In the last 24 hours we have been thrown into a situation where both proto and true AGI are incredibly close. It's happened so fast that I even feel like a crazy person writing this on Future Timeline as the details and common opinions are not yet known by many people here.
How will this change the way you will live your life?
How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
This is kind of cringe, tbh. 
My life won't change in the slightest. There isn't gonna be some techno-vortex of transcendent energy that magically fixes all of the world's problems.
Things will just carry on, incrementally, like they always do. You'll occasionally hear of some breakthrough in medicine, computing, or another field that can be attributed in part to one of these algorithms. And we'll get some fancy new robots that are a notch above what we've seen so far. And these advances will occur more and more frequently in the future.
But we're decades, perhaps even a century or more away from a Star Trek utopian way of life, if it happens at all.
I'm still going to have lower back pain, insomnia, bouts of extreme fatigue, astigmatism in my left eye, problems with my digestion, and other stuff that's too embarrassing to talk about on here. I'm still going to struggle with horrendous living costs in one of the world's most expensive cities. I will still feel boredom, frustration, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions that come from living in this world. I will still feel hatred towards politicians, our economic system, wealth inequality, climate change deniers, racists, and other stupid people.
Even if AGI does happen, we can't just assume it will help the collective good. What's to stop the ruling elites from using it as a tool to further manipulate us and make themselves even richer, more powerful, and untouchable?
These algorithms are impressive, and if we get to a positive future, that's great. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
My life won't change in the slightest. There isn't gonna be some techno-vortex of transcendent energy that magically fixes all of the world's problems.
Things will just carry on, incrementally, like they always do. You'll occasionally hear of some breakthrough in medicine, computing, or another field that can be attributed in part to one of these algorithms. And we'll get some fancy new robots that are a notch above what we've seen so far. And these advances will occur more and more frequently in the future.
But we're decades, perhaps even a century or more away from a Star Trek utopian way of life, if it happens at all.
I'm still going to have lower back pain, insomnia, bouts of extreme fatigue, astigmatism in my left eye, problems with my digestion, and other stuff that's too embarrassing to talk about on here. I'm still going to struggle with horrendous living costs in one of the world's most expensive cities. I will still feel boredom, frustration, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions that come from living in this world. I will still feel hatred towards politicians, our economic system, wealth inequality, climate change deniers, racists, and other stupid people.
Even if AGI does happen, we can't just assume it will help the collective good. What's to stop the ruling elites from using it as a tool to further manipulate us and make themselves even richer, more powerful, and untouchable?
These algorithms are impressive, and if we get to a positive future, that's great. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
It's not really cringe. There's genuine reasons to be excited. Even OpenAI researchers themselves call Gato something like an AGI: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5onEtjN ... ublicationwjfox wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:35 am This is kind of cringe, tbh.
My life won't change in the slightest. There isn't gonna be some techno-vortex of transcendent energy that magically fixes all of the world's problems.
Things will just carry on, incrementally, like they always do. You'll occasionally hear of some breakthrough in medicine, computing, or another field that can be attributed in part to one of these algorithms. And we'll get some fancy new robots that are a notch above what we've seen so far. And these advances will occur more and more frequently in the future.
But we're decades, perhaps even a century or more away from a Star Trek utopian way of life, if it happens at all.
I'm still going to have lower back pain, insomnia, bouts of extreme fatigue, astigmatism in my left eye, problems with my digestion, and other stuff that's too embarrassing to talk about on here. I'm still going to struggle with horrendous living costs in one of the world's most expensive cities. I will still feel boredom, frustration, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions that come from living in this world. I will still feel hatred towards politicians, our economic system, wealth inequality, climate change deniers, racists, and other stupid people.
Even if AGI does happen, we can't just assume it will help the collective good. What's to stop the ruling elites from using it as a tool to further manipulate us and make themselves even richer, more powerful, and untouchable?
These algorithms are impressive, and if we get to a positive future, that's great. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
So I say it's totally prudent to start talking about this now.
But that's about as far as I go with disagreeing with you. You've reiterated the exact same thing I've been talking about. We're soon to have transformative AI, but it's going to take a good while for it to disseminate through society. We're going to rapidly achieve general intelligence, but only slowly achieve the Future™.
Even if the next version of Gato was outright a superintelligence, we simply lack the infrastructure for the Singularity. In order for the world to become sci-fi overnight, we'd need
• Robotics 10 years more advanced than they are now. And no, AGI won't magically will those robots into reality overnight. They'll still require a lot of testing and production time to build.
• Much more technologically advanced physical infrastructure. A lot of grocery stores, for example, still don't even have self-checkout or even space to put them. It'll take time to install those. It'll take time to redesign cities to take advantage of driverless cars. It'll take time for factories to be converted into big automated cells.
