form of marking AI-generated comments as such (based on accounts being self-flagged in good faith). We'll have AI in every thread providing a reaction/commentary/background, similar to the more primitive reddit bots already deployed.

[thr0wawayf00]

The thing that concerns me about this perspective is that it completely ignores human connection and our need to connect as beings.

Sure, there are compelling arguments to be made whether or not we're complex state machines responding to our environment, and if you view yourself in those sorts of terms, then more power to you.

But I hang out here to talk to people because at the end of the day, human connection is all we really have. I believe the day that we consciously choose to supplant human connection with AI-generated input is the day that we no longer care about the existence of our kind.

[sho_hn]

I also want to hang out with humans, too. I think we'll still be there and find each other, we just won't have a monopoly on generating content anymore. The ways we identify/find human company might change. Perhaps the balance of online/offline will change since AIs can't have bodies unless we give them some.

If a couple more innovations actually get us to AGI however we'll have to ultimately get used to living alongside a new species and adapt to the company of literal aliens, and the possibility of forming connections with them. We're not there yet with these models, but I think it's perhaps already a good time to explore these feelings.

Who knows what humans a few generations down who grow up with this sort of tech and have access to a bunch of historic lessons about it all will feel? Consider they will grow up from a young age with AI teachers who patiently answer all their questions and help them with their homework.

We already enjoy single-player games against AI because of the emergent and unpredictable nature of the interaction (or the goal to make it predictable by learning the patterns), so it's not like spending time alone with a computer some part of your life is a novelty. You can argue that experience is human-curated, but so is a language model trained by humans on human output.

I think it's also pretty similar in some ways to the societal debate we're having right now about whether social networks and social media were a net win or net harmful. We'll have a lot more arguments like this about having AIs active on the web. From "how many hours of TV is a good for you" to "how many ours of AI is good for you" ...

> I believe the day that we consciously choose to supplant human connection with AI-generated input is the day that we no longer care about the existence of our kind.

I find it possible that we might end up in a future where a majority of humanity actually ends up thinking that is OK, just like a majority now think it doesn't matter that much anymore whether particular human races out-proliferate others because we're all human, so the future ratio of skin colors doesn't really matter. I.e. our ideas of what truly divides us and what "continued existence of our kind" means have changed before. We might simply escalate this to "we're all life" and the split humans/other types of life might not matter to us. Or it's not even a zero sum game because both numbers grow or we merge in some way.

After all, if we manage to build AGIs, they will be our children.

Edit: For comparison: https://i.imgur.com/DJ8VXOr.png (and some fun: https://i.imgur.com/2vrLuOo.png)