saurabhpandit26
3 days ago
In a world with better economic system, such progress in Artificial Intelligence and automation would have been viewed more positively, I mean who doesnt want to work less and have AI make rapid discoveries in scientific field. Instead we are filled with anxiety and dread of what will happen to our jobs and how we will survive.
Zambyte
2 days ago
I am not a mathematician, but from what I understand, mathematicians just do not not see this as progress. They see it as being robbed of potential progress. Mathematical progress is not achieved in the solutions to hard problems, it is achieved in the method of finding the solution. We are being robbed of the opportunity to find the solution by being handed the solutions.
This was a video I saw that covered this idea well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqiDqJMxg6o
peterbonney
2 days ago
> We are being robbed of the opportunity to find the solution by being handed the solutions.
I find this argument difficult to understand. As a math student in college with no ambitions (or realistic opportunity or aptitude) to pursue original contributions to the field, everything I learned was by definition already solved. Nevertheless I was able to - required to, in fact - work through each solution in order to develop understanding. And I did in fact learn by this method, as countless other students did before and after me.
So when I hear this argument from mathematicians, all I can hear is that they are frustrated at being out back into the position of being students, where the end result of the hard work of understanding is just the understanding itself without the prize of a new discovery. If they want to find the solution without reading it, they are still very much able to do so, just as their students do every day.
Melatonic
2 days ago
I think it's bigger than that. There's an unsaid anxiety around this that I don't think people are properly quantifying yet but is probably bubbling around inside their subconscious: we may soon get to a point where computers and machine intelligence outstrips our own and is able to solve mathematical and logical problems that are not just unsolved because they are hard but because we are hitting an inherent limit in the concepts and problems our physical brains can comprehend.
Demis Hassabis has talked about this a bit in regards to theoretical physics and it's an idea that I think I agree on. Every once in awhile we randomly get a super genius who's brain is seemingly able to conceptualise or visualise beyond the state of the art. But at some point I think we have to accept that we are just animals and inherently limited by our brains (and means of observing the physical world).
The scary part isn't that AI is solving the unsolved problems that will force people to act like students again. The scary part is that we may not be able to understand the work needed to get to the solution at all.
Obviously we're not quite to that level yet but it's entirely possible we do get there. And on the optimistic side ~ maybe that's what we need: better tools.
unrented7977
2 days ago
This reads to me like Victorian fears of buildings over three stories (you'll asphyxiate) or the idea that humans will die instantly when moving faster than a horse could carry you.
I see no reason whatsoever to expect that humans have any kind of limit to what we can understand as a species. We've had more unthinkable and incomprehensible discoveries than anyone cares to count. They become understood, normalized, and folded into our scientific canon. We went from inventing airplanes to landing on the moon in a matter of decades. We went from banging rocks together to quantum physics and string theory. I think we'll be alright.
_whoDis
2 days ago
Hypothetically, if a solution to a problem requires a billion intricate steps there is no way for humans to comprehend it. Human life span is too short. We can't even grasp what it entails. If a machine can pump out humongous proofs and solutions on a regular basis we will never catch up.
glimshe
2 days ago
I'll add to it. The classic answer to your objection is "but as a species we'd have sooner or latter 1 billion steps worth of intellectual capital". Today someone gets to an intermediate result worth 1 million steps, tomorrow another million and so on.
But there's no guarantee that such "low IQ" intermediate steps exist. We do well with many classes of problems because of divide-and-conquer. But not all problems can be solved through divide-and-conquer.
For a rough analogy, see how AI plays chess and intermediate board positions often don't make sense to us. Imagine now an enormous chess-like game played in an enormous chess board where a match lasts longer than a lifetime and none of the intermediate steps make sense to any human.
fugalfervor
2 days ago
What is so hard to understand?
Difficult problem -> Developing new branches of mathematics to solve said problem -> solving problem, or failing to do so, it doesn't matter -> aforementioned new branches of mathematics are used to solve practical, real-world problems that benefit industry and economy.
The point of solving the problem is not the prize. The point of solving the problem is not even solving the problem. It is developing new methods and deepening understanding to drive useful applications.
peterbonney
2 days ago
> It is developing new methods and deepening understanding to drive useful applications.
Knowing that a solution exists is not an impediment to deepening your understanding of a problem.
For example: Knowing that there is a proof of Pythagoras’ theorem is not an impediment to thousands (millions?) of geometry students developing the intuition that comes from drawing the famous diagram where the number of squares visually add up to one another.
What about the existence of an AI-generated proof prevents a mathematician from working through the problem on their own to deepen their understanding, as if the proof didn’t exist in the first place?
That’s what is hard to understand.
fugalfervor
2 days ago
> That’s what is hard to understand.
I'm baffled that you find the mechanics of human motivation hard to understand, (presumably ;) being a human yourself.
Studies have shown that people that know a certain piece of knowledge is stored somewhere, are less likely to remember said knowledge.
The sense (thrill?) of exploration and discovery can in fact be part of a person's motivation. The popularity of open-world games (often derided as 'walking simulators') are a testament to that. Do you really not see how that could be undermined by knowing that a problem that interests you is already solved?
ndriscoll
2 days ago
Because they've been through this process as part of learning math. e.g. you read your analysis book, and come to:
> If a set E in R^k has one of the following three properties, then it has the other two:
(a) E is closed and bounded.
(b) E is compact.
(c) Every infinite subset of E has a limit point in E.
Likewise, when given an exercise of the form "Prove P" or even "Prove or disprove P," you can be pretty certain 1. it is doable and 2. it is doable using techniques/theorems discussed in the course/book you're working through. But people are perfectly happy to do this for several years.
peterbonney
a day ago
> I'm baffled that you find the mechanics of human motivation hard to understand, (presumably ;) being a human yourself.
But that’s exactly it! The mathematicians are framing this as being bad for human understanding of math, but it’s obviously really about their own motivations for developing that understanding! Which, again, goes back to the obvious conclusion that what they have lost is the extrinsic motivation for being first, not the intrinsic motivation of developing understanding.
That is totally fine! I wouldn’t be motivated to do my job if I wasn’t extrinsically rewarded for doing so. But I am also not feeding anyone a line of BS about how it’s actually some other higher-minded motivation driving my work.
I’m empathetic to the instability of the extrinsic rewards for doing math research as a profession in the current moment. I am not at all empathetic to an attempt to manipulate me into thinking that the real problem is something other than that.
