[georgehotz]

How do they own it? I see two scenarios.

1. They built the agent and it's somehow competitive. If so, they shouldn't just replace their own job with it, they should replace a lot more jobs and get a lot more rich than one salary.

2. They rent the agent. If so, why would the renting company not rent directly to their boss, maybe even at a business premium?

I see no scenario where there's an "agent to do my work while I keep getting a paycheck."

[dr_dshiv]

If you know contracting, you know that’s exactly how it’s always worked.

[EGreg]

Let me generalize

The problem is the organizing principle for our entire global society is competition.

This is the default, the law of the jungle or tribal warfare. But within families or corporations we do have cooperation, or a command structure.

The problem is that this principle inevitably leads to the tragedy of the unmanaged commons. This is why we are overfishing, polluting the Earth, why some people are freeriding and having 7 children with no contraception etc. Why ecosystems — rainforests, kelp forests, coral reefs, and even insects — are being decimated. Why one third of arable farmland is desertified, just like in the US dust bowl. Back then it was a race to the bottom and the US Govt had to step in and pay farmers NOT to plant.

We are racing to an AIpocalypse because what if China does it first?

In case you think the world don’t have real solutions… actually there have been a few examples of us cooperating to prevent catastrophe.

1. Banning CFCs in Montreal Protocol, repairing hole in Ozone Layer

2. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty

3. Ban on chemical weapons

4. Ban on viral bioweapons research

So number 2 is what I would hope would happen with huge GPU farms, we as a global community know exactly the supply chains, heck there is only one company in Europe doing the etching.

And also I would want a global ban on AGI development, or at least of leaking model weights. Otherwise it is almost exactly like giving everyone the means to make chemical weapons, designer viruses etc. The probability that NO ONE does anything that gets out of hand, will be infinitesimally small. The probability that we will be overrun by tons of destructive bot swarms and robots is practically 100%.

In short — this is the ultimate negstive externality. The corporations and countries are in a race to outdo each other in AGI even if they destroy humanity doing it. All because as a species, we are drawn to competition and don’t do the work to establish frameworks for cooperation the way we have done on local scales like cities.

PS: meanwhile, having limited tools and not AGI or ASI can be very helpful. Like protein folding or chess playing. But why, why have AGI proliferate?

[kgwxd]

> agent to do my work while I keep getting a paycheck.

They already exists, and have for a very long time, but I'm sure as shit not telling my customers about it.

[oarsinsync]

It's the equivalent of outsourcing your job. People have done this before, to China, to India, etc. There are stories about the people that got caught, e.g. with China because of security concerns, and with India because they got greedy, were overemployed, and failed in their opsec.

This is no different, it's just a different mechanism of outsourcing your job.

And yes, if you can find a way to get AI to do 90% of your job for you, you should totally get 4 more jobs and 5x your earnings for 50% reduction in hours spent working.

[georgehotz]

Maybe a few people managed to outsource their own job and sit in the middle for a bit. But that's not the common story, the common story is that your employer cut out the middle man and outsourced all the jobs. The same thing will happen here.

[catlifeonmars]

The trick is to register an LLC, and then get your employer to outsource the work to your consulting company. You get laid off, and then continue to work through your company.

Only mild sarcasm, as this is essentially what happens.