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A civilization-ending development, no.

A job-ending development for many people, yes.

The chattering classes see themselves becoming obsolete. Fast. They're freaking out. From professors of English literature to op-ed writers, word slingers are in trouble. Not novelists, though; none of these systems can hold a story together for any great length.

If everything you get paid for goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.



It's not just the chattering classes that are freaking out. It's the majority of ordinary people that I've talked with.


Majority of the 'ordinary people' don't care, and don't want to care. They just want to think about their next tourist trip, or getting coffee, or where to get lunch and dinner next. You try talking about the world-historical impact, the job-ending impact, the sci-fi level progression, THEY DON'T CARE. And that even includes tech workers.

The time to adapt to AI is now (Getting a trade is the safest bet), but obviously 99% of the population doesn't want to do any adaptation. So when GPT5,GPT6 comes out, only then will they confront AI, without any mental preparation.

That's why there's no point slowing down. People won't be alerted until the AI's get advanced enough, so better push it forward, to shock people into action. Institutions can move suprisingly fast when pushed to, every school and university has had to respond to ChatGPT already, and it kind of works. Otherwise people will just try and pretend this doesn't exist, forever.


In a sense, I hope that you're right. It's just not how it looks to me from here. I'm hearing a great deal of fear from all quarters.


You're suggesting we accelerate the danger to shock people awake?

So like putting poor performing FSD on public streets (daring regulators to ... do their job)?

Or connecting the nukes to some SkyNet-esque "defense" system, knowing its propensity for illogical and undefined behavior?


>If everything you get paid for goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.

So… almost everyone who posts here?

Not sure why everyone here is so excited to be out of a job. I guess they all think that UBI will fall out of the sky. I think they’ll be in for a rude awakening.


If you were to eliminate 10% of jobs with no replacements available, in the span of say a year, that would likely be a civilization ending development. People unable to feed their families tend to take drastic actions.


I’d probably adjust that to at least 50%. Many European counties had extended high youth unemployment, but minimal political unrest.


That drastic action is usually working a menial service job.




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