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Comment by altonzheng | Hacker News Reader

> How many will care if artificial intelligence destroys life if it has already destroyed meaning?

This line sounds deep, but I think it incorrectly conflates work with life having meaning. If eventually there isn't a need for large swaths of the population to work, then so what? I don't think the elite aristocrats in previous centuries had any problem with not working. Humanity can adapt to find other sources of meaning, like the pursuit of art in its various forms (although I'm assuming that computers can't replace art). I think a better question is if society can adapt quick enough to fill the void left by the absence of work.

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It's interesting that your counterexample - doing art - is indeed a form of work. Because it is. Doing good art is painfully hard work, in fact.

There's nothing in principle that stops a machine from creating art. Even, better art than any person could do. So once that happens, where are we left?

Meaning isn't something physical in the universe. Meaning is an emotion. It's what you feel when you're working towards something that you believe has some greater importance. With all opportunity to work towards anything taken away, life will become meaningless by definition, unless humans are left with some pseudo-artificial challenges to push against.

Zookeepers put the animals' food inside a metal box with a small hole, so the animals have to do work to get it out. It's good for the animals to have something to work towards, and they're too dumb to realize they're being manipulated. Maybe that's our future. With WoW and Clash of Clans, etc, sometimes it feels like we're already halfway there.

Art has meaning which is why humans find it interesting. Are you therefore saying that machines can create meaning that is interesting to humans?

It's absolutely possible for machines to point out things no human had thought about before.

Is that all meaning is to you? Especially the kind of meaning embodied by art?

Reductive definitions don't seem to contribute much to these kinds of discussion.

I've heard people speak about how they find meaning in nature. If a random process can manage, why not a computer?

You are calling people a random process?

Nature is the random process.

Ok, but the commenter said that people are making the meaning.

Natural selection isn't random. Fitness is selected for. Find meaning is probably a fitness ability for humans.

> Natural selection isn't random.

Yes, it is; specifically it's a biased filter over a lower-level set of random change processes (which has its own biases) produces a biased-but-random (non-deterministic) changes over time.

It totally is a random process. It's just not drawing from an uniform distribution. In fact, the process strongly influences the distribution it's drawing from.

Mountains aren't formed by natural selection.

This man found a lot of meaning in mountains, rivers, skies and trees [0] and passed it to others. At least the first 3 of those are not made by natural selection.

[0] http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/2014/09/2...

That's a painfully stupid question. Machines have already created lots of meaning that's interesting to me, including stuff that couldn't be done without them and unexpected behavior due to some patterns we hadn't previously recognised. There are really too many examples to even get into it.

Your reply would be much better without the first sentence. There is no need to demean or engage in such speech.

If there are too many examples to get into, please share a few.

The meaning only exists because humans attribute meaning to the input, output and code that creates the output.

>Even, better art than any person could do.

The quality of art depends not only on the end result but also on the process. Robot art won't be better unless we like robot artist more than human artists.

Who says life has any intrinsic meaning by definition now or ever?

It certainly wins on tiebreaks

It's the derived meaning that matters, and the question is whether humans will be able to derive meaning in the absence of work.

There's nothing in principle that stops a machine from creating art. Even, better art than any person could do. So once that happens, where are we left?

We don't have to wonder -- it has already happened: http://the-best-art.computer

You read your own link? There is not much art there which the computer is doing.

I think this is a funny project.. but the description is totally exaggerated:

> The computer queries the universe and uses an algorithm to objectively calculate the best art for any given moment in time. The human executes the commands.

How is this objectively at all? The artist creates an algo and picks some stuff to query. All the artist does is adding another (subjectively formed) layer to the process.

> The computer's creative process is computational, and therefore unbiased.

:-/

> How do you know it actually produces the "best" art? Good art pulls meaning from the chaos of the universe, and also reflects the artist's unique point of view. The computer rigorously combines these two factors in its programming, optimizing them to produce the best art.

I find this very arrogant to say...

> There's nothing in principle that stops a machine from creating art. Even, better art than any person could do.