It’s like an entrepreneur complaining that they can’t build a business that would better humanity because of high taxes. That’s fine - but the motivation lacking there is obviously making money, not bettering humanity.
unrented7977
2 days ago
It seems like this whole argument is just rationalization to avoid saying "we think AI is bad because we wanted to discover things first!"
magimas
2 days ago
there is a lot of thrill of exploration and discovery with things you already know to be true.
Basically all natural sciences work that way. Knowing the truth of an apple falling down a table when rolled over the edge is the beginning of discovery, not the end of it.
Mathematical discovery also worked more like theoretical physics 200 years ago. The modern way of formalization in maths might be dead now in some ways, but it's also only 100 years old. There's still many ways to do modern maths and have a lot of fun with it that are not taken away by AI.
fugalfervor
2 days ago
> there is a lot of thrill of exploration and discovery with things you already know to be true.
it is qualitatively different
joshAg
2 days ago
Think of it like a trip.
When you're learning/internalizing existing knowledge, you tread a defined path skipping unnecessary stops and diversion and heading instead directly to the destination. The destination, not the journey, is the point.
When you're discovering new knowledge in the form of proving/disproving, there's no defined path to follow, so there can be quite a bit of backtracking and diversions and detours into other areas you weren't planning on going initially and while there might be some well-defined paths to follow, you might have to cut your own path through uncharted desert or jungle.
All those diversions and detours make the journey just as if not more important than the destination because they create new destinations of their own for future travel that would not have been spotted or noticed for a while longer (if ever) otherwise.
So to bring it back to math, transitioning from having to develop proofs for theorems to validating/learning extant proofs completely changes the scope of future discovery. Everyone will tread the exact same path to a proof/theorem and then stand in the same place to look for future destinations and then use AI to build them a path to that new destination and then everyone will follow the same path to the new destination and repeat the process, so the chances of finding something curious along the way plummets. And something curious could be an entirely new field of math, or maybe just a new problem that isn't relevant to the intended destination but gives a view of many new never before seen destinations for future trips.
Maro
2 days ago
I am also not a mathematician, but I think this is an assumption that people are making. It could be that by reading the solutions/proofs of these AI-generated results, those methods could still be discovered, ie. the AI could be discovering new novel methods implicitly. It's not exactly the same thing, but when the Navier Stokes blow-up "solution" came out, there was a lot of hoopla around it being stolen and not novel, but then once the dust settled, we had this:
> But closer examination reveals that OpenAI’s proof builds its unnatural force in a totally distinct way. The proof’s similarities to Buckmaster and Alpöge’s progress are superficial...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/openais-blockbust...
So I think more time needs to pass before a call can be made.
An interesting thought experiment is this: if we were to go back in time 150 years and tell our ancestors that Newton is just an approximation and give them a 5,000 page book about Special and General Relativity, QM and QFT, would we be robbing them? Initially the whole thing would be incomprehensible, but eventually they would chew through it and make sense of it. I don't really know the answer (and perhaps the analogy is not great since we're quite attached to our physics heroes from the last 150 years).
fugalfervor
2 days ago
> those methods could still be discovered
there is a difference between "knowing" and "knowing about". "knowing" is having it deeply ingrained into one's intuition by working at a solution over years, often without progress in the immediate sense, and often without success in the absolute sense either.
hardbass
2 days ago
Other than the person who developed the solution, everyone else will have to be "knowing about" it by studying written texts and lectures produced by someone else's mind.
Maro
a day ago
Exactly. Every mathematician is "robbed" from knowing 1-2 things that they would specifically work on, for any given topic, 99.99% of mathematicians are not robbed, and for any given mathematician, for 99.99% of topics they are not robbed of anything. That's my feeling..
Maybe post-LLMs mathematicians will work on problems/topics that even ChatGPT can't solve? Like, P=NP remains unsolved, we can work on that. Sure, it's possible that it will get solved tomorrow by an AI or somebody else, but that possibility was always there.. Or, to be more practical, one of the claimed OpenAI results is that integer multiplication is sub n×log(n), so assuming it stands, now there's a new question: "What is the actual lower bound for integer multiplication?"
I have no proof, but I believe (i) LLM progress will converge at some point, (ii) that point will not be so far off from human intelligence, since they're trained on human intelligence, so.. not all problems will be solved/solvable by LLMs. But they'll be fast(er), like calculators are faster than us.
hardbass
a day ago
Yes because except for ones own work, the mathematician is at the mercy of learning from papers and videos any other work whether made by man or by machine, so I do not understand this argument at all.
alansaber
2 days ago
That is the case many fields. Mathematicians, like physicists, are trained to develop a strong focus on methodology and intuition. It seems likely that the dynamic by which that intuition is gained will change.
glimshe
2 days ago
I know what they are saying but it's really difficult for me to separate their job-preserving and peer-acceptence instincts from their opinion. I don't see how it couldn't be biased.
I remember a recent "100 hundred mathematicians on AI" post recently. Some of them appeared truly excited even if the majority wasn't. Who's right? Who's biased? I don't know.
Sharlin
2 days ago
I don’t think it’s about job security in the case of professional mathematicians. It’s about the fear of giving up the very thing they’re passionate about. It’s not like math researchers work on pure math because of the pay. If anything, they do it despite the pay.
agentcoops
2 days ago
It can be a mix of both. There's no reason, after all, that humans no longer being the most intelligent systems on the planet has to mean giving up such a passion, especially since it means living in a world with more and not less mathematics. One has to separate the joy of doing mathematics from a capacity (or, more importantly, need) to obtain a living doing it from the pride of being the best in your field.
It's interesting to recall Turing's own position: "There would be great opposition [to AI] from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job. It is probable though that the intellectuals would be mistaken about this. There would be plenty to do, i.e. in trying to keep one’s intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits."
On the other hand, Thomas Bernhard's The Loser is a horrifying account of the opposite standpoint---of an essentially second best piano student who cannot stand existing in a world with Glenn Gould.
varjag
2 days ago
A world where there are fewer humans who can ever understand math is the world with less mathematics.
Loquebantur
2 days ago
What would such a world look like?
Mathematics represents the rational skeleton that upholds and stabilizes our vague, formless but far more common belief-based thinking.
Without it, losing it from neglect, we would collapse back into a pre-rational state of fantastical, wishful thinking.
Pretty much exemplified by large parts of US society already, but there is no bottom otherwise keeping society from collapse.
dsign
2 days ago
Well, it’s at least you and me thinking that.
> What would such a world look like?
Major religions, minor religions, cults will have a field day. Or more like a field century or a millennium or twenty, who knows.
