Comment by jodrellblank | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jodrellblank | Hacker News Reader

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If we strip away all the layers of onion, we are not left with a Platonic ideal onion, we're left with nothing. Removing every chore, task, craft, friction from life does not leave an ideal perfect life, it leaves nothing. Some people are feeling closer to that nothing than others.

A human who liked caring for horses, feeding them, brushing them, comforting them during thunderstorms, blanketing them in cold weather, riding them through the fields, tolerated mucking out the stables, is not just biding their time until someone invents the city bus so they can free up all of that timewasting labour and sit in a box turning a wheel left and right for the rest of their days, and then the self-driving taxi, so they can finally "be free". You can say that they can still care for horses today, but if mansions don't need stables and horses, if deliveries don't use horses, then it's no longer a tangled up job, life, part of a community, way of earning money, way to get some respect, feel useful, it's just standing in a field stroking an animal.

I can see the analogy, but fundementally that human liked caring for animals, they didn't like transporting the goods as effectively as possible, if they did then sitting in a box optimising delivery time would make them feel useful and respected.

The human in your analogy would be better off working with animals on a farm, or vet practice, where the technological advances that deliver better care to animals would make them feel even more fulfilled.

And if they liked optimizing transport, but now the box is self-driving and the logistics are planned by machine? The farm is automated and humans get in the way. The vet is a robot. Also any other suggestion you have is automated - AI is now better at everything. Nobody needs or wants anything the human can do. AI is a more fun friend, a better singer, a more engaging teacher or entertainer, a better movie creator, a better cook, etc. All that's left is Postel's "Amusing Ourselves to Death", from cradle to grave nothing the human does matters or can matter. Then what?

Perfomatively going through the hollowed-out motions of human life like a toddler playing with a plastic kitchen, wishing the ghosts of meaning and fulfillment would come back into them? Enjoy!

>The human in your analogy would be better off working with animals on a farm, or vet practice, where the technological advances that deliver better care to animals would make them feel even more fulfilled.

Yes. And instead they are stuck in the role of slop doula, unable to afford the luxury of being able to perform a furfilling role in society.

But what if they no longer have to "tolerate mucking out the stables" and can instead focus on riding.

We could go back and forth on the analogy but I think it comes down to one of two things:

1. You enjoy writing code to fix a problem

2. You enjoy fixing problems and solve that by writing code

If you're in camp 1 then AI feels extremely unfulfilling and understandably so, for camp 2 it's a whole new world.

> what if they no longer have to "tolerate mucking out the stables" and can instead focus on riding.

Then you haven't seen the say to day life of modern western civilization. That's not the reality. People are working more than ever for the worst buying power in a century in a time where the job market is worse tham ever. Recreation in all forms that's not scrolling social media is down, because people can't afford it.

>We could go back and forth on the analogy but I think it comes down to one of two things:

Your two things are completely orthogonal to my comments. This isn't about enjoying your job. It's about not being able to survive on the remaining jobs left (which aren't much).

Now take away the chore of 'focusing on riding'. Genetically or chemically calm the horse so it does not get flustered or moody. Metabolically tweak the horse so it does not get tired or thirsty. Robotically till and smooth the ground so there is nothing to trip over. Notify everyone in the vicinity where the horse is going, so there are no obstacles to avoid. When you can't crash or fall off if you try, when it doesn't matter if you're focusing or not. Maybe dynamically adjust that so you know the AI overlord is pampering you to keep the difficulty 'just right' and this is not a real challenge it's elaborate wireheading.

Your point 2 is where my onion metaphor comes in. When you fix a problem you improve a thing. When you fix all the problems you have taken all the life away from living. Maybe that works for what to do today - Ostrich head in the sand and solve problems - within our lifetimes, or even several lifetimes, but if AGI really does spawn and solve all problems immediately the head has to come back up. If AGI never spawns, we might still effectively solve all human-scale problems with the assistance of sub-human AI and brute-force within a surprisingly short time.

I love this articulation.

That's beautiful, and true.

The difference is that person who loved tending to horses had no delusions they were mot out of a job and their horse tending would just be a hobby with few exceptions. They didn’t complain trucks sucked and couldn’t do the job of hauling people and goods better than horses. They saw the progress and had to come to terms what it.

That’s a far cry from how many on HN are dealing with LLMs

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