An interesting short book on similar themes is Bostrom’s “Deep Utopia”. It’s quirky and discursive but seriously addresses the question of what will give life meaning when literally everything a human can do can be done even better by a machine. And that “literally” is literal: playing chess, playing baseball, raising healthy and well-adjusted children, overseeing a multinational corporation, doing fundamental scientific research. His answer is (just barely) that life will *still* have sources of meaning, but they will likely be quite different from those we have today.
A beautiful essay with many beautiful sentences (especially "societies work ...")!
There are already warnings about more quotidian reasons to ban this sort of cocaine-enthused optimism by our oligarch caste. Remember how trucking school was going to be outmoded by automated vehicles? And then that didn't happen, but it turned out that talking like it would happen discouraged future truckers. Or talk to metal shop owners who want to hire welders. There is already a knowledge crisis in the trades, where shops all over the country depend on one or two old guys who know how to fix that shop's frankensteined machines. They're retiring, and they may come out of retirement as consultants, but they're not training replacements. It probably would've solved several current problems and more future ones if we taught writing computer code to high schoolers regardless of its practicality as a career, to keep certain skills alive for the sake of keeping them alive. Young kids today who are used to the "closed box" are not getting from their tablet time the same facility Gen X got from old-fashioned desktop microcomputers. But I'm sure China will be nice to us so it'll all work out.
$1500/hour sounds like the billable rate for lawyers. They have long abused this by using clerks and billing like partners. Now with AI it is likely to be even more abusive. A lawyer dies and shows up at the Pearly Gates where he is met by a big crowd and a brass band. He is puzzled and asked why. St. Peter answers that he is the oldest person to ever appear here. Lawyer says he is 50 years old and keeled over at his desk. St. Peter looks at his accountant and raises an eyebrow. Accountant answers that they just added up all his billed hours.
I like to think about automation on the other side of the coin. If automation takes all the jobs, thus workers incomes, who has money to buy the stuff automation produces or does? I take solace in the fact that at the time of our nations founding, and for millennia before that, most people were self-sustaining farmers.
That wasn't practical in say the 70s, when automation was taking off but plenty of the old economy was still around. What I fear is, the oligarchs are putting together the means to answer that by simply not needing consumer demand any more. Luxurious shelters, AI, servant robots, enough power generation for the coming few, and then a bioengineered plague relieves them of the burden of the "useless eaters," and at that point the only global problem is that those people don't like each other.
Perish the thought.
An interesting short book on similar themes is Bostrom’s “Deep Utopia”. It’s quirky and discursive but seriously addresses the question of what will give life meaning when literally everything a human can do can be done even better by a machine. And that “literally” is literal: playing chess, playing baseball, raising healthy and well-adjusted children, overseeing a multinational corporation, doing fundamental scientific research. His answer is (just barely) that life will *still* have sources of meaning, but they will likely be quite different from those we have today.
Outstanding, Chris. Love this.
A beautiful essay with many beautiful sentences (especially "societies work ...")!
There are already warnings about more quotidian reasons to ban this sort of cocaine-enthused optimism by our oligarch caste. Remember how trucking school was going to be outmoded by automated vehicles? And then that didn't happen, but it turned out that talking like it would happen discouraged future truckers. Or talk to metal shop owners who want to hire welders. There is already a knowledge crisis in the trades, where shops all over the country depend on one or two old guys who know how to fix that shop's frankensteined machines. They're retiring, and they may come out of retirement as consultants, but they're not training replacements. It probably would've solved several current problems and more future ones if we taught writing computer code to high schoolers regardless of its practicality as a career, to keep certain skills alive for the sake of keeping them alive. Young kids today who are used to the "closed box" are not getting from their tablet time the same facility Gen X got from old-fashioned desktop microcomputers. But I'm sure China will be nice to us so it'll all work out.
$1500/hour sounds like the billable rate for lawyers. They have long abused this by using clerks and billing like partners. Now with AI it is likely to be even more abusive. A lawyer dies and shows up at the Pearly Gates where he is met by a big crowd and a brass band. He is puzzled and asked why. St. Peter answers that he is the oldest person to ever appear here. Lawyer says he is 50 years old and keeled over at his desk. St. Peter looks at his accountant and raises an eyebrow. Accountant answers that they just added up all his billed hours.
Excellent piece. Work is uplifting.
I like to think about automation on the other side of the coin. If automation takes all the jobs, thus workers incomes, who has money to buy the stuff automation produces or does? I take solace in the fact that at the time of our nations founding, and for millennia before that, most people were self-sustaining farmers.
That wasn't practical in say the 70s, when automation was taking off but plenty of the old economy was still around. What I fear is, the oligarchs are putting together the means to answer that by simply not needing consumer demand any more. Luxurious shelters, AI, servant robots, enough power generation for the coming few, and then a bioengineered plague relieves them of the burden of the "useless eaters," and at that point the only global problem is that those people don't like each other.
Meh. Thats a pretty fantastical scenario based more on lifestyle thinking.