Up to a few years ago, I would see or read some science fiction that was medieval times with spaceships (ala Dune) and I would roll my eyes and think “ffs, can’t people move on and invent something more original?”. Now I seriously believe that’s one of the most benign futures waiting for our species[^1]. Not that there aren’t lots of lights in this tunnel, it’s just that its shadows are very black.
knottn
2 days ago
Distinction without a difference. They happen to have jobs that they are passionate about. Many people do.
Sharlin
2 days ago
How can you say that? Even if their future livelihood were 100% guaranteed at the same or even higher level, the loss they feel would be the same. If you don't understand that, you probably just aren't empathetic enough.
knottn
a day ago
If people were empathetic then they would realize we’re all in this together. Where was the outcry in the academic community when graphic designers got replaced? I’m not experiencing schadenfreud mind you, it’s peculiar to me how narrow the scope of concern many academics have, but I suppose it’s the end result of hyper specialization and credentialiam that has come to “legitimize” the middle and upper class over the past century or so. Still strange to see.
mrheosuper
2 days ago
>It’s about the fear of giving up the very thing they’re passionate about
They have nothing to fear if that is their motivation. New players get into chess every year despite computer vastly outperform us.
lvoudour
2 days ago
Math is more like a treasure hunt than a chess game. Once the treasure is found, it's over. You can try chasing other treasures of course, but now you deal with superhuman competition (which will only become better with time). I can understand this is devastating and depressing
Sharlin
2 days ago
That’s exactly the fear: that math becomes just a meaningless game. Us mere mortals can get enjoyment from solving math puzzles whose solutions are well known, but it’s rather different being in the frontier, discovering entirely novel mathematical structures and proof techniques – and answers to questions nobody knows how to answer yet, sometimes even questions nobody has thought to ask yet!
varjag
2 days ago
Math is not entertainment though. It's one area where a sole human can do some of the most profound contributions to humanity.
user
2 days ago
user
2 days ago
ekr
2 days ago
I think you're wrong, and that's bulls*t. Something about virtue signalling.
Not just the pay, but motivation doesn't work on math insight alone. If you look from a distance it's clearly a mix of status, money etc. If what you say was true, many of them would be recluses up in the mountains, but none of them are.
LE. Think about it this way: if someone truly only cares about his ability to do "non-AI-contaminated" mathematics, nothing stops them from ignoring all the AI-related papers and just carrying on on his own. The thing that they are passionate about is not taken away by the field being more rapidly developed. What's being potentially taken away is the impact of their potential contribution.
Sharlin
2 days ago
> If what you say was true, many of them would be recluses up in the mountains, but none of them are.
Except, for instance, Wiles and Perelman? And I’m pretty sure that mathematicians are rather more introverted and solitary on average than most people.
In any case, that just doesn’t follow. Mathematicians realize that collaboration is important in math just as it is in most other fields. Humans are also social animals and many of us enjoy collaboration and social interaction for its own sake. And yes, that means social status is a thing that motivates many humans. But nobody decides to study math in order to gain status! Any status stuff is entirely contextual to and conditional on having already decided to study math.
ekr
2 days ago
I maintain that you present a picture that's incompatible with how the human nervous system works. And that all humans are driven by the same biological mechanisms, all evolved by pressures to survive and reproduce. Mathematical beauty alone is not part of said pressures.
Nevermark
2 days ago
Humans are multi-objective beings.
Humans are built to focus on some objectives and not others at any given time.
Humans naturally prioritize objectives differently. Drives have exclusionary impacts on each other. In both real time and lifetime frames.
Reinforcing experiences further differentiate objective prioritization.
This leads people's behavior to be driven by entirely different net objective directions.
--
This diversity would be inevitable due to genetic diversity. But it is also a survival advantage.
Lots of studies show that populations maintain stable diversity of genes for entirely different life strategies, because operating differently from the majority is an advantage.
--
We don't actually have a "status drive".
We have drives that tend to generate status seeking behavior but can be subsumed by many different status-like pursuits, such as self-status of solving problems or completing single-person video games, being good at a hobby nobody else cares about, pleasing certain people even to the point of harming any recognizable definition of social status, acting to please (raise status with) internally generated or deceased personalities, a need to be contrarian or difficult to the point of low-social status but high internal status, etc.
--
Your assumption that same basic nervous system -> same net drives/behaviors, fails in much simpler species.
--
So no, mathematicians are no more motivation clones than they are genetic clones.
And mathematics is not a field that is attractive to people who give social status high priority, because it impedes social status.
arcanemachiner
2 days ago
Why wouldn't you just say bullshit? You didn't even write it in a self-censored format (e.g. bulls**t), you just wrote the actual word with a some funny characters in place of the actual letters.
ekr
2 days ago
Some online platform automatically censor or bring about negative repercussions for a given set of banned words. I realize HN is probably not among them, but I still formed this involuntary habit. You have a point tho. It does look much better in what you call self-censored format.
globular-toast
3 days ago
That's a big part of it, but I don't think it paints the whole picture. We are also losing the bits of work that were actually enjoyable. The challenge, thinking and creativity gave us something we enjoyed. Now we're like border collies in a world with no more sheep and now even the ball comes back by itself.
1dom
2 days ago
I disagree that what you're describing isn't just another angle of "broken economic system".
The broken economic system is the lack of perceived individual choice, and the priority of business decisions and business profit over individual satisfaction or autonomy.
If we lived in an economic system where maximising individual enjoyment and autonomy was priority, we could give AI to individuals to do with what they want. No sensible human/border collie would choose to give away the fun sheep herding part of their job if there weren't other forces and incentives at work.
But instead, AI is sold to businesses to profit, rather than given to individuals to do the right thing for everyone.
globular-toast
2 days ago
> No sensible human/border collie would choose to give away the fun sheep herding part of their job if there weren't other forces and incentives at work.
It's not about giving it up, it's about it being taken away. You can't round the sheep up if they never leave the pen.
If something doesn't need doing then it's not work, it's a game. Many people enjoy decorating, but you wouldn't trash a room just to give yourself the excuse to decorate it. A few people might like programming just for the sake of it, but for most it was because we liked doing cool stuff that was hard. It's really important that it was hard.
If things aren't hard then it's just like doing the dishes: it's just time consuming and mildly unpleasant. There's no room for creativity or pride in doing the dishes. Nobody steps back, wipes the sweat from the brow and thinks, wow, that was hard, but I'm really proud of the result. Programming is becoming like doing the dishes.
