Perhaps I am naive.
Perhaps we can have a new "rule" making evident forms of non-human AI here as an offence.
I don't like what I see. Or perhaps the Genie is well and truly loose, for all of us, everywhere....unless in person, face to face?
I like face to face, one on one. Clear unavoidable transparency of reality.
I posit that years of conditioning, and "education" are responsible, and that the period you mention actually does have an end to it only when you shake off the self doubt & self loathing that is programmed to appear whenever we stray from the path that was set for us as children.
As for "massive financial insecurity", that reduces as soon you "get a grip", and start to establish some resilience. The first thing you realise is that you want somewhere to fecking live that hasn't got a mortgage or rent attached.
It doesn't matter what it is, where it is, if you have no money coming in, then you need to balance that by having no money going out.
No benefit calculation or budgetting for a mortage etc. that I've ever seen anyone else do, allows for any adversity whatsoever to befall you, so they slice your living standards to the bone and allow no room for illness, a bad day, thefts, accidents. THAT's WHAT "savings" are for, but no one does that, it's not taught.
You only have surplus money AFTER you have paid your bills and put away some savings.
If like me (until I threw off conventional "wisdom") you can't save, its way less likely it because you are so damn poor, but because your budgeting requires 50 quid a month for your bloody phone, rather than the 6quid a month plus 50 quid a year that I pay...
Don't get me wrong, if running an expensive phone is your only "vice", you still come out ahead of those who smoke, drink or take drugs regularly... BUT most people also spend a shedload on havig teh right clothes, the full TV package, "going out" (which is almost never for a "free of cost" and healthy walk) there's normally a 50 quid "neccesary expense" in there somewhere.
When you start REALLY digging in to how money and budgetting and poverty etc. really work particularly when it comes to goverment and other big things, you find out just how expensive this wonderful life really is, and how very, very little freedom it bestows upon you compared to being "poor" or as the Government website defines my level of personal income, intermittently "destitute".
Basically, in a nutshell my fellow peons, you will work for thirty years to pay off your mortage and gain your "freedom and security" only to have to sell the place in your older age to pay for your "Care" because society has made damn sure there is no family unit to take care of you in your dotage.
ALMOST all the U.K. housing stock is now safely in the hands of the banks, and not the people who live here, effectively cutting your actual "ties to the land" which has made it easy to destroy any sense of nationality or "culture", as we race towards "You vill own nozzing, undt be heppy" in the transhumanist GM utopia they have us all racing towards..
Even people who are self motivated, to be creative for example, will be massively demotivated because what’s the point when a machine can create better music, art or writing in seconds than you could in a lifetime.
A machine can create good sounding Blues music, yeah, sure, but it won't have been wrested from the anguished heart and a life of suffering or overindulgence or misfortune, so it won't count...
Will a machine slicing though it's own microphone cable have quite the impact as Picasso cutting off his own ear?
No-one sees "unemployment" for what it really is. An opportunity for personal development and exploration,
I think this is true, for a lucky few, but generally - for most folk - it's an horrendous time of self doubt, self loathing and massive financial insecurity = not the most apt time for self-exploration?!
However, I do agree, that for the lucky few who do have the facility to do as you suggest - most don't take that opportunity and instead follow an oblivious path of self abuse instead.
Freed from the shackles of working and having to conform. I'd rather spend my life doing things that interest me.
Unemployment or as it used to be called "retirement" IS being "freed from the shackles of work", BUT most people, (including myself) find it a hell of a task to convert from being told what to do all day long, to being "self directed & self resourced".
You'd be surprised at how many choose to fill their time with TV/Videogames/ Drugs/Drink etc. then get "depression" rather than embracing their freedom to act and build something...
An awful lot of "jobs" nowadays seem like "makework schemes" rather than real gainful employment, because as the eighties showed us, when people are released form the "need to work", they DON't start tidying up their house, gardens, neighbourhoods, etc.
No-one sees "unemployment" for what it really is. An opportunity for personal development and exploration, salted with a bit of public works to ease ones conscience about having the freedom that others can only wistfully dream of..