I don't think this project would be an example.

I think it was a joke...

Can a computer give us first-person insight on the human condition? That would be one working definition of "art."

By definition, it can't be first person. But if you can't tell the difference does it matter?

And since some things are easier understood from the outside, perhaps an intelligent second-person view on the human condition could be useful?

> Meaning isn't something physical in the universe. Meaning is an emotion. It's what you feel when you're working towards something that you believe has some greater importance. With all opportunity to work towards anything taken away, life will become meaningless by definition, unless humans are left with some pseudo-artificial challenges to push against.

Although some minority of people derive "meaning" from work per se (work = something that you get paid to do), I would say that the vast majority of people can derive meaning from other things. For the vast majority, work is for getting money.

Therefore, there are still lots of things that you can use to derive meaning, such as: raising a family, caring of others, playing music, study different subjects for fun (philosophy, etc.), be part of your local community, do sports, do competition sports (if that fits your style), etc. etc. etc. etc.

Bottom line: do not mix work with quest for meaning...

> Although some minority of people derive "meaning" from work per se (work = something that you get paid to do), I would say that the vast majority of people can derive meaning from other things. For the vast majority, work is for getting money.

I think it may be possible that you could be conflating two subtly different things here. Where people currently derive meaning in their lives might not be quite the same as where people have the potential to derive meaning in their lives.

I know a number of people who are, for instance, psychologists, teachers, or social workers. They have chosen to derive meaning in their lives through work. Some of them have also gone on to raise families and care for others, turning sources of potential meaning into sources of active meaning. Thus people can incorporate both current and potential sources of meaning into their lives. Some people opt to dedicate their lives entirely to their current sources of meaning!

Yet, it's perhaps less than maximally wise to conflate someone seeking meaning through their work today with their future in which they might seek meaning through raising children. Meaning does not always operate with expected values.

When I wrote "work" I didn't mean in the limited sense of "employment".

Every example you gave is a form of work in the general sense of effortful goal-directed activity.

Meaning isn't an emotion. Meaning is a story. A story we tell ourselves, over and over again, until we forget it is a lie.

Only in the fairly reductionist view that every human thought is a "lie" [1]. There is some meaning in this idea, but it clearly bulldozes over lots of useful distinctions that can be made when considering all human thought.

[1] This brings to mind the famous quote: "The map is not the territory"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation#.22Th...

I already encounter this in my daily life. There are people in the world who can do anything and everything I can do better. When I think of something interesting, I google it and usually find out that not only has someone already done it, they've done it better than I was thinking of doing it.

But then I go and try anyway. I'm not even really sure why, but I like doing it.

It's the drive for personal growth, known as "self-actualization". It's an interesting topic to think about, assuming an AI order of magnitudes more evolved than a human brain, what would its drives and motivations look like.

I think something that gives life meaning is to discover and live up to one's potential, even with the full knowledge that our potential is almost certainly less than someone else's.

I will probably never write code as well as John Carmack or compose music as well as John Williams, but that doesn't stop me from trying. And it is fulfilling.

I think you're misrepresenting the situation.

There's a difference between working to survive and working because it's enjoyable.

For example, I can work on my mountain bike skills, or I can sit in an office and work on code. One I do because I enjoy it, and one I do to pay my bills.

Computers, automation, and AI will take over the second type, but they won't take over the first type.

I'd actually go so far as to say your definition of work, meaning, and purpose is insulting and harmful to a large number of people. Does anybody really derive meaning and purpose by cleaning toilets, bringing people food, or stocking shelves? Should they? I don't think so.

I feel like many people are missing a crucial distinction. Work != a job. The goal is to kill off the need for the latter.

As long as humans are humans, we'll always want to do something. We'll set ourselves personally meaningful goals and strive to achieve them. That is still work. But that's totally different than organizing your life around involuntarily spending most of it doing things you don't care about so that you can put bread on the table, and so that you have that table in the first place.