Kennedy famously said we do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. We need the challenge. We need it to be hard. If all we're left with is boring work like the dishes, or games, then we'll be like border collies left at home with endless treats and a ball. They can and do get depressed and we will too.
srdjanr
2 days ago
I don't think a system maximizing enjoyment would be any better. Why would anyone choose to work with sewage? Or why would most developers choose to align with rest of the team or with user needs, when programming is most enjoyable?
1dom
2 days ago
> I don't think a system maximizing enjoyment would be any better.
That's why I mentioned autonomy too. People like working and being valuable and choosing to add value. The issue is the current economic system doesn't consider things valuable if they don't directly generate a lot of money or profit for a business. An individual developer gets a lot of value from having a job they enjoy where they produce useful code that solves problems. AI removes some of that value for the individual developer whilst promising more profit and value for the business.
> Why would anyone choose to work with sewage? Or why would most developers choose to align with rest of the team or with user needs, when programming is most enjoyable?
Why do people choose to work with sewage now? They're not paid a lot. Programming is most enjoyable when it's useful. Writing code which is going to get thrown out because it doesn't align with your team is not valuable or fun, so why you or any other individual developer choose to do that given the choice?
tourmalinetaco
2 days ago
As a hobbyist developer, I hate busywork. Boilerplate code is the bane of my existence, as is repetitive data entry. Forcing the demon at my command to do it for me so I can problem solve is far more enjoyable, and more efficient in terms of time. AI one-shotting problems is benefited by me thoroughly understanding and solving the problem with pseudocode in the initial prompt. I still do the intellectual work, but the LLM does the busywork.
Also, some things simply are not valuable within a system, regardless of the economic structures at play. Individual happiness is one of those things that has no value under any economic system, specifically because it is a moving target and follows Goodhart’s law.
raziel2701
2 days ago
Another one that comes to mind is Marge Simpson in the Hank Scorpio episode where all labor in the house was automated and she turns to drinking out of boredom.
oliwary
2 days ago
Or the Grey men in Momo (Michael Ende) who offer time savings through efficient appliances, while stealing the time made free through their use. Their main for is Momo, who encourages her fellow children to play for the sake of playing, which terrifies them.
It's a beautiful story, more and more relevant.
asanineassasin
2 days ago
Scorpio!
He'll sting you with his dreams of power and wealth.
Beware of Scorpio!
His twisted twin obsessions are his plot to rule the world
And his employees' health.
He'll welcome you into his lair
Like the nobleman welcomes his guest
With free dental care and a stock plan that helps you invest!
But beware of his generous pensions
Plus three weeks paid vacation each year
And on Fridays, the lunchroom serves hot dogs and burgers and beer!
He loves German beer!throw310822
2 days ago
I'm fine with it as long as machines find the cure for hangover.
drekipus
2 days ago
Is there any evidence that the thinking and creativity that we enjoyed has disappeared?
I'm firmly in the "programming is fun" camp, I enjoy thinking about the problems and solutions, but if I can get a LLM to deal with boilerplate then that's all the better for me.
NL807
2 days ago
I'm in the same camp, for the most part. But I also groan when someone checks in 60k+ LOC of vibecoded changes into production, without having any clue how it works. This happened to me recently. I was about start a fun module in the project, but then the other guy just pulled the rug from under me with claude and implemented the whole thing, then moved on. Not sure if I want to work under such conditions.
globular-toast
2 days ago
That's what I thought about 6 months ago: I'm a programmer, not a typist, so I'll just automate the typing part. There are a few problems with that:
1. AI agents aren't just typists. They'll fill in the blanks and implement something that works from extremely vague instructions and probably get it right too, because you and your users are predictable. You could be strict and throw out any changes that weren't explicitly what you asked for, but it becomes tiring and it will shape the way you think anyway. It becomes extremely tempting to increase the boundary of what you consider "boilerplate",
2. You probably have colleagues who don't like programming but please the managers because, of course, everything needs to get done right now, as soon as possible. Maybe one day we'll get organisations where enjoyment and understanding matters, but right now we've got tons of people who got in it for the money, just like to "build stuff" and don't care one iota about understanding (and they're oddly proud of this fact),
3. I'm starting to think the typing was a necessary limitation on output speed. I just don't think anyone can think as fast as LLMs can churn out code. You can easily get addicted to the speed and forgo understanding. Like point 1 this is insidious. If you're not really careful you just won't be able to keep up and before long you too will have a bunch of code you don't understand.
bigstrat2003
2 days ago
> I mean who doesnt want to work less and have AI make rapid discoveries in scientific field.
A whole lot of people. Anyone who got into mathematics for love of solving problems (which I'm betting is most of them, as it's not like the pay is awesome) will be unhappy if they have the joy of solving problems taken away from them. Your argument here is analogous to saying "who doesn't want to have more children in the world without having to have sex to do it?".
carlosjobim
2 days ago
It is not taken away from them and cannot be taken away from them. Just like you can solve any puzzle you like even if there is already a solution.
stouset
2 days ago
That’s not entirely true. There is joy in being someone who pushed the frontier of knowledge forward, even if only by a hair.
This is evidenced by the scant few people who get into math just so they can rediscover group theory or differential calculus on their own with no spoilers.
pantalaimon
2 days ago
But how many people get to do that? For most people, math consists of solving problems to which a solution already exists.
coldtea
2 days ago
Those people can use whatever.
The argument was about mathematicians, and "anyone who got into mathematics for love of solving problems".
coldtea
2 days ago
Difficult to do that when you're unemployed, because machines took over your field.
We're not talking about doing it as a hobby.
carlosjobim
2 days ago
You'll have to do something else for your income. That's how it is for most people who can't make an income from their hobby.
coldtea
2 days ago
OK, so it IS "taken away from them" as their job, which was the point.
Or did you think the argment was that they'll be forbidden by force to do math, and come to refute that?
carlosjobim
a day ago
Did you at all read the comment I was replying to?
user
2 days ago
kurtis_reed
2 days ago
So mathematicians are no different from any other labor group that fights automation for their own benefit at the cost of overall welfare. Most artists are unpaid hobbyists, mathematicians should expect the same.
Planktonne
2 days ago
That would make society worse, not better. More people being unhappy and unfulfilled and underpaid is not progress.
bebimbop
2 days ago
Oh Brave New World.
Now that all of the trite and boring intellectual work is automated, I can look forward to having it bottle-fed back to me at night. Now get me a gramme in time...
defrost
2 days ago
I'm glad I'm not an Alpha, thinking so much is hard. Up and down is so much fun - what floor sir?