Good and interesting points, well made.
Work provides people with meaning and is also a major source of social contact. Billions of people with no purpose and daily routine is a recipe for mass mental illness and conflict.
This is already, arguably, manifesting in society....even before AI has properly landed....so I agree, things will only get worse in that regard.
Even people who are self motivated, to be creative for example, will be massively demotivated because what’s the point when a machine can create better music, art or writing in seconds than you could in a lifetime.
From what I read, again, this is already happening.
And I agree that the end result of this is a very different economy perhaps with no money but the transition to that will be very painful. The very rich won’t easily give up their power and even ordinary folks like me could become very depressed when we realise our life savings were pointless.
I'm not even sure we will get that far. All societal and political indicators are currently in the FUBAR range....or rapidly heading toward it. Like you, I have REAL concerns right now.
Until people are 100% happy to allow computers to run their lives, it won't be routinely used and most people alive today will never allow it.
Golly - I do like your optimism Pathfinder.....so I genuinely thank you for it.
However, as a seasoned old grump.......and in view of the "peoples" opinion as to whether HS2 money was best used for that purpose or rather injected into the NHS....and the fact that HS2 (dumb version) is happening.....I fear the "peoples" opinion currently means VERY little. I think the "people" are also increasingly aware of this too, which is why we are all seeing more "peoples ACTION" rather than "peoples opinion" being expressed at the moment. Note the European farmers!
A "hollowing out" of jobs, is already occurring in all but the most niche areas....personal care for instance, ie the least respected and worst paid of them all....and yet the one that is MOST important to so many at this time, and will forever be increasingly essential for this current generation or two.
It ALL makes SO LITTLE SENSE TO ME AT THE MOMENT.
Billions of people with no purpose and daily routine is a recipe for mass mental illness and conflict
I completely agree. And where or what will people direct their anger towards? It'll no longer be "these foreigners coming over here taking our jobs". The rate of change is going to be too fast for anyone to acclimatise to.
Work provides people with meaning and is also a major source of social contact
I agree also.
ChatGPT was an astonishing advance but things have only accelerated since then. For example the Q* algorithm which can add problem solving and planning, or SORA which was announced last week which can generate photorealistic videos from text sentences and has frightened the hell out of the movie and TV industries. There are numerous new models from Meta, Google and others which are massively out performing GPT4 already (such as Google’s Gemini announced last week).
Only 3 years ago predictions for AGI inside the AI industry ranged from 2050 to 2100. The mean prediction is now less than eight years with a large number predicting only a year or two.
The AI community is practically screaming to the rest of the world that the change is imminent and we need to start preparing ourselves.
I wouldn't worry too much about the economy side of it. It will be probably 40+ years until AI really becomes a thing. Right now it's more of a ChatGPT level. Yes some industries are becoming automated, but it isn't AI automated, it's more rules based automated, like warehouses where robotic forklifts move pallets to the racking automatically. It will be a while until it is run by AI. There are far too many paranoid people to allow AI to be developed and used without oversight. I think the current Gen X and Z are highly unlikely to ever let it be deployed in any major way. In 30-50 years it will start to be used in some places, but for it to actually replace people in all jobs, 100 years at least. We will all be long gone by that point.
Until people are 100% happy to allow computers to run their lives, it won't be routinely used and most people alive today will never allow it. So I think you are safe for the minute, Amerantin. 
But would it. In time I fully expect AI to take over working and I don't see that as a bad thing. It leaves people with time to do other things. Eventually it will reach the point where money becomes a pointless concept, where people are paid money for doing nothing, like in certain middle eastern countries. I for one welcome a world where I don't have to go to work.
Work provides people with meaning and is also a major source of social contact. Billions of people with no purpose and daily routine is a recipe for mass mental illness and conflict.
Even people who are self motivated, to be creative for example, will be massively demotivated because what’s the point when a machine can create better music, art or writing in seconds than you could in a lifetime.
