All of these doomers are talking about the consequences of true AGI.
On the one hand, we don’t have true AGI, and probably won’t for a while yet.
On the other hand, we are so behind with regulating tech that if we do develop AGI we will certainly be completely unprepared for the consequences despite all these doomers telling everybody exactly what could go wrong. And they will be right.
Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen in our lifetimes.
That’s kind of missing the point. It’s not about AGI, but the question of how any automation is applied under capitalist relations. In a sane society, more automation would mean more free time for the people to enjoy their lives. However, capitalism requires people to work for the sake of working, and thus automation becomes something to be feared as opposed to celebrated.
Yes we’ve known this about capitalism and automation for centuries. My point (that you’re ignoring) is that LLMs will not give us any kind of automation worthy of discussion in that context.
Except perhaps for shitty SEO recipe website automation.
Your point is intellectually dishonest. There are plenty of things LLMs effectively automate. These things excel at tasks like translations, transcriptions, and data analysis to give a few examples. The fact that there’s currently a bubble where people are trying to use LLMs for all kinds of silly things doesn’t mean there aren’t actual applications for these things. It’s the same story with the dotCom bubble that produced a bunch of noise along with real useful technology that underpins the internet today.
For a time, until aggregate demand craters and the economy enters a depression.
It’s nice to see that Hinton isn’t playing apolitical.
How? If everyone loses their jobs nobody has any spare income. Therefore nobody buys anything they don’t need and cut back what they do need to the bone. Share price tanks because everyone stopped buying stuff. Capitalism collapses. The whole thing only works when there’s a customer, credit has been filling the income gap for years but if there’s no hope of repayment then nobody will get credit. I just hope it takes the tech giants long that I and the people I care about don’t have to deal with the fallout.
Did you miss the part where he points out that capitalism is the underlying problem?
He doesn’t say it’s a problem, just that that’s how it works. My prediction is it will collapse under its own weight.
He’s very clearly saying it’s the problem with the system by assigning fault:
“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said. “It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the capitalist system.”
He isn’t quoted as saying that he thinks this is terrible though. To me it reads as “that’s how capitalism works” in the same way the industrial revolution rewrote the rule book etc. There will need to be a market adjustment people will lose their jobs but the system will survive. Whereas I think it’ll be such a seismic shift in a short time the whole thing will cease to function.
I mean he’s literally saying we have a problem and the problem isn’t technology, it’s the way capitalism works. The only rational conclusion here is that capitalism is indeed the problem. There is absolutely no reason why this system needs to survive either. Systems have failed in the past, and capitalism is not exception.
There is so much vested interest though, capitalism has already been past the point of failure, and then measures were introduced to prolong it’s life, easy credit, moving away from the gold standard, others to numerous to mention, moving us from a monetary system based on tangeable wealth/assets to our current situation where it all hangs on hype and speculation. But again supply and demand only works if there’s demand, if nobody has any money then demand drys up.
Again he’s not pointing the finger, he’s merely saying it’s working as designed, either way AI is one of the current hypes propping up the system so he’s unlikely to point the finger there too.
There was so much bested interest in feudalism, and just go read up on how that turned out. All these different tricks the ruling class uses do kick the can down the road, but you can’t do that indefinitely. The reality is that the mechanics of capitalism ensure that wealth flows to the top, and the working majority becomes increasingly immiserated. We are rapidly approaching a point where the workers simply afford to make a living. There is growing domestic unrest all across western nations now, and it’s only going to grow. As Lenin put it, every society is three hot meals away from chaos.
If a system is working as designed, and the way it’s designed to work is at odds with applying technology in a way that benefits society, then the system is the problem. It’s very obvious this is what he’s saying, and I don’t know why it’s so difficult for you to acknowledge this fact.
Hinton has been saying apocalyptic things for years, and we’ve seen no evidence for most of it. At this point, I’m sceptical of anything he says, and I especially am curious about which companies he invested in and has a vested interest in the success of.
It’s pretty weird to be skeptical of the obvious fact that capitalism is at odds with using increased automation for the benefit of society.
Sorry, what I meant was that I’m sceptical AI can achieve what people are saying it will achieve. I think there will be a realisation that the impact would be significant enough to mention, but nowhere near as revolutionary as tech CEOs are trying to sell it as.
Honestly, it’s difficult to say where plateau is right now. We simply don’t know what the impact will be because we’re still actively developing and learning to apply this tech. I do agree we are currently in a bubble, but it’s worth remembering that when internet started becoming popular there was a similar bubble, but the underlying tech did prove to be transformative.
All that said, I really don’t think his predictions about AI are what’s relevant. It’s the acknowledgement that capitalism is not a productive way to harness automation that’s his real insight here. It’s valuable to see prominent people like Hinton say this loud and clear.