~ unnamed Gamma BNW elevator technician.
kypro
2 days ago
This isn't really a political problem. Politics is downstream of what we humans want, and more specifically what humans with power want.
The reason most problems aren't fixed is because you and I rather take our family to Disney Land than feed starving kids. We're don't vote for a political system which taxes us significantly more to try to stop people starving around the world. The problems Tao is worried about already exist for a large part of humanity.
You have two problems here:
1. You're not going to change the human incentive to care far more about their own family and friends and resist the government taking their assets to help the needy they feel no responsibility for.
2. In a world where most people are economically useless people ultimately have no political power. If you're not funding the government or contributing to it's maintenance then government ultimately doesn't need to care about what you want. You could go on strike or tell them you're very unhappy, but so long as the trillion-dollar AI companies are funding them and AI is running the government it makes no difference to them what people think. In fact, from their perspective, all you're doing is consuming resources. AI will likely create a new kind of resource-curse where wealth concentration will cause political corruption.
williamdclt
2 days ago
> This isn't really a political problem
What you're saying in this comment sounds _very much_ like politics, at least modern politics. There's been a few studies that suggest that people's position on the political spectrum is very correlated to their capacity for empathy for others (and in particular, strangers). First example I found on google: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/ (note: I do not vouch for scientific rigorousness, I'm saying "some studies suggest that" not "it's proven that").
So:
> you and I rather take our family to Disney Land than feed starving kids
Speaking for myself, it's more true than false (although not that clear-cut). However:
> We don't vote for a political system which taxes us significantly more to try to stop people starving around the world
I sure do vote for that, as do a very significant portion of people. It's absolutely what I want, I am aware of my own biases (and other people's) to prioritise myself, and taxes are a good way to force this redistribution of wealth to happen despite these individual biases. That's kind of the whole point of the left, which is a very strong power in many countries (note: I'm not american and the "american left" is very different from other countries').
So "what humans want" is very much a political question: a very-much-reducted observation of the political spectrum is that it seems that right-leaning people want the best for themselves and their immediate social circle, whereas left-leaning people want the best for everyone.
kypro
2 days ago
There are lots of problems in today's world that are not resource problems (extreme poverty, for example).
You are obviously right in some sense that they are therefore political "problems", but politics is in the business of giving what people who have political power what they want.
Is extreme poverty in Mozambique a top 10 issue in any wealthy country? No, obviously not. Because politics barely registers this as a problem. If it did it could solve it, but like you I'm more concerned about the cost of eggs and being able to afford to take my family on holiday.
This is what I mean when I say it's not a political problem.
I of course would agree all of the negative social and economic impacts of AI could be solved with political solutions, but I also think most negative social and economic problems could be solved with communism.
Humans are kind and compassionate for those who share some sense of communion with, but struggle with even the most basic level of empathy for the people and animals for which they do not.
I don't trust people to implement communism and I don't trust trillionaire AI CEOs to redistribute their wealth. The people who put forward these ideas in my opinion are promoting a dangerous idea. At a minimum those advocating for these ideas should at least be implementing the empathy they require of their political preferences in their own lives. Most people pushing these ideas probably don't even acknowledge the existence of those begging them for cash in their own city streets, yet for some reason they think trillionaires will take sympathy on their own economically pointless existence.
DrScientist
2 days ago
On your second point, that rather assumes those 'unless' people will willing to just 'go away'.
That's typically not what happens - you either get bloody revolution or people just ignore the rules that aren't giving them a fair shot ( ie turn to crime - ie state disapproved activities ).
This is what has traditionally held back the elite from their worse excesses - they don't want to live in a world where either of those things happen.
ie what's the point of being rich if you are constantly worried about yourself or a member of your family is going to be violently kidnapped etc.
As to your first point - it's a bit like the first - if there is no social safety net, then it you could happen to you - you could get ill, lose your job etc. Even if you believe the system is created by total self-interest - then the past has shown that the equilibrium involves looking after everyone to some extent as:
1. It could be you one day.
2. Having lots of desperate people, even if it isn't you, is in no-ones self interest.
kypro
2 days ago
I agree historically, but your points break down when the threat of revolutions no longer have the physical or economic power they once did.
Good luck violently kidnapping the family members of a AI CEO in a world of flock cameras and humanoid robot patrol units.
And good luck withholding your labour when 80% of people can't even find paid employment.
Also, arguably if the unemployed masses are going to try to overthrow those provide them with at least the basics to survive and part take in a revolution, then those involved in the revolution shouldn't be surprised if what little they have is withdrawn. Strategically this sounds a lot of like punching your boss and demanding he pays you more or you'll punch him again. This isn't a reasonable negotiation tactic unless you hold some of the cards. The only reason threatening to quit a job can sometimes work is when it's a real threat of economic harm, absent that, it's just annoying and they'll probably be happy to see you off the payroll.
DrScientist
a day ago
There are too many people in the world currently that think that security is through absolute technical/military dominance, when the reality the thing you really need for security is other people or countries not wanting to harm you.
In fact the rise of things like cheap killer drones or robots makes that truth more real, not less.
> And good luck withholding your labour when 80% of people can't even find paid employment.
So those 80% are either being supported somehow to live a life at a level where they don't resort to violence or crime or they aren't. ie you keep them happy at some level or you fight. Note if you let them die/kill them, then you will likely lose the support of the 20% as they can see which way it's going.
regentbowerbird
2 days ago
You seem to believe getting taxed is a choice people make. However, on the one hand economists like Zucman and news stories like the Panama Papers have proven the ultra-wealthy and politicians ("economically useful people") pay way less tax than regular people. And on the other, basically most people disagree with at least some of the uses of taxation, such as a war spending in the US. In fact, sometimes people get taxed without getting any benefits at all in return, such as during government shutdowns.
I think this all calls into question your basic premise that "politics is downstream of what we humans want", ie that the state is an emanation of the collective will of the people, which it serves. The facts fit equally well, if not better, an interpretation in which the state is independent of society and seeks to extract resources from it. This is also consistent with the Weberian state conception in which the state starts as the "stationary bandit" that collects taxes from a village to protect it from other bandits.
Your conception of "economically useless people" is also incoherent. Economic science is about how to distribute rare resources to maximize utility. These people are no less able to work and no less able to benefit from utility and are therefore not "useless" from an economic standpoint. I think you would benefit from just using words like "rich & powerful" and "poor & weak" which if I understand correctly is what you actually mean.
