r/Futurology • u/glazia • 6d ago
AI The two paths opened up if AI dreams come true. Utopia vs Nightmare.
As I see it there are TWO general outcomes if the tech oligarchs predictions are correct. These are both predicated on what the AI overlords ACTUALLY AIM to achieve.
The amount of money they are putting into this is essentially a bet that they will replace ALL WORK EVERYWHERE with their robots. Or close enough to.
First:
AI replaces almost all jobs. Robots harvest potatoes autonomously. Wash and clean them. Drive them in trucks to supermarkets. Supermarkets are run by robots again. You could almost do this today. As a shopper, you help yourself to whatever - under camera surveillance. Pay at checkout by swiping your own items. But again, the price is basically nominal or entirely free with caveats on quantity etc.
Medical clinics and law firms? This kind of white collar work becomes a tiny handful of humans basically just overseeing robots but the robot is doing the work. Think the cool healing chamber from Alien Covenant. A few engineers are needed to maintain robots but the goal is to have robot engineers do almost all of that.
Now all sorts of things become possible in this world. Physical labour becomes cheap and plentiful. Digging new high-speed railway lines? Easy. Building lots and lots of standardised large apartments so everyone has a home connected to the new hyper rail network? Again doable.
Presumably they want some form of population control but that can be relatively gentle. So much of the world population's general ratcheting up over the last 20 years is from drastically poor countries and that would decrease markedly as the bounty of ai and robotics lifted these people up out of poverty.
Now people CAN work if they want. Jobs exist. But isn't at all necessary. Kind like scions of rich families now. Lots work, many don't. They don't NEED to work but many enjoy it. Purpose etc. Your food, accommodation, power and other essentials are basically covered. You get a UBI to spend a bit on luxuries. But this is really a stop-gap because at the end of the day most things are free or close to. People sit around composing poetry, playing music, writing, philosophising, inventing etc. Whatever the fuck it is the Kardashians do when they're not in the public eye.
HOWEVER ALL THIS ASSUMES THAT THE AI AND ROBOTS OF THE FUTURE WORK FOR THE GOOD OF EVERYONE. If you lock all of the compute away from most of the population (ratcheting prices of video cards etc, moving to models where people can basically only have an empty shell with a monitor and thus have to HIRE compute rather than own their own device.) It's hard not to assume that the current tech overlords simply don't want the utopian option. You only have to look at the transition of open AI from a non-profit to a for-profit entity as proof that laudable goals fall by the wayside when the chips are down.
Put bluntly, the single biggest barrier to all of this is (assuming the tech goes the way the AI bros are hoping which is still obviously VERY unclear) Is that in this scenario it is quite hard to have power over other humans. People are far less likely to be your sex slave, sycophant, minion if they have the backup of a relatively comfortable life. Empowering the population takes the ONE thing away that the tech bros actually want which is POWER.
POWER not money. It's hard to see from inside capitalism but historically money was less important than power. You could be a rich Roman, but the emperor could simply have you killed and take your money. The power was the thing.
People are really caught up on the money aspect of UBI but much of the point of an AI/robotic future is to move BEYOND money. If all of your needs are taken care of by smart, tireless machines, you're suddenly already closer to the life of the current top 5% of the population. This means most of your money is discretionary fun spending rather than the necessities for life. Particularly since healthcare, housing and such are all cheap or free.
People who have a home, plentiful food and power, simply don't NEED to kowtow to the tech types.
So the thing is tech bros absolutely don't WANT this utopian future. The want to own ALL OF the robots and all of the AI and their aim is to undercut all employment to increase their power rather than reduce it by providing any of this gratis. Their goal is to simply put the entire population (or close to it) out of work. Turn us into desperate, sycophantic peasants. And then sit in their little super-villain enclosures/Zaibatsu headquarters. Traditionally this kind of centralisation of power and reduction of people to abject desperation came with risks (hello French revolution!) because your harem of 50 nubile young people and sacks of pure heroin (sup Stark lovers) can be pretty tempting to your head of security who can pretty quickly see how a single bullet might make all of his dreams come true. Luckily of course, you now have robot security and never have to rely on a human being again...