It's not really work. Work is something you cannot avoid and don't desire. People happy to do a thing, don't describe it as work, just what they enjoy doing. The kind of things that wakes you up happy. Unlike 'working' dread imposed by the chaos reincarnation on social structures.

Didn't elite aristocrats in previous centuries spend a lot of time sleeping with each others spouses and playing arbitrary power games? Looking to them as a source of what a post work world could look like isn't particularly inspiring.

I mean, there are plenty of very happy people sleeping with eachother's spouses right now. Debauchery can be fun in it's own right.

> I don't think the elite aristocrats in previous centuries had any problem with not working.

Exactly. And they were not doing any kind of "art" either, for the most part. They went hunting. Sometimes they made war to one another (usually, only in spring and early summer, because the rest of the year, war was too inconvenient). They had intrigues (who slept with whom).

I fail to see how work as it is currently understood, ie a 9-5 job, has any connection to any kind of "meaning". Life is already meaningless; but it's unpleasant. If we can make it more pleasant by having machines do the work, how is this bad?

Work is only meaningful for me because I get to create things that other people use and talk to me about. That's why I became an engineer - I was doing recruitment before, it was awful because I knew I wasn't adding value, just filling a gap. There was no creation or real feedback, just numbers and phone calls. The only fun part of that was the networking and learning from my engineering candidates.

I recommend trying out the Culture series. Imagine a universe where humans are definitely useless because hundred kilometer long spaceships are controlled by unimaginably intelligent AI "Minds." The humans find meaning by playing games, exploring the universe, but most consistently, being academics. They get on the ground and investigate other cultures and do that human thing - provide unique interpretations. The Minds don't lack personality - they can form their own opinions and interpretations - but humans get meaning simply by immersing themselves in the research and work itself.

I'm getting offtrack here, but funnily enough I often become frustrated because these books focus so much on the humans, when something very much outside their reach is occurring and is more interesting to me. For example, in one book, an object enters the universe seemingly out of nowhere, and is utterly inexplicable by the Minds. But Ian m Banks for some reason spends time telling a human love story in the midst of this - why should I care! Tell me more about what the Minds are doing about a thing they can't explain, a first in the history of the universe for them!

TLDR my rambling post - humans will find meaning, whether or not that meaning is also the means by which they are able to eat (salary work).

> For example, in one book, an object enters the universe seemingly out of nowhere, and is utterly inexplicable by the Minds. But Ian m Banks for some reason spends time telling a human love story in the midst of this - why should I care! Tell me more about what the Minds are doing about a thing they can't explain, a first in the history of the universe for them!

Tangential to the topic of the article, but I share your feelings here. I hate it when sci-fi authors focus too much on people. As I like to say, if I wanted to read about complexities of interpersonal relationships, I'd pick a romance novel.

> I think a better question is if society can adapt quick enough to fill the void left by the absence of work.

i think that question has been answered to some degree by research (cant pinpoint off top of my head) which seems to indicate that generally humans fill that void by watching more TV and sleeping. i think its idealistic to think that people will suddenly become creative and culturally inclined.

> generally humans fill that void by watching more TV and sleeping

The good news is they're only wasting their life for themselves. Those of us that enjoy other pursuits are still free to enjoy them, regardless of how many people are watching TV and sleeping.

We've reached the point where more people are arguing that access to X is a fundamental human right, where X is something that requires resources and labor to provide.

As the breadth of what is socially argued to be a human right increases, you'll find that those working to provide the labor and capital will be increasingly deprived of the fruits of their labor to provide for those who are sitting around watching TV.

There are many leisure activities I would like to partake in and would be able to partake in if so much of my income didn't go to taxes. I'm not saying all taxes are bad, but the scope of what taxes are increased to support only increases under a democracy. A democracy will always result in the election of those individuals that promise to give benefits for free, when thevtruth is that the benefits will increasingly come from those in the minority.

I currently still think a democracy or republic are the best form of government compared to others that have been tried because it prevents abuses by a few against many, but it fails to prevent abuses of the many against a few. I'm not sure how we can achieve a governmental form that generay prevents abuses in both directions.