1718627440
2 days ago
> I think this all calls into question your basic premise that "politics is downstream of what we humans want"
It only questions "the government is downstream of what we humans want". politics != government.
tuyiown
2 days ago
It's not about what we want, it's about what we believe. All you describe is enabled by beliefs systems, it's above rationalization. What you're describing is just learned helplessness.
crossroadsguy
2 days ago
Something tell me that at this point anyone saying stuff like war footing etc, against or for the AI (or anywhere in its immediate vicinity), are just doing it so that they can be one of the few who get benefited from it and are one of the few who also get to be in control and get to have power. Because they can see the writing on the wall and know that one either gets on this bus, or under it. A lot specialist creds/USPs are getting diluted every hour, every day.
lapinot
2 days ago
> Because they can see the writing on the wall and know that one either gets on this bus, or under it.
good ol' TINA is back in town...
conartist6
2 days ago
It might also mean they came for you.
There's a whole industry of people on LinkedIn, preaching that I don't exist, that I'm obselete or worthless or deluded.
You get mad fast at the torrent of lies and "come to jesus" thinking.
Then they help themselves to your software.
piokoch
2 days ago
It seems that all AI can do, it can just "replace the average". Write an average quality software, do good enough business analysis, prepare mediocre report, do a bearable, but not so great translation, give you some basic medical advice, which is accurate 80% of time (but what if you are not lucky to have typical conditions?). It can also solve average difficulty level problems in math or physics.
That what it cannot do is to invent new drugs, cannot figure out cheap energy sources, find something better than Standard Model in physics, and anything that would contribute to overall human progress.
The result is that it can replace a lot of jobs, it will efficiently killed any research done and the level of master/PhDs, because majority of those can be done now with the help of AI (we already see this, the burst in new scientific articles - nothing groundbreaking, but publishable).
As a results we will have soon a gap, as only very determined people would go into science, analytical jobs, etc.
In one way, this is OK, we had too much science research that was done only for the sake of producing more "papers", we also had a lot of people in the companies doing "bullshit jobs".
But on the other hand, we might face soon situation in which there will be almost no people in Academia, so who will teach people, in addition, science worked often by doing wrong, unreasonable, crazy things, testing vague ideas and come up with something new and great. This required a lot of people doing science without any good results coming out, a lot of seemingly wasted effort just to hit several great ideas (a bit like Venture Capitals work).
This might also lead to decreasing number of white collar jobs. We can have a new "rust belt", the one for blue collar fall happened because of jobs offshoring, now we are "offshoring" white collar jobs to a few companies who offer AI models.
This all will affect badly society without any huge, visible benefits for it as a whole.
Maro
2 days ago
> It seems that all AI can do, it can just "replace the average".
That has not been my experience.
alansaber
2 days ago
Because it's an oversimplification. AI proficiency is very spiky around tasks with well-defined reward patterns.
alecst
2 days ago
Solving Navier-Stokes and quasi-RH is “average” now?
0c3ca83
2 days ago
I don't. Start with automating the jobs people hate, assholes.
Right now you're doing the equivalent of telling athletes that you've solved sports, and they need to sit back and stop playing so that we can enjoy progress in goal scoring.
hardbass
2 days ago
We take discoveries in science and tech as they come, not as we would wish the universe and history offered us as.
0c3ca83
2 days ago
Yes, we have to cope with the torrent of shit that's being pushed at us by misanthropic douchebags. It would be nice if they weren't degrading quality of life, but we just have to cope.
Thanks.
hardbass
2 days ago
Nobody is misanthropic. Technology comes as it naturally does, new discoveries are more of a natural process than something any person can control. It just so happened that we got the automobile, it doesn't matter who was prepared for it or not, just the same with AI.
0c3ca83
2 days ago
Nobody likes punching you in the face, says person punching you in the face. Face punching comes naturally as I propel my fist at you. It just so happened that your nose got broken the last time, and now you're going to get a black eye.
It's just a law of nature man. Don't take it so personally.
hardbass
2 days ago
No, you are being stupid. Did you oppose the research into AI 10 or 20 years ago? Then why are you whining all of a sudden. If you didn't then you have no rights to complain, AI is just another technology that happened to have the right time and right place 5 years ago to advance.
user
2 days ago
watwut
2 days ago
Progress in tech never implied working less.
coldtea
2 days ago
It has always implied working less.
And not just implied: it has been a repeatedly openly made promise, from the start of the industrial age to today, repeated again and again, by scientists, journalists, technologists, futorologists, businessmen, even by sci-fi authors.
gmueckl
2 days ago
That mostly changes what people worked on rather than the total amount of time spent working.
coldtea
2 days ago
In effect yes.
But the promise of less work, and more free time, has been there from the beggining.
In the early/mid 20th century they even had big discussions and books about what people would do with all the "leisure" time that was coming.
watwut
2 days ago
By implied I meant "caused". I did not meant "made people speculate that it might do something theoretically". Also, what sci-fi authors and futurologists write is utterly irrelevant here. We should distinguish fantasy and reality.
Practically, technological progress does not implies working less, it implies higher productivity. Which implies more wealth for "someone". Who that someone is depends on political system.
coldtea
2 days ago
>By implied I meant "caused". I did not meant "made people speculate that it might do something theoretically"
That's on you. Implied doesn't mean "caused".
>Also, what sci-fi authors and futurologists write is utterly irrelevant here. We should distinguish fantasy and reality
A useless distinction, since what sci-fi authors were saying was taken to be a foretelling of things to come, adopted as such by many voices in the wider cultural space.
And of course futurologists were people who made (or attempted to make) informed predictions and even policy suggestions of things to come, not mere "fantasy" peddlers.
>Practically, technological progress does not implies working less, it implies higher productivity
That's your concept of it. Hasn't been historically the concept people (from technologists and journalists to politicians and sociologists) had of it. And even if it matches how things went, it's hardly the only way things could have gone (or should go).
jraph
2 days ago
>> By implied I meant "caused". I did not meant "made people speculate that it might do something theoretically"
> That's on you. Implied doesn't mean "caused".
It can mean both, actually (and usually someone insinuates something, not something, so I didn't find that this meaning of imply was a fit here).
stevefan1999
2 days ago
So you mean a combine harvester should make you work more, not less?
myaccountonhn
3 days ago
I think there should be a political movement that retries socialism with AI. Basically nationalize everything and then automate everything. I think people could get behind that. Basically fully automated luxury communism.
tarsinge
2 days ago
Progress in AI definitely makes the question of economic planification at a state level relevant again, at least for parts of the economy, be it for the disruption it causes to market economy (that was already showing lot of cracks btw) or the capabilities it gives to handle beyond human level complex systems.
pantalaimon
2 days ago
But what about things where we still need humans, like food production, healthcare or construction and plumbing?
coldtea
2 days ago
What about them?
