[FRIAM] Fwd: Man's Fate

[glen]

The trouble with this sort of rhetoric is the myopia of specialization. Humans are altricial. One testable hypothesis is that the majority of people concerned that humans will be *replaced* by AI are old people. Inductive learning, in principle, can replace any old method, any set of methods where there's a long tradition of "knowledge" to mine.

So, like any new tech (e.g. smartphones), the old lament that their special way of navigating the world breaks. The young don't complain about such things. They mostly seem to complain about how the *narratives* told to them by the old don't match the reality they navigate.

Also, there are some old people who (for whatever reason) maintain their plasticity (perhaps even through psychedelics). Or, in the case of some particular tech (e.g. largely mathematical) it's easier to keep up with because those particular old people are pre-adapted to understand that technology.

My prediction remains: What we'll see is more transhumanism, cyborgs, human-in-the-loop learning, etc. Yes, there's a Theseus' Ship problem in there somewhere. But for the time being (what? 50 years? ... a generation?) the advances will be cybernetic. And yes, the old people stuck in their speciality will be put out of work. My advice would be to get a job doing something new or chaotic, that's resistant to induction. Maybe take a few hero doses to get in the mood.

On 5/19/25 8:10 AM, James Traub wrote:
> Even if it doesn’t lead to an extinction event or World War III–the other major preoccupation of /AI 2027/–artificial intelligence is plainly coming for our jobs. Previous forms of automation eliminated blue-collar jobs; this form, which is cognitive, will come for the white-collar ones. And not only them: one of Kokotajlo’s more controversial claims is that AI will figure out how to build robots with the dexterity to do what only humans can now do. Who will need a plumber when your AI can figure out what’s wrong with your sink and a robot can fix it? Previous technical breakthroughs have created as many jobs as they’ve rendered redundant; this one will not.
> 
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