In this automated world, that traditional viewpoint is rapidly becoming incorrect. That is, it doesn't require any person's resources or labor to provide much of what we consume. Its automated pretty much bottom to top.

As for the money, in transforming an agrarian barter economy to a modern one the USA had good use for a cash system for 200 years. But what about when the only obstacle to gaining essentially free goods is, a capitalist holding them hostage? Its all starting to break down.

Anyway, even a cursory examination of the foundations of the UBI initiative show that it pretty much pays for itself. The knee-jerk "I don't want to pay for other people to sit around" complaint is uninformed and obsolete.

   But what about when the only obstacle to gaining essentially free goods is, a capitalist holding them hostage?

Are you serious? Capitalist holding them hostage?

A capitalist can only charge what the market will bear. If they charge too much, no one buys what they have and they lose their return on investment and they are forced to lower their prices until those in the market can afford to buy what they are selling. If the capitalist invested too much and can't get the price they originally wanted, they will at least try to minimize their losses.

If you believe a "capitalist can hold goods hostage", the only conclusion I can come to is that you don't actually understand capitalism and how it works.

UBI is unproven. I could see a negative income tax making some sense, but at absolute best the maximum amount any individual receives needs to be uncomfortable, so there is an imperative to contribute to the productivity that supports a society. Wealth is created. It doesn't just magically appear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States

Ok I meant a meta-meaning with that. Of course its what Capitalism does. But we don't use Capitalism because its sacred or written on a scroll - we use it because it works (worked).

When it quits working, we're gonna have to switch. Has it quit working? That's the fundamental issue before us.

"the scope of what taxes are increased to support only increases under a democracy"

In addition to all those leisure activities you have been deprived of by "those people sitting around watching TV", you apparently have been too busy to acquire basic historical facts or exercise basic common sense (I vaguely recall various people being elected with promises to reduce taxes, and occasionally even doing so).

Since about the 1940s, there has been no clear trend upward in the fashion that you describe; certainly nothing that would substantially move the needle in how many leisure activities you can partake in.

So I suggest you go take that pottery class now.

You're focusing only on income tax in the US. The US is not the only democracy, and even if it were, income tax isn't the only tax used to extract value from those creating it.

In several democracies the tax rate has increased since the 1940s. For example, in Germany taxes as a percent of national income has increased from 29% in 1950 to 45% in 2011.

In the US, the tax rate has remained largely unchanged since 1945 when you take into account all taxes, not just income taxes.

My point was that the scope of what taxes support increases under a democracy. All savings from improvements in productivity are just used for new activities. Instead of returning those savings from increased productivity to taxpayers, they just find new activities to spend it on.

I want from the government today, exactly what we got from the government in the 1950s, but delivered with 2017 efficiency/productivity. The government needs to stop finding new things to waste our money on.

Welp.

As you observe, most people in a democracy don't agree with you. So your fetishization of "exactly what we got from the government in the 1950s" will be a lonely dream; likely most of the rest of us would like something in excess of 1950s investments in education, health care, and so on. The rest of us here on Planet Earth might also be aware that many of the goods the government might have to pay for competed for by other sectors, so if the government decides that it would like to pay 1950s level prices for such goods, it will be shit out of luck.

I suspect you can probably find a country or two out there with a tax burden and government services akin to the USA in 1950; perhaps you should move there?

> I suspect you can probably find a country or two out there with a tax burden and government services akin to the USA in 1950; perhaps you should move there?

If the welfare states of the world don't get their acts together, this will happen. And it will keep happening until they've lost enough of their high-tax-paying citizenry that they can no longer afford to sustain themselves and will collapse under their own weight.

The inevitable future is one in which taxes are priced more like a payment for a service provided and less like a protection racket. And in which citizens are treated more like customers and less like assets.

Yeah, right. I know a ton of people who talk like this and exactly 2 who have moved to low-tax jurisdictions. Neither of them are any great loss.

