[skepticATX]

The fact that so many feel the same way about this technology (I do too!) is an indictment of humanity, not the technology itself.

We _could_ use this to empower humans, but many of us instinctively know that it will instead be used to crush the human spirit. The end result of this isn’t going to be an expansion of creative ability, it’s going to be the destruction of creative jobs and the capture of these creative mediums by a few large companies.

[weatherlite]

> The end result of this isn’t going to be an expansion of creative ability, it’s going to be the destruction of creative jobs and the capture of these creative mediums by a few large companies.

I agree , but that's the negative. The positive will be that almost any service you can imagine (medical diagnosis, tax preparation, higher education) will come down to zero, and with a lag of perhaps a decade or two it will meet us in the physical world with robo-technicians, surgeons and plumbers. The cost of building a new house or railway will plummet to the cost of the material and the land, and will be finished in 1/10 of the time it takes today. The main problem to me is that there's a lag between the negatives and the positives. We're starting out with the negatives and the benefits may take a decade or two to reach us all equally.

[kilpikaarna]

> The positive will be that almost any service you can imagine (medical diagnosis, tax preparation, higher education) will come down to zero

Why would you want massive amounts more of those things? In fact I might even argue that medicine, taxation and education are a net negative on society already. And that to the extent that there seems to be scarcity, it's mainly a distribution problem having to do with entrenched interests and bureaucracy.

> The cost of building a new house or railway will plummet to the cost of the material and the land

That's is the actual scarcity tho.

[weatherlite]

> Why would you want massive amounts more of those things? In fact I might even argue that medicine, taxation and education are a net negative on society already. And that to the extent that there seems to be scarcity, it's mainly a distribution problem having to do with entrenched interests and bureaucracy.

I'm not sure what you mean. In my country getting a specialist to take a look at you can take weeks, the scarcity is that there's not enough doctors. For sure many people get delayed and suboptimal diagnosis (even if you finally get to see the specialist, he may have 10 mintues for you and 50 other patients to see that day). A.I can simply solve this.

> The cost of building a new house or railway will plummet to the cost of the material and the land

>> That's is the actual scarcity tho

Not necessarily, the labor costs a tremendous amount, and also it might be that we don't need to cram tens of millions of people around cities anymore if most work is automated, we can start spreading out (again, this will take decades and I'm not denying we have pressing problems in the immediate future).

[GenshoTikamura]

So the humankind was waiting for AI to bring down all costs to zero, good lord! I thought it was waiting for steam engine, penicillin, railroads, aviation, robotics, computers, nuclear energy, space flight to bring that forth!

[sekai]

> We _could_ use this to empower humans, but many of us instinctively know that it will instead be used to crush the human spirit. The end result of this isn’t going to be an expansion of creative ability, it’s going to be the destruction of creative jobs and the capture of these creative mediums by a few large companies.

The same was said about the camera or photoshop.

[GenshoTikamura]

The kind of argument which boils down to "the death of the human spirit is imminent, because it is never OK to stop where we are, and only a step forward is possible, because there are plenty steps already taken behind"

[dsadfjasdf]

you act as if the human population has no agency to choose what they want? This will be another tool for good and bad. People will make beautiful things the world hasn't seen before, and others will use it for propaganda. just like all things we touch