What part of it wouldn't work?
alansaber
2 days ago
I can see AI-automated logistics and production being popular. And AI-automated everything else being deeply unpopular.
amoss
2 days ago
what kind of a Culture would that lead to?
vixen99
2 days ago
On what basis do you think that's a good idea? This is a genuine question not a snide comment. I'm interested in your conception as to why it works for you. You're unlikely to respond here but maybe you or someone else will add a helpful link. I will admit that the idea does not 'compute' for me taking into account the nature of human beings - but I'm open to argument.
Schlagbohrer
2 days ago
"Taking into account the nature of human beings" you mean humans' innate desire to help others, to share, to make friends, to spend time working together on shared projects / pursuing shared goals?
Or did you mean "human nature" (I'm using huge air quotes there) as you have experienced it in late 20th century / early 21st century United States?
coldtea
2 days ago
>* the idea does not 'compute' for me taking into account the nature of human beings - but I'm open to argument.*
The current arrangement does not compute (or work), and gets us straight to doom, "taking into account the nature of human beings".
myaccountonhn
2 days ago
In the past I've been partial to a society based around self-actualization, like a liberal capitalistic society. However, with the way LLMs are progressing then I think society will turn increasingly technocratic and feudal, with no opportunities for social mobility. I don't really believe that LLMs will create new jobs or opportunities in the long run.
Historically socialism and central planning have been inefficient. With recent technological advancements it may be that the purported inefficiencies are no longer there, and I think a democratic, socialist government will be better at having the interest of the people than private for-profit monopolies. A society where everything is automated and you don't have to work could be pretty nice to live in.
timeninja
3 days ago
Chile in the 1970s, anyone?
w4der
2 days ago
That was a scam or at least overblown in scope, the "control room" you see in pictures was basically a movie prop, and their idea was basically to connect that room to every factory/port/mine with teletypes, it's similar in spirit to what a modern stock should do.
coldtea
2 days ago
Maybe if they haven't been bombed to death very soon afterwards, control room and everything, for trying to make things better for their population and kicking out foreign neocolonialists, would have gotten an update.
porsager
3 days ago
I think there should be a political movement that retries capitalism with AI. Basically liberate everything and then automate everything. I think people could get behind that.
idiotsecant
2 days ago
A system where the humans value is tied to their ability to outproduce a massively more capable machine intelligence? How does that work, exactly?
ludston
2 days ago
Good ole mass-starvation for the majority that can't find work that appeases the ownership class? It's a unique value-system I suppose.
marcusverus
2 days ago
Hilarious inversion of reality. Top marks.
ludston
2 days ago
I'm sure that hunger has been a bigger problem in Africa and India than it has been in any socialist state in our lifetimes.
marcusverus
a day ago
Africa's dysfunction isn't due to capitalism nor would be improved by the alternatives, as evidenced by the total collapse of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe when it was taken over by collectivists. Similarly, the proportion of Indians living in extreme poverty in India has been reduced by ~90% since it shifted to a market economy around '91.
ivewonyoung
2 days ago
Huh, India was socialist.
pantalaimon
2 days ago
Mass starvation was more of a communism thing, not accounting for wars.
triceratops
2 days ago
Capitalism is already a planet-scale neural network optimizing a loss function: profit. The nodes in the network just happen to be humans.
Capitalism with AI would be exactly the same thing, but zero compassion (unless the AI has been trained for it).
kombookcha
2 days ago
In the book Red Plenty, on the Soviet economy of the mid 20th century, there's a section on an abortive attempt at optimizing the command economy using early computers and algorithms to have more effective production and distribution.
The attempt never materializes because some kindly clerk deliberately buries the letter from the enthusiastic engineer, who clearly does not understand that writing Stalin to tell him you figured out a way to build communism better than him, would be suicidal.
It's a fun counterfactual to think about, given that the vast bureaucracy needed for the command economy was one of its major limiting factors. Anyway, interesting book if you are into economic policy or quirky ways that systems can go haywire.
altmanaltman
2 days ago
You think people can get behind that? Like if Trump's US suddenly decided everything is state property and Elon Musk will be helping people automate everything, people will be like yeah that sounds good.
myaccountonhn
2 days ago
Nah not with Trump and Musk. It would have to be presented by a leftist, and maybe in a country outside the US.
Dig1t
2 days ago
>nationalize everything
The government does not have an incentive to run anything efficiently as they cannot go bankrupt. Imagine if AI was run like the DMV.
Putting monopoly control of it in the hands of government also makes it extremely likely that whoever is in power will use it to manipulate public opinion + elections as well as encoding their political values into it.
What do you think a Trump-controlled AI would say if I asked about the war in Iran? We’ve already seen examples of companies encoding their beliefs into the system (see Gemini saying nuclear war is preferable to misgendering Caitlyn Jenner), imagine how much worse it would be if politicians were given control instead.
myaccountonhn
2 days ago
There will always be challenges, as is the case with any system. But I guess I don't really think LLMs will create a bunch of new jobs, so either we look into the future with gloom and doom as we who don't have wealth become part of a permanent underclass as opportunities continue to disappear, or we envision a utopia and work to realize it.
eli_gottlieb
2 days ago
> Imagine if AI was run like the DMV.
I went to the DMV in Oakland and it was the most efficient DMV I'd ever been to.
Dig1t
2 days ago
Does the DMV have a reputation for being fast, efficient, or an enjoyable experience?
Personally I remember waiting for hours in a line wrapped around the building for the chance to take my drivers license test.
Another example: have you ever tried to interact with the IRS? The most nightmarish bureaucratic system I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with. And guess what my recourse is for them treating me like garbage? Nothing. A company, if they treat me poorly, I can take my business elsewhere. The IRS? The DMV? Not so much.
Larrikin
2 days ago
Your view of the DMV is outdated. There's been work put in around the country to modernize the system. I remember the hour long wait, but online reservations have made my last few visits in recent years take about 15-20 minutes
mturmon
2 days ago
> A company, if they treat me poorly, I can take my business elsewhere.
Like Chevron, or Verizon, or Microsoft.
Dig1t
2 days ago
All of those companies are perfect examples of what I’m talking about.
Chevron: Exxon, ConocoPhillips, BP. From a customer perspective there are tons of competitors which make your life better ranging from QT, AMPM, to Buc-ees (a favorite which people literally LOVE to visit).