Generally the tone is a bunch of libertarian piffle where they soak up education, get raised up and absorb experience in a nice stable high-tax jurisdiction. Then at some point they stamp their pretty little foot and say that it's quitsies time for their big-state upbringing and that they are now "even" with the societies that conferred all those advantages on them... and off they go (typically to run businesses whose business entirely depends, weirdly enough, on economic activity in the high-tax type jurisdictions that they left).

I have some sympathy for the idea that taxes should be lower and governments should be leaner, but the messianic nonsense (collapse of the West predicted, film at 11) that people like you and the guy I originally responded to is just irritating. In the fantasy world you live in, no democratic government even undergoes a course correction due to unsustainable spending. No-one ever gets irritated and votes in a party that promises to lower their taxes and does so, ever.... You are manufacturing a crisis to make your moderately interesting ideas seem the The Only Answer To Everything.

Incidentally, the answer is treat citizens like citizens, not like 'customers' (or assets, for that matter) - unless you want to torture the idea of being a "customer" to the point where you can turn benefiting from a public good into somehow being a "customer" of that good. Generally this isn't a analogy that particularly helps understanding anything at all. What would we learn about defense, public order, or the notion of public education as a public service - not a "customer good" provided to the person themselves or their parents, etc. by rephrasing it as a "customer" relationship?

I see no real issue. If millions of pensioners and potheads can find meaning without work, quite rapidly, we'll do OK.

Oh and btw, work bringing meaning? many jobs don't.

Individuals are certainly able to do ok without work, as long as their basic needs are met.

However, I have doubts about the will of "society" to provide for their basic needs unconditionally.

Consider the type of arguments made in the US about healthcare, or the comments made by Europe's elite about countries wasting money on "drinks and women"[0]

[0] - http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/22/dijsselbloem-under-fire-after...

Yeah, I didn't like that conclusion either. I mean, it sort of paints too rosy of a picture of the Human Condition. Just winging it but I'm pretty sure about 80% of the world's population doesn't get far past the "How do I not die?" biological response, and has but fleeting concern for what one might ascribe to "Meaning."

Well, that and the line is kind of tone deaf in not acknowledging Religion gives people Meaning in their lives by way of Beliefs.

The idea that I need other people to tell me what to do (which is generally what a paid job is) to have meaning in life is insulting.

Well, it less insulting to say your work has to matter to somebody besides yourself. Living only for yourself is really a dead-end and arbitrary endeavour. I personally find it meaningless.

Not everything valuable is recognised or rewarded with money, I'll give you that.

It's more complex than that. I've been utterly bored by most of the jobs I had simply because while it mattered to someone else (as proven by me getting paid for doing it), I couldn't see how it was useful to anybody besides lining the pockets of my boss and their customer.

Maybe I'm weird, but I want to be able to point at my work and say that it helped someone to make the world a little bit better, and not just to earn someone more cash.

Art is a good one, people will always pursue art regardless of whether or not 'better art' already exists.

I would add Exploration. Getting into space has never been cheaper or safer, and there is vast opportunity in space for everything imaginable, resources, scientific knowledge, new discoveries, new challenges, etc. We dont seem to be satisfied as a race with robots doing our exploration for us up til now, i dont see why that would change in the future. Humans want other humans to be on the surface of these planets making discoveries, not some robot slowly rolling around a desert taking dirt samples for a decade.

Does it appear likely to you that the direction we are headed is such that everyone who is automated out of work will be like aristocrats, with their needs so fully met that they may live a life of the leisures of their choosing? It appears far more likely to me that they will instead be begging for scraps from an increasingly small and concentrated class of wealthy folks who do not respect them because they do not work. Your idea of a world full of aristocrats may be a nice one, but the world I see when I look around doesn't bear much resemblance to it.

Society will adapt, but in a silly way. If there comes a time where there truly isn't a need for large swaths of the population to work, society (government) will just make up work for them. Half the population gets paid to dig holes and the other half gets paid to fill them in. We're never going to beat this unnecessary puritanical mindset that a living is something that must be earned through work, and that there is something morally wrong with people who don't work.

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