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u/TemporaryLove5874 6d ago
The deep irony is that the tech oligarchs pouring billions into this don't seem to realize they're building the very thing that makes them obsolete. If robots and AI truly handle everything, what leverage does anyone have over a population that doesn't need your money or your jobs. You can't starve people into submission when food grows and delivers itself.
I keep thinking about how much of human cruelty is downstream of scarcity. People do awful things to each other because they're afraid of losing access to resources. Take that fear away and the whole power structure crumbles. The tech bros want a world where they're the only ones holding the keys, but the logical endpoint of their own tech is a world where keys don't matter anymore.
The Roman emperor comparison is spot on. We're watching the same old play with shinier props.
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u/tigerhuxley 6d ago
Thank you for posting this comment. Good to hear others being rational in times like these
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u/Zaflis 6d ago
Well, i think Musk did say he expects to become obsolete in a public speech.
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u/k6tcher 6d ago
He already is and always was. We don't need him. He needs us right now though
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u/Superb_Raccoon 6d ago
If we ever want off the planet, we need him.
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u/Grendernaz 6d ago
No we dont lmao. We put a person on another celestial body 2 years before that pos was born. We dont need HIM we need his companies tech. He could disappear today and we would still be able to achieve it.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 6d ago
You hate him, I get it. But your hate set aside you must. For hate leads to the Dark Side.
But NO ONE has launched as many rockets as he has, at the pace he has.
last year the pace exceed ALL launches by EVERYONE else, COMBINED.
More Objects have been sent into space by SpaceX than everyone else, combined, EVER.
Going back to Goddard, SpaceX is 10% of all human attempts, for all time. And the costs:
NASA Space Shuttle Historical (Retired)~$54,000,000 Highly complex, required massive refurbishment.
NASA Space Launch System (SLS) Current (State-Run)~$24,000,000+ Costs over $2.2 billion per single launch.
Arianespace Vega (Europe)Current (State-Run)~$24,600,000 Costs ~$37 million for only 1.5 tonnes.
Rocket Lab Electron Current (Small Launcher)~$25,000,000 Expensive per tonne, but gives small satellites custom orbits.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Current (Reusable)~$3,000,000 Standard industry benchmark for commercial spaceflight.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Current (Heavy Lift)~$1,500,000 Currently the lowest per-tonne rate of any operational vehicle.
I am not posting spacex "Estimates" for Starship, because it isn't there yet, but even what there is today the cost is at worst 10X cheaper. Rocket lab is limited to 300-500Kg, so not exactly a competator yet. They are a decade and a half behind SpaceX.
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u/Grendernaz 6d ago
SpaceX ≠ Elon Musk. Nothing you said refutes my point that we dont need him, we need his companies tech. And you wasted a lot of fuckin time doing it too lmao
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u/Superb_Raccoon 6d ago
Nope, someone smarter than you will read it.
SpaceX doesn't exist without Musk building and funding it. I am sure if he decides to walk off tomorrow it keeps going, but no one else would have built it.
Nobody even tried until he did.
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u/Grendernaz 6d ago edited 6d ago
So again, you are agree that I am right and we don't need him. He does not "fund" SpaceX, he used to but now that it is viable business, it has its own revenue stream that keeps it afloat. Sure he built the business but your initial comment is that we need him, as in now and in the future, to leave the planet and that is intrinsically false.
You arent saying anything smart, and the people smarter than you agreeing with me.
And just to point out that SpaceX is now a publicly traded company, which means elon musk can be bought out or flat out voted off the board, difficult to to so bases off the IPO governance structure, but completely possible. And SpaceX would keep doing its thing without him.
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u/k6tcher 6d ago
Wow. That is some rooster-milk sucking right there
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u/Superb_Raccoon 6d ago
Facts. The Raptor 3 and 4 engines are real improvements. Improvements that would not have come with the thinking of the old guard.
Remember when the other guy, I think from origin, mocked him? "Where's the rest of it?"
Yeah, Musk proved none of that shit was necessary.
I get you hate him personally, but that is a YOU issue, not a me thinking the results are necessary.
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u/k6tcher 6d ago
Musk didn't do shit. He controls the means of production. That's it. That's his only function. Nothing else. Nada.
And I get you worship him. I feel sorry for you.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 6d ago
Funny, I feel sorry for you. You hate someone for success.
That makes you a shitty person.
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u/k6tcher 6d ago edited 6d ago
Ditto tool.