Verizon: Starlink, TMobile, ATT, Comcast, etc
Microsoft: Apple, Google, Cloudflare, Amazon (differentiates itself literally on quality of customer service)
The IRS or DMV? No competitor. Unhappy with their service? Go fuck yourself.
spoctrial
2 days ago
This is a very bad example.
The IRS is treating you bureaucratically and poorly because of lobbying from companies and politicians being bribed by said lobbyists.
My point being that you are beholden to a poorly functioning IRS because of capitalism; where companies have lobbied so hard against tax reform and simple filing that it more or less forces you to use their software.
Dig1t
2 days ago
I call the IRS and wait 4 hours on hold waiting to talk to a person. I get disconnected randomly and have to call back the next day only to have to wait another 4 hours. Finally I get in touch with someone and they are extremely rude, unhelpful, and treat me like garbage.
How is this somehow the fault of “capitalism”? Regardless of how the system is structured, the government has a near-infinite budget, they could theoretically staff the agency with enough people to answer my call in a timely manner. They could also train their staff to treat me with human dignity. They don’t do this, and the reason is that they have no incentive to do so. If I am upset by being treated poorly what recourse do I have? Nothing. In fact if I ignore their system long enough, armed goons will show up with guns and arrest me.
There are many examples of government agencies that have this reputation, not only in the USA but the entire world.
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome” -Charlie Munger
tapoxi
2 days ago
IRS has been starved of resources following the "starve the beast" playbook.
Also the only reason we have to pay for Turbotax (etc) is due to lobbying. We had IRS Direct File for two years and it was great before being gutted by the current administration.
eli_gottlieb
2 days ago
> Does the DMV have a reputation for being fast, efficient, or an enjoyable experience?
I dunno what reputation it has in your area, but my actual experience with it was indeed fast, efficient, and enjoyable.
d0nkee
2 days ago
Prior to Republicans demanding the Post Office fund retirements in advance and various other hamstringing to other services US government was ridiculously efficient
They had to pass legislation to intentionally fuck the books to make them inefficient to fit their preferred narrative because government could be held accountable for inefficiency in ways private corps cannot.
vasco
2 days ago
There's no such thing. It'd be dictatorial as every other communist state ever was, and that's hoping the people in power wouldn't also subscribe to the communist ideas of killing a bunch of people to enable the revolution and to do it fast. Or read Terrorism and Communism (1920) and get scared - though most people end up thinking these mad men were nice grandpas.
rwmj
2 days ago
Luckily our current authoritarian fascists are not showing any signs of preferring dictatorship over democracy.
10111001
2 days ago
> There's no such thing. It'd be dictatorial as every other communist state ever was, and that's hoping the people in power wouldn't also subscribe to the communist ideas of killing a bunch of people to enable the revolution and to do it fast. Or read Terrorism and Communism (1920) and get scared - though most people end up thinking these mad men were nice grandpas.
Oh come on.
Here's another thing to get scared about: AI and other kinds of advanced automation has the potential to completely undermine the attributes that made capitalism work for the vast majority of people. Rehashing dated mid-century anti-Communist propaganda tropes isn't going to address that. You're gonna need some fresh ideas.
Also people who want to seriously recreate the Soviet Union don't practically exist (outside of some irrelevant weirdos), except in the minds of some really indoctrinated libertarians.
marcusverus
2 days ago
Socialism failed so hard that the overwhelming majority of socialist countries recognized that socialism is inferior to capitalism, bailed, and adopted capitalism. Now that capitalism has brought about AI, socialists unironically suggest reverting to the inferior system, in hopes that it will have (magically) been rendered superior... by a product of capitalism.
This is the self-defeating contradiction at the heart of progressivism: it is a cult of good intentions. It doesn't matter if the promise of socialism has already been proved, on a global scale, to be illusory. It's the intentions that matter, and in their minds no amount of failure will ever tarnish good intentions.
I'm convinced that susceptibility to such pre-enlightenment "thinking" is a Great Filter.
imtringued
2 days ago
Communism will work the moment communists understand options markets, specifically call options, which is to say that communism is impossible.
Curiously, capitalism will work the moment capitalists understand options markets, but in their case they need to also understand put options, which is to say that capitalism is impossible.
asanineassasin
2 days ago
Socialism CAN not work due to human nature. The sociopaths hijack the centralized assets while exterminating via reallocation all opposition.
And the micromanaging from a distance produces catastrophic results.
bebimbop
2 days ago
It's good that all of these benevolent billionaires are bestowing the world with the fruits of their goodness, and make sure that assets, knowledge and access to the market are fairly distributed. Their political involvement is to the benefit of all of mankind, and does thankfully not lead to the centralization of assets or power in one small group.
hersko
2 days ago
Michael Dell has been given thousands of children checking accounts. Musk just announced he will be giving children SpaceX shares etc....
Becoming a billionaire does not magically make you evil believe it or not.
asanineassasin
2 days ago
Well, so if its all the same- why not just say yes to cooperate-socialism? You just accept that the party (company) owns all the things and redistribute them as they see fit (for the benefit of all) - so wether the bossmann is called stalin or bezos- what difference does it make. Congrats, you got socialism speedrun- you are already at the disilusioned stage where you see the endresult. And thats still a efficient version, because the varous corporate-socialist empires have still to compete against one another. Now get in line critizen.
easyThrowaway
2 days ago
> The sociopaths hijack the centralized assets while exterminating via reallocation all opposition. And the micromanaging from a distance produces catastrophic results.
Am I missing the sarcasm here? The difference from the current system would be...?
myaccountonhn
2 days ago
> And the micromanaging from a distance produces catastrophic results.
I think this has historically been true, but it is worth revisiting now with AI and general tech advancement. Might be more feasible now.
> Socialism CAN not work due to human nature. The sociopaths hijack the centralized assets while exterminating via reallocation all opposition.
You could also argue that capitalism CAN not work due to human nature. Just look at the state of climate change.
pantalaimon
2 days ago
What makes you think socialism would handle climate change differently?
The socialism that did exist didn't take environmental preservation seriously and rather tried to silence reports about the damage.
kruxigt
2 days ago
[dead]
otabdeveloper4
3 days ago
AI isn't making math discoveries. It's generating a metric shitload of syllogism slop, whuch may or may not correspond to reality. We will probably never know, because really who has time for this bullshit?
tommek4077
2 days ago
Strange. In the article Tao mentions several mathematicians who had their problem solved by AI before they could finish their year long work.
Where they working on "slop"?
otabdeveloper4
2 days ago
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