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by FireCrack 2 hours ago
The premise is a bit of a stretch to begin with, and the idea that people would not believe a fable transcript circa 2020 (as long as explained as 5 year future tech) is absurd. But even if I take that "AI can do all cognitive and physical work, at human level or better, and cheaper than humans" is true, the article seems to silently layer on "and can run autonomously, indefinitely", then "can also operate independently of any instructions", and finally layers on "has emotions, has moral values, is a conscious being"

What's left is tautology.

3 comments

> the idea that people would not believe a fable transcript circa 2020 (as long as explained as 5 year future tech) is absurd.

I’m certain I would not have believed a Fable transcript, or an Opus 4.8 or a GPT 5.5 one, for that matter. Is it so hard to imagine ourselves back then?

Seriously. At that point it was a stuff of science fiction with the early models being on level of Markov chains. Today they are more helpful that the computer in Start Trek.
I remember an episode of TNG were Riker was instructing the computer to come up with an algorithm to search the surrounding space with certain sensor in a specific pattern, I don't remember the exact words but it was something like a sphere with growing radius with the enterprise at the center. we now, basically, have that, except for the space ship.
At no point are the words emotion, moral or conscious used in the article, that last part is purely your own addition.

Also consider: if "AI can do all cognitive and physical work, at human level or better", doesn't that simply entail the AI being able to run 'autonomously, indefinitely' and 'independently of instructions' in the same way as the current state of being run by human overseers?

If we take the initial premise as plausible, for the sake of this argument his thesis seems to hold together very well.

this comment is so emotional its hard to read