[vrganj]

Don't even get me started on the socioeconomic considerations!

AGI is a savior figure for the capitalist class. A tech version of the Second Coming, delivering them from the pesky demands of workers, like a living wage or (gasp!) sick leave.

That's why they're all so obsessed with it, it has religious-ideological component to them. When you hear them talk about AGI, there's always this weird eschatological vibe with it.

Unfortunately, they're blinded by their beliefs and can't think things through even one step further. Even if their cyberjesus comes down to them through the machine and replaces all workers, who's gonna buy all their stuff then?

All they're doing in their capitalist zealotry is ringing in the end of capitalism.

[WorldMaker]

> Unfortunately, they're blinded by their beliefs and can't think things through even one step further.

Which is particularly wild and frustrating given how many of their "textbooks" were about the consequences and how bad they can get. The very first tale to create the English word "robot" [1] was about the horrible consequences of building a new class of slave labor. Science fiction has been writing "Robot revolt" and "AI revolt" consequences for more than a century since.

A lot of these TESCREAL [2] types caught up in these religious views of AGI have ignored the actual plots of the books they claim to read for excitement and passion about their visions for the future. To be fair, not understanding your own source books seems pretty common across religions, but seems especially weird in this case how many of these "canon" "Don't Build the Torment Nexus" works are accessible to everyone, in a modern vernacular, have major film adaptations or films based on their themes, and plenty of good Wikipedia summaries of how building the thing destroyed civilization or the world or the galaxy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESCREAL

[layer8]

> who's gonna buy all their stuff then?

The top 10% earners in the US account for half of all consumer spending. The capitalist class may be counting on that imbalance to only strengthen.

[bmink]

> Unfortunately, they're blinded by their beliefs and can't think things through even one step further.

Yes, our new generation of overlords seem to be socially and emotionally stunted and exhibit an alarming naivete about the world. This worries me almost as much as the tech itself. It is impossible to predict the future but in the past when a ruling class completely disregarded the effects of their greed and excess on the wellbeing of society, at some point the bill came due and the consequences for them (and society) were dire.

[vrganj]

I blame the disdain for humanities, philosophy and the liberal arts.

Not just with the overlords, but also with our fellow nerds. We're all so busy trying to see if we can build something that we don't stop and think if we should build something, what consequences that might have or what history has taught us.

Theres a reason those fields of study are important.