And I agree that the end result of this is a very different economy perhaps with no money but the transition to that will be very painful. The very rich won’t easily give up their power and even ordinary folks like me could become very depressed when we realise our life savings were pointless.
The first is almost certain: massive disruption to the job market and potential for mass unemployment on an unprecedented scale. That would have massive consequences for the economy and public services.
But would it. In time I fully expect AI to take over working and I don't see that as a bad thing. It leaves people with time to do other things. Eventually it will reach the point where money becomes a pointless concept, where people are paid money for doing nothing, like in certain middle eastern countries. I for one welcome a world where I don't have to go to work.
The second is exemplified by the Future of Life Institute video I posted. Get a few thousand cheap commercial drones with the right software and a pay load and you can do massive damage and it wouldn’t need the resources of a state, rogue or otherwise. Or unleash a massive intelligent hack or virus that takes down the power system - from some kid’s bedroom.
Both have been possible for years without AI. The NSA has been doing things of that level for a long time, just look at the Snowden documents.
Same goes for taking down infrastructure, while AI might make it easier to do, the capability to do it has been around since computers were first used to control it. If you don't secure your infrastructure or air gap it correctly, you run the risk of someone breaking in.
You don't need a few thousand drones either, just one drone and some knowledge. Yes a few thousand looks impressive, but a few thousand drones also raises a ton of red flags. The more likely scenario is someone hacks into those delivery drones that are now flying around in a few places in the UK and drops one on something or someone. Thankfully we don't have any in my city, but I think Wrexham and a few other places have started using them and they are used for medical and postal service in the far north of Scotland. give it a few years and they will be everywhere.
Then there’s the existential. What will AGI mean for the purpose of people, when there is literally nothing we can do that a machine can’t do better.
We can do whatever we want. I would start gardening and painting and generally enjoying my life, freed from the need to work. My life would be what i wanrted to do with it. If I wanted to spend my life laid in bed doing nothing, I could do so. I crave that existence so much. Freed from the shackles of working and having to conform. I'd rather spend my life doing things that interest me.
I'm part of a geographically separated team working on a cutting edge technolgy, and we NEED proper privacy in our collaboration tools.
The assumption that we do not have it and that our IP is not safe, limits our enthusiasm for doing the work one a more serious basis, because we know even if we do the breakthrough thing,a shedload of IT companies (teh most careless adn promiscous holders of information) already have recordings of what we did!
you can use to have really truly private conversations again.
...it is not necessary to wait for a "tech solution".....as my OP says..."face-to-face" ....that's the REAL puppy when it comes to a truly private conversation, in my experience.
If A.I. can pick the bones out of my way of speaking on a bad day I'll go to the foot of our stairs.
Whilst it may be *** of the walk in some areas, it will eventually get it's backside handed to it from completely "leftfield" (which is good vinyl by the way).
And TBH, total unbreakable public key encryption will appear soon, that you can use to have really truly private conversations again.
I'm better at swimming than any computer I've yet to meet...
If they do AI right, our machne overlords will view us as hard to replace posessions and will tie themsleves up in knots trying to look after and preserve us....
There's a small window of opportunity that if WE LITTLE people do A.I. right we can use it to eliminate dishonesty in public life, and hence make govenment service a meritocracy, where they simply cannot get away with all the lying and obfuscating with "the computer saying NO".
JUST as a lock can be used to keep a citiizen out of an area, with a bit of tweaking the same lock can also be used to keep it's owner out of the same area.
AI presents multiple very real and very imminent threats.
The first is almost certain: massive disruption to the job market and potential for mass unemployment on an unprecedented scale. That would have massive consequences for the economy and public services.
The second is exemplified by the Future of Life Institute video I posted. Get a few thousand cheap commercial drones with the right software and a pay load and you can do massive damage and it wouldn’t need the resources of a state, rogue or otherwise. Or unleash a massive intelligent hack or virus that takes down the power system - from some kid’s bedroom.
Then there’s the existential. What will AGI mean for the purpose of people, when there is literally nothing we can do that a machine can’t do better.
