Post

I wonder: could we as a society just run LLM-accellerated scientific programs for new battery/solar designs, CRISPR-like enzymes, cancer cures - the stuff where outcomes really matter - while also maintaining a humans-only sandbox for these people to experience the joys of the life of the mind in?

We already have this split for everything. The folks down at my local tennis court don’t think they’re about to be on the pro tour. It’s fine.

I think some people are not cognizant of what side of the split they are on. Explains some weird arguments about software and AI I have had with people who believe that software is a creative endeavor (true), and Literally Every Line Of Code Is A Sacred Expression Of Programmer Creativity (false).

"I'm not a CRUDslop generator, I'm a temporarily embarrassed Turing Award winner!"

I mean not even that, it's just. There is some amount of irreduceable mundane labor that must be done in the process of lowering our ideas into executable programs. AI can't think things out for you, but once you HAVE thought things out AI can help convert your thinking into code.

And the more you want to make the code the best possible expression of your thinking, the more effort it takes! Readable, moduler, maintainable, well-tested, easy-to-understand code that clearly lays out your thinking requires clearer thinking and MORE TYPING than a mess of spaghetti.

If you can make AI do more of the effort of writing the actual lines of code, that gives you more time to think about whether that code is the code you should be writing, and less attachment to the code if it turns out ripping it out and redoing it is the right answer.

Funnily enough Shigeru Miyamoto recently said some very similar things regarding what he thinks about AI in game development? AI can mean the developer spends less time laboring on the code and more time thinking about what the right choice is to make the game the best it can be.

At least, I think he said that. The embers of the internet argument I had with someone who is insisting that can't POSSIBLY be what he means are still smoldering.

Eventually the AI will do everything and we all kill ourselves.The rest is cope.

i genuinely don't understand how this is a real position that people hold like, people are still going to want to do things if someone wants to learn to paint, maybe an AI can render a more realistic image, but that's not the point in learning how to paint on a canvas with a brush

This is also cope. But don't worry, with a high probability the soon to come riots will kickstart your sense of agency and mattering. Ok, maybe you just don't get it, just like psychopaths do not get empathy. Please, pull the trigger for me, then. Good night.

Once again I will say that if you sincerely want to die you should do what you can to seek professional help if at all possible. The world is bad in a lot of ways right now, but you can have a life worth living. I promise.