[palmotea]

> An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand.

1) I think it's the destruction of our value, as workers. Without an unthinkable change in society, we'll be discarded.

2) I think it will also destroy the unrealized value of not-yet-created work, first by overwhelming everything with a firehouse mediocre slop, then by disincentivizing the development of human talent and skill (because it will be an easy button that removes the incentives to do that). AI will exceed humans primarily by making humans dumber, not by exceeding humans' present-day capabilities. Eventually creative output will settle at some crappy, derivative level without any peaks that rise above that.

[sneak]

There is a very strong argument that if your work output can be discarded effectively in favor of a firehose of mediocre slop, then it is a moral imperative that we stop employing human beings in those roles as it’s a terrible waste of a human life.

The only people I see handwringing over AI slop replacing their jobs are people who produce things of quality on the level of AI slop. Nobody truly creative seems to feel this way.

[_DeadFred_]

Video scoring people are feeling it. I think a world with Hanz Zimmer soundtracks, with Tron 2 with a Daft Punk soundtrack, is a richer world than one where soundtracks are machine generated.

Creative people actually do feel this way. There are huge discussions about it going on by actual creative people. Why are you hand waving that away and saying if they are discussing it they must not be adding any value, therefore their discussion is discarded? It's definitely a convenient position for you to take, but it doesn't seem like a real position when objectively great talent are taking the position you say only poor talent would take?

[sneak]

No movie studio would choose AI slop when people like John Williams or Hans Zimmer exist. That’s a ridiculous argument. It’s such a simple way to differentiate and compete. Whatever Williams cost, Lucas made it back 100x.

If AI gets good enough to replace them, then we can have a different discussion - but I don’t think you get truly great art without the full spectrum of human emotion and experience - that is, full AGI. In that case, all jobs are toast and we don’t need to have this discussion.

[palmotea]

> No movie studio would choose AI slop when people like John Williams or Hans Zimmer exist.

I wouldn't be so sure. During the writers strike I heard the producers where hoping to replace a lot of their work with AI.

> but I don’t think you get truly great art without the full spectrum of human emotion and experience

The movie industry is in the business of selling tickets, and the TV industry is in the business of getting people to look at ads. Creating "truly great art" is not the priority, but sometimes happens because people are still involved.

Our choices as consumers are constrained. If they all get compromised at the same time, because the producers are following similar incentives, the market won't punish them.

[Ferret7446]

But of course. You would only worry about AI if it will replace your job.

Factory workers didn't worry about cars, but buggy drivers did. Office workers didn't worry about factory automation, but factory workers did.

[_DeadFred_]

But don't you know, 60 years later, after WW2, the labor market worked out. After a few minor details happened in between. So things turned out fine for the buggy drivers and you are freaking out just because you are the new buggy driver (things did not in fact work out for buggy drivers, but that's just a small detail glossed over because things worked out for people after WW2, we have no idea how buggy driver's lives turned out in our example of everything working out for buggy drivers).

Things will be fine (it might take another 60 years and a few minor details, but it will all magically work out, like it did then. Not for the buggy drivers though. They were fucked, broken people living on skid row grew so huge it was a popular trope in children's cartoons).

[mdhb]

You’re doing that thing that people sometimes do where they say something incredibly naive but do so in such a confident manner that they imply they are really this enlightened individual and it’s everyone else who’s dumb.

But this idea that you’ve put forth really doesn’t hold up to even the lightest bit of scrutiny when you actually start thinking about what this would look like in reality.

[conartist6]

But this is just the full-on race to the bottom. Stated simply this philosophy would be "there is only power those to weak to be effective at wielding it".

I think exactly the opposite of you because to me consuming from a firehose of slop is the most terrible way you could waste a human life.

[blargey]

Counting on:

- AI never advancing past a "firehose of mediocre slop"

- Consumers as an aggregate "choosing" quality over cost and availability

is a good way to never worry about AI, yes. But that's not the assumptions this article or thread is written on.

[palmotea]

> There is a very strong argument that if your work output can be discarded effectively in favor of a firehose of mediocre slop...

> The only people I see handwringing over AI slop replacing their jobs are people who produce things of quality on the level of AI slop. Nobody truly creative seems to feel this way.

Have you ever worked for an American company? They almost always choose slop over quality. Why should an executive hire employ a skilled American software engineer, when he can fire him and hire three offshore engineers who don't really know what they're doing for half the price? Things won't blow up immediately, there's a chance they'll just limp along in a degraded state, and by then executive will be off somewhere else with a bonus in his pocket.

Also, how many people are "truly creative" and how does that compare to the number of people who have to eat?

> then it is a moral imperative that we stop employing human beings in those roles as it’s a terrible waste of a human life.

And what should they do then? Sit around jerking off under a bridge?

There's no "moral imperative" to cast people off into poverty. And that's what will happen: there will be no retraining, no effort to find roles for the displaced people. They'll just be discarded. That's a "terrible waste of a human life."