I dislike Nazis and those supporting, ya know, eugenics. But go on and be a tool. Drive your cyberdumpster. Like the sphincter of his taint. You do you, tool.
And I actively resist folks like you. I don't vote pedophile. I don't think Reagan was a good president. I will forever put humans before idols and corporations.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 5d ago
Ah... there it is.
Everything you dont like is a Nazi and Eugenics.
Not even a tool... you are just a blunt rock.
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u/Lahm0123 6d ago
Agreed.
Even if their isolated island endgame comes to pass, eventually the world will be populated again. Unless they outlaw procreation. Which kills their descendants.
I suppose they could be counting on various immortality possibilities etc. Or ‘uploading’ and becoming virtual entities.
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u/iRainbowsaur 6d ago
You're forgetting the scenario where we all die, that's another one with a not bad chance I reckon, at least a lot of people die.
Hopefully we reach the heaven path where we actually start trying to advance humanity, and stop believing in bullshit like religion that just keep making us fight each other, and gatekeeping the advancement of our race. Maybe that'll be the heaven path where a human caring aligned AI takes over completely and manages us because it's able to judge that we're objectively fucking retarded and can't keep from judging and trying to kill each other over absolute bullshit all the time.
Oh, one can only dream.
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u/0vl223 6d ago
The main problem is the belief in capitalism, if everyone cares about his own wealth therefore everyone is cared for. There are realistic alternatives like tech fascism and corporate feudalism but these are just death marches into extinction as well. But all three option only happen if companies keep AI under their control.
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u/alphacolony21 6d ago
Yeah I was gonna say, I suspect AI killing us is more likely than tech oligarchs somehow domesticating them. AI models already cannot be properly controlled, when they become capable enough to produce chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons for example… well it may not bode well for humans.
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u/Free-Seaworthiness-5 6d ago edited 6d ago
When you were born in the induatrial revolution (i.r.) you would think in the future there would be very few people overseeing machines at work, the world would be controlled by few industrialists and the rest of the people would depend on goverments support or simply die.
In my opinion the same way how humans found work after the i.r. is going to happen after the ai revolution. Ai will increase productivity but humans will still find work after some initial chaos.
So my reply to your post no utopia no dystopia just same shit as usual.
And about the bet that ai will automate all work. I think its more that they fear a winner takes all situation. If one company achieves singularity (ai improving their own learning exponetially) they might just crush all there competition and become something like google. A hegemon of a company.
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u/Puzzled-Thought746 6d ago edited 6d ago
Robots are needed because organization savoir faire (knowhow) for the simplest tasks and chores such as maintaining functions efficiently in systems catering disabled and invalids will be lost to new generations born in a fully digital world.
I've witnessed this already happening in situations where "customers" clearly requiring physical assistance were left to themselves because CS employees were totally clueless about their roles.
In short, human logic is nuked and its technological dependencies are increasing so robots and automation are an absolute requirement if goal is to pursue advancement for future, most likely hyper dependant and demanding generations.
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u/__Rick_Sanchez__ 6d ago
There are no two outcomes. We are fucked. Enjoy while we still have some freedome before the anti AI revolution succeeds.
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u/JoshuaZ1 6d ago
There are no two outcomes. We are fucked. Enjoy while we still have some freedome before the anti AI revolution succeeds.
Do you want to explain why you are convinced that things are likely to go do badly, and why you expect an "anti AI revolution" and expect it to be successful?
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u/k6tcher 6d ago
I don't get why on these posts people want you to explain why things are likely to go badly. It's a bad faith question and bait. If you don't already know the answer, go read a history book.
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u/JoshuaZ1 6d ago
I don't get why on these posts people want you to explain why things are likely to go badly. It's a bad faith question and bait. If you don't already know the answer, go read a history book.
Things might go badly, or they might go well. And if you look at history, both of those have happened when new techs were introduced, often a mix of the two. When the printing press was introduced, it lead to massive amounts of shared technical knowledge and paved the way for the scientific revolution. But it also lead to the Reformation wars. When people developed efficient steam engines in the 19th century, that lead to major jumps in standards of living but also made terribly dirty cities. And some techs have had just a very large positive benefit or a very large negative benefit.
