[alach11]

We were incredibly lucky that computing and nuclear weapons led to a stable geopolitical equilibrium (mutually assured destruction). There were certainly a few scary points where we were still settling into that equilibrium during the Cold War.

I don't have a strong opinion either way, but it seems very hard to predict. Why do you think AI advancements will lead to a stable equilibrium?

[areoform]

Equilibrium for whom? Equilibrium for what?

Here's what I know. Every day, I read a 5 to 10 incoming emails from young people in rural Africa, Asia, Europe and (heck) the US. People who have had no other resources and options, but are tremendously gifted and somehow got their hands on an internet connected device (usually a very cheap smartphone and/or cheap old computer).

These people, who are usually teenagers, end up getting connected to Claude, who then gives them a list of things to learn, people to contact, and helps them make things. And they actually do. They make robots. They learn new things and try to improve themselves and others. And some want to change the world / do groundbreaking research.

When you sit down and start pricing and doling out AI from behind regulatory gates, you shut those people out.

There are a lot of smart people in this world who have traditionally been unable to get access to resources and education. MOOCs didn't do much / help. But these AIs? They were born multi-lingual. They can talk in any language. They can tailor their responses to their audience. And they can help broaden these people's horizons.

There are no tutors around them. There is no one who is coming to help. But an AI that can run off of a small battery and a connection to a cellular network can give them access to genuine intelligence to make their world better.

I met one sixteen year old who was accessing Claude surreptitiously (by begging people) and was trying to apply some really fascinating biomimetic fluid dynamics observations to aerospace. This person was born in one of the more under-resourced parts of the world. And Claude gave them a list of people to reach out to who could help.

If you want a golden age for humanity, you should be asking for Licklider's Man-Machine Symbiosis.

[throwaway0123_5]

The outcome that you're describing of AIs facilitating education for disadvantaged people is great, but isn't AI simultaneously significantly devaluing education (excluding of course education pursued for intrinsic reasons, which I'm sure many people will always pursue) and removing the need for educated people? Or at least intended to be doing so, even if it isn't accomplishing it yet?

Your examples seem to be of humans educating themselves so as to contribute to the world intellectually, but the promise of AI (and what most frontier lab employees seem to be saying) is that it will soon eclipse human intellect in almost all ways. If such a world is what we end up with, I don't see humans meaningfully contributing to "groundbreaking research" and a golden age for humanity seems to be mostly contingent on whether or not we take political actions to ensure that AI benefits everyone.

[watwut]

Young people with shut of from education and resources are building robots with the help of Claude after Claude existing for few years only? Like common. Young person with no support does not get to build a robot, because it is actually an expensive thing to do. And learning robotics with no education but few years of Claude is also implausible.