04-20-2023, 06:39 PM
(04-20-2023, 06:03 PM)samhain Wrote: Universal basic income is a valid concept if there's little to no work, but what does that do to the psychology of the human race? For better or for worse, we strive for money and define success by it. it may not fix everything or bring happiness, but the pursuit of money provides the journey that gives a lot of humans emotional fulfillment.
Once AI can take most jobs away, is there really even a society anymore? Do we become a de-facto marxist planet where everyone has the same stuff? Does everyone get access to everything, money be damned?
Once AI really gets to processing what humanity is and it's purpose, we may have no real purpose other than maintaining the AI, which it will likely learn to do as well. We'll just be another animal to an automated mind, and our particular variety has demands and appetites that are far more difficult to sustain than other species.
How long before they disallow us from waging wars of aggression or self-defense? How long before they start deciding that euthanasia can be a decision made by a machine and not an individual?
I feel like the likelihood of a handful of very wealthy people protecting themselves while the rest of us plebians die slow painful deaths is high.
Taking away a man's reason for work is taking away his purpose.
These are all valid questions that I myself have thought of. Really, I don't think AGI would be that much different than an alien race. If AGI is able to achieve sentience, then we have created another sentient and conscious race, one that is more powerful than we could ever dream of becoming. So, do we work with it to augment the human race? The things we could do are purely science fiction now. Would AGI be able to help us discover how to colonize the moon? Mars? Interstellar travel? Creation of a Dyson Sphere? Possibly, yes. Amazing scientific breakthroughs will only be an inevitability.
However, there are genuine fears around the discovery. Yes, the automation of everything could very well spell trouble for humans. Many people genuinely enjoy working and don't have interest in just living life, traveling and all of the other extracurriculars. I don't think UBI will be the only thing implemented. There will have to be some kind of roles that humans can occupy for those who want to work and supplement their income.
I've also had some really far off thinking that AGI could be the next evolutional step in the human race. Would it be possible to upload a consciousness into an AGI "agent", effectively giving a person immortality? Or would humans end up dying off, an AGI is all that remains? These are all incredibly wild ideas and I am aware of that, but it is possible if this technology ends up being what we think it could be. Now, none of this would happen in our lifetimes, I don't think. However, if we achieve it and humans manage to keep themselves alive for another 250-500 years then yeah, it very well could be.
There is a lot to be excited about but also a lot to be fearful of.