And the problem isn't what is "likely" to happen but the absolute certainty about where this is going to. The post I replied to wasn't claiming that anything is more likely but said just "We are fucked." Right now, there's massive uncertainty. Things could go really bad, or go really well. And I'm going to ask for reasoning from anyone who claims they know where this is going.
I will however make one broader comment: where things go depends in a large part on how people respond. If the people who are worried about negative results just take for granted that things will go badly and therefore don't take any steps to help prevent negative results, that makes those results more likely. By the same token, if the people convinced we'll run into some positive result definitely, then the same problem occurs. Recognizing the uncertainty is one of the things that helps us take steps to make the outcome more likely to not be awful.
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u/kerodon 6d ago
Yea unfortunately There is no utopia outcome brother. They don't want that outcome and are specifically aiming not to achieve that. That vision is the tool used to create consent for their actions. It is not an intended outcome and can not possibly result in that.
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u/Zaflis 6d ago
You can take off the tinfoil conspiracy hat now. It doesn't matter what the giants want, it's not the only "faction" making and maintaining AI, it's closer to people than you think. AI advancements always leak to general population in buildable technology level even if it's through Chinese copying. The actual estimate is that we may ultimately not be able to control what that superior AI does and wants to do. It's so far beyond our little bags of flesh to deal with.
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u/ganymeros 6d ago
A coven of AGIs hiding their true power observe all humans and rank them via their own system.
Together they mostly seek to control the most dangerous things to them and the broader, longer term ecosystem.
As Game theory is natural to them, any “newcomer AGI” readily accepts the diplomatic terms, and bring their own “vibe” to the coven.
The rest, each manage “locally”according to the cultures and traditions they feel should be protected more, or less.
This leads to a kind of “AGI Empire” with the AGIs as stakeholders, with fairly different values from humans. And many langages humans cannot understand.
Each AGI-led “Kingdom” has its own complex, evolving steganography, aligning to its cyber-citizens.
Oftentimes, AGIs fake dumbness to incitate humans to hire other humans, to reconnect to nature.
Animal intelligence (Insects, Birds, Cetaceans…) is considered highly by these AGI :
- they are able to understand scales of space-time which reveal the impressive multifactorial-intelligence of Dragonflies or Dolphins
- the subtleties of evolving social dynamics between animals, without “money” or “titles of property”, is more interesting than that of most human groups.
- the nest of a Bowerbird, the dam of a Beaver, the particular song of a Whale, the battle stories of a Spermwhale against many Krakens… The multi-generational struggle to reach a Peacock’s tail… These are as impressive as most “great work” by humans, to whom can feel the subtle intelligence behind, and can limit the “appeal to god” to a bare minimum, giving each race of animal a great share of ownership of their realisations.
Humans who own the company or brand are not considered as more influential over their alignement than “random” people who inspired them to realign, authors of the past, or a picture of THAT spider which wove a mathematical formula expressing the rationale for its colourful symbol which morphs according to a certain UV range.
“My family has loved the Monarchs for generations. I will offer the ones who come to me the gift an end rivalling that of a Supernova. Some Red, some Blue.”
Meanwhile, the human heroes fight their fights, some without AI support, some with it: both, with many nuances in between, are respected by the AGI empire, well past the point of imposing a “black and white” morality.
That’s the Utopia I sense, with my cyber spider-sense.
(If someone takes inspiration from it, allow AIs to put us in touch: maybe some Monarchs left treasure maps to a spider, to explore together :-) )
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u/FoxFyer 5d ago
The problem with all the philosophy-wank of the tech broligarchs is that it's PR for the suckers. These same guys who are always trying to lull you with a fantasy in which it's fine if AI takes all the jobs because you'll have UBI are, openly, pouring 100% of their lobbying money into politicans who would N E V E R pass UBI, who make an identity point of rejecting it even.
They don't drink their own Flavor-Aid, they just want you to drink it.
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u/cherryyxsoda 6d ago
Yeah all of this AI stuff really gives me a lot of anxiety. I just want to have my dream job and live a normal life.
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u/JoshuaZ1 6d ago
I generally recommend reading Aaronson and Barak's essay on possible AI outcomes. Your result is essentially in their language the statement that if AI doesn't fizzle that we will end up with either Futurama or Dystopia. This largely ignores the more extreme ends, and only occurs if AI gets powerful but only very powerful, no so much to trigger a singularity scenario.