[alfalfasprout]

Not sure why this is being downvoted. It's spot on. You see folks like Dario et al. raising the alarm bells about what they claim is coming... while working as hard as they can to bring that gloomy future to fruition.

No one in power is going to help unless there's money in it.

[thatguy0900]

You can also see all of these people building survival bunkers.

[iwontberude]

According to Trump, "If it was up to Stephen [Miller], there would only be 100 million people in this country — and all of them would look like him."

[lbrito]

Its being downvoted because HN has a very active billionaire-techbro-fanbase.

Also who's this Dario?

[mapontosevenths]

It's being downvoted because it's a ridiculous premise. "The Elites" are human too. This attitude is nonsensical and child-like. Nobody is out here trying to round up the hippies and force them to live in some kind of pods to be harvested for their nutrients or whatever.

This technology, like every prior technology, will cause some people to lose their jobs and some new jobs to be created. This will annoy people who have to learn new skill instead of coasting until retirement as they planned.

It is no different than the buggy whip manufacturers being annoyed at Henry Ford. They were right that it was bad for their industry, but wrong about it being the death of... well all the million things they claimed it would be the death of.

[iwontberude]

And just like Henry Ford and the automobile, one of many externalities was the destruction of black communities: white flight that drained wealth, eminent domain for highways, and increased asthma incidence and other disease from concentrated pollution.

[mapontosevenths]

Yet, overall it was a net positive for society... as almost every technological innovation in history has been.

Did you know the 2/3rds of the people alive today wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the invention of the Haber-bosch process? Technology isn't just a toy, it's our life support mechanism. The only way our population gets to keep growing is if our technology continues to improve.

Will there be some unintended consequences? Absolutely. Does that mean we can (or even should) stop it? Hell no. Being pro-human requires you to be pro-technology.

[dTal]

I don't think this argument is logically sound. The assertion that this (and every other!!) technological innovation is a "net positive" merely because of our monotonic population growth is both weakly defined and unsubstantiated. Population is not a good proxy for all things we find desirable in society, and even if it were, it is only a single number that cannot possibly distinguish between factors that helped it and factors that hurt it.

Suppose I invent The Matrix, capable of efficiently sustaining 100b humans provided they are all strapped in with tubes and stuff. Oh and no fancy simulation to keep you entertained either -it's only barely an improvement on death. Economics forces everyone into matrix-hell, but at least there's a lot of us. Net positive for society?

[mapontosevenths]

Human fecundity is probably not actually the meaning of life, it's just the best approximation most people can wrap their heads around.

If you can think of a better one, let me know. Be warned though, you'll be arguing with every biological imperative, religion, and upbringing in the room when you say it.

[treebigtree]

"as almost every technological innovation in history has been"

This is simply false. You really are the king of making unfounded claims.

[mapontosevenths]

I don't need to prove anything. You folks are the ones claiming harm. That said, AI is more akin to the invention of antibiotics than it is to the invention of any specific drug. Name any other entire category of technology from which no good has ever come. Just one.

I doubt you can. Even bioweapons led to breakthroughs in pesticides and chemotherapy. Nukes led to nuclear power, and even harmful AI stuff like deep fakes are being used for image restorations, special effects, and medical imaging.

You're just flat out wrong, and I think you know it.

[discreteevent]

Henry Ford didn't make his cars out of buggy whips. He made a new industry. He didn't cannibalize an existing one. You cannot make an LLM without digesting the source material.

[cthalupa]

> He made a new industry. He didn't cannibalize an existing one.

I don't see how you can claim the second part is true. Cars directly cannibalized other forms of self transportation.

[apercu]

? Cars don't "eat" horses. I wouldn't equate "making redundant" with "consuming"

[direwolf20]

LLMs don't literally eat artists. I think you understood the metaphor.

[cthalupa]

Cannibalizing a <product/industry/etc.> is a common phrase to describe the act of a new thing outcompeting an existing thing to another thing to the degree that it significantly harms the market share, sometimes to the point of figurative extinction. Redundancy is a very common reason for this to occur.

It has nothing to do with literally eating.

[mapontosevenths]

Digesting is a weird way to say "learning from." By that logic I've been digesting news, books, movies, songs, and comic books since I was born. My brain is great big 'ole copyright violation.

What matters here is not the source material, it's the output. Possessing or consuming copyrighted material is not illegal, distributing it is. So what matters here is: Can we say that the output is transformative, and does it work to progress the arts and sciences (the stated purpose of copyright in the US constitution)?

I would say yes to both things, except in rare cases of bugs or intentional copyright violations. None of the major AI vendors WANT these things to infringe copyright, they just do it from time to time by accident or through the omission of some guardrail that nobody had yet considered. Those issues are generally fixed fairly promptly (a few major screw ups notwithstanding).

[randomNumber7]

So we have monkeys writing the same code over and over again, until the end of time. Because of "rules".

[hackable_sand]

And for those of us living a reality of subjugation and fear, you're a fucking liar.

[iwontberude]

It's because people rub shoulders with tech billionaires and they seem normal enough (e.g. kind to wait staff, friends and family). The billionaires, like anyone, protect their immediate relationships to insulate the air of normality and good health they experience personally. Those people who interact with billionaires then bristle at our dissonant point of view when we point at the externalities. Externalities that have been hand waved in the name of modernity.

Sycophancy is for more than just LLMs.

[tyg13]

Presumably Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.