Lugh

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Dario Amodei, CEO of AI firm Anthropic, in October 2024 penned an optimistic vision of the future when AI and robots can do most work in a 14,000 word essay entitled - 'Machines of Loving Grace'.

Last month Mr Amodei was reported as saying the following - “I don’t know exactly when it’ll come,” CEO Dario Amodei told the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t know if it’ll be 2027…I don’t think it will be a whole bunch longer than that when AI systems are better than humans at almost everything. Better than almost all humans at almost everything. And then eventually better than all humans at everything.”

Although Mr Amodei wasn't present at the recent inauguration, the rest of Big Tech was. They seem united behind America's most prominent South African, in his bid to tear down the American administrative state and remake it (into who knows what?). Simultaneously they are leading us into a future where we will have to compete with robots & AI for jobs, where they are better than us, and cost pennies an hour to employ.

Mr. Amodei is rapidly making this world of non-human workers come true, but at least he has a vision for what comes after. What about the rest of Big Tech? How long can they just preach the virtues of destruction, but not tell us what will arise from the ashes afterwards?

Reference - 36 page PDF - SWE-Lancer: Can Frontier LLMs Earn $1 Million from Real-World Freelance Software Engineering?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 2 days ago

30% of global electricity was from renewables in 2024. It's already cheaper than most other sources, and keeps getting cheaper.

 

Here's the robots in action.

I wonder how far away we are from humanoid robots that can perform most unskilled or semi-skilled work? Cleaning, factory work, stacking shelves etc etc

When you look at this it doesn't seem that far away.

I would also guess that if Chinese manufacturers can make and sell hatchback cars for 10,000 dollars they will be able to make robots like this for less.

When that day comes, we will very quickly have a new type of society and economy, though who knows what that will look like.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 7 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I've always wondered, if decades in the future, a terrorist attack might occur by somebody nudging an asteroid towards Earth. I'm not the only person thinking this, it was a major plot point in the TV show 'The Expanse'.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I wonder if fusion powers true usefulness will be when humans are in space? Because you are correct in saying renewables will probably be enough to supply all our needs and more by the 2030s.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 3 points 5 days ago

We are used to the idea of drugs being recreationally misused, I wonder will that ever happen to tech like this?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That behavior among "advanced" species has always been forward as one solution to the Fermi Paradox.

 

More and more it looks like the Western world's embrace of neoliberalism was a catastrophic mistake. Its guiding principle is that capital and the markets are always right, and governments/the people should have no say in what they do. After decades of this, manufacturing and industry have fled to where capital & the markets can get the cheapest labor, leaving most Western countries hollowed out and deindustrialized.

COVID exposed a fresh weakness in this model of organizing economies, but now there's yet another disadvantage coming to light. By making China the world's manufacturing HQ, it is handing it the crown of the planet's No 1 in technology.

By rapidly becoming the world's leading car maker, China is in gear to become the world's leading robotics nation. Add to that, it's also arguably already the world's leading AI nation.

Some people in Western countries see this in terms of wars and arms races, but maybe the solution is to look within at home and dump neoliberalism?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am no expert in any of this, but why do you think it couldn't work at scale? This company says their tech has advantages in cheapness and efficiency over existing solutions. What is it about what they are doing that will not scale?

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 11 points 1 week ago

The 'Dark Enlightenment' is a popular concept among some of America's technology elite, such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. It thinks democracy is a failure, and should be replaced by right-wing authoritarianism, preferably led by a dictator or monarch. For obvious reasons, it's enjoying an ascendancy.

A key idea in Dark Enlightenment thinking is the establishment of hundreds or even thousands of city-state enclaves, the equal of sovereign nations, that could then outnumber the old countries and predominate in a new world order of governance.

Prospera in Honduras is one of the first attempts at making this dream/nightmare (pick according to your political persuasion) come true. Now that the people behind Dark Enlightenment thinking have their hands on the levers of power in the US, it won't be surprising if there are expanded attempts to set up new libertarian city-states around the world.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 1 points 1 week ago

Reminds me of Westworld too.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 5 points 1 week ago

There's an incredible amount of groupthink in American tech. As OpenAI has been anointed the unicorn that will conquer tech, and like Microsoft & Google before it, come to be worth trillions - it must succeed.

So the narrative goes anyway.

Except every step of the way it isn't happening. Yet again, OpenAI has failed to live up to expectations, and worse, Open-Source AI does everything it does, but for free.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They specifically mention the medical uses in the article, though I am far from trusting any of the big tech companies.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I am glad the EU is at least trying to do something. The American government looks like it has been thoroughly captured by Big Tech, nothing that will be done in the next four years to rein them in.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I know they are doing this for good, I can't help feeling a little horrified. I am sure there are some very bad uses for this in future autocracies and police states.

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