• Much more advanced medicine. Medical and biotechnology moves at a snail's pace compared to computing. Even CRISPR was a decade ago and we're still barely better than it. When AGI comes online, it'll accelerate theoretical biomedical technology by seemingly light years... but it'll still take years to treat your back pain and insomnia because even the most advanced cure-all treatments will require that amount of time to undergo human testing. And they might still be expensive for a good while if companies get greedy.
And much more that I'm too tired to mention right now. The Future™ will come, but it's going to come much too soon to fully realize its potential.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that AGI coming online around 2029-2045 would have been optimal since we'd likely have the technological infrastructure in place by then to make it a smoother transition than what we're likely going to see over the next several years.
And as for the rest of your post:
For several years after the first AGI, this will all still be true. Indeed, depending on political and social reaction, it might be true for uncomfortably longer than we need."We still do things."
We still get up to turn off the light, drive down gravel roads hoping not to get stuck in the mud, get our own sodas out the fridge, use WordArt in our documents, write down notes on paper, light candles when the electricity goes out, get scared of unknown things that lurk in the dark, rub our dogs and tease our cats, search thrift shops for obscure music, turn in half-assed homework to the teacher, jiggle door handles when we lock ourselves out, use cheap wires to hold in cattle, get in shaky elevators in skyscrapers, open and close blinds, adjust the air until it's at least not uncomfortable, give our health into the hands of fate when we come down with illnesses, wait for TV shows to come on if we don't have good internet connections, drink energy shots for extra focus, scratch off faded stickers from old products, get splinters from wood, step on trash in parks, watch grime build up on the outside of city buildings, scavenge through supermarket clothing sections like our ancestors in the bushes, exercise while listening to our smartphones, and generally try our best while putting everything off.
As much as life has changed in the past 100 years, a lot of it hasn't. We still work our own machines, shoot our own guns, and play our own instruments (even if it's a laptop).
Take for example the horrifying prospect of the GOP winning the US election in 2024, coinciding right with proto-AGI coming online, and they remain in power through 2032, by which time even if we still haven't achieved full AGI, I predict there will have been at least SOME trickling effects of transformative AI filtering through the economy. The kneejerk reaction is that they'd kill the poor. They'll be far less competent than that— they're simply going to go on a Luddite blood-and-soil rampage, desperately trying to "keep all-American hands working" while simultaneously gutting any sort of social welfare or basic income schemes while regulating AI's use (and profiting on the side).
Just a lot of things that could happen over the next decade. It's going to be a make or break one.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
As for my life? Continue on unchanged, honestly. I'm simply enjoying the ride. And like I said, there's going to be a twilight period before the full effects of any sort of general AI, proto or otherwise, becomes overwhelming in our daily lives. Probably the rest of the 2020s, I'll still be living like this: surfing the internet, watching YouTube videos instead of TV, listening to music, occasionally playing video games and VR, talking to some friends, enjoying the ambiance of the world, create stories I'll never actually get around to writing, drop dangerous amounts of money on personal projects that will never pay themselves back, and play with whatever neural networks are available to use. Same thing I've been doing.
MAYBE if whatever DeepMind's playing with is released as an API and I can use it as a chatbot, that might help define the decade. But that might not happen until the latter half of the decade. I'm hoping against hope that we do see some AI applications released to the masses sooner rather than later so I can get on top of creating multimedia franchises in my bedroom, but I'm not expecting anything.
It's going to be a while before biomedical tech breaks us and accesses the command prompt of biology, so staying healthy will be important for a good while until I can finally say "f*ck it" and live without consequence, if that's even possible.
MAYBE if whatever DeepMind's playing with is released as an API and I can use it as a chatbot, that might help define the decade. But that might not happen until the latter half of the decade. I'm hoping against hope that we do see some AI applications released to the masses sooner rather than later so I can get on top of creating multimedia franchises in my bedroom, but I'm not expecting anything.
It's going to be a while before biomedical tech breaks us and accesses the command prompt of biology, so staying healthy will be important for a good while until I can finally say "f*ck it" and live without consequence, if that's even possible.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
Even the new and updated opinions still has it arriving "around" the end of the decade, and it's 2022 right now. Assuming around the end of the decade is 2027 to 2029, and assuming AGI does come online in time with these new predictions, that's at least half a decade away right now if not longer. So changing your life for it would be somewhat...too soon.
On top of that, when AGI does get here? It's not a wizard! It's not god-like. It probably won't even be that good. Like, it won't be the transhumanist/futurist mythical "Singularity" superintelligent AGI of science fiction. That'd probably be a few decades down the road even after that. It'll be useful, it'll be impressive, but it'll still be limited. Whenever it does come online, the first year or so will just be some scientists, programmers, and engineers throwing tests at it and trying to commercialize it for business somehow and generally just studying it and running it through it's paces. Then it'll be opened up for academia and business uses, helping to solve scientific questions, correlate data, come up with novel solutions, yada yada yada things that we'll read about in papers but won't really effect us. Some years after that, then we'll notice it, but like, in how more efficient certain technologies will have become, subtle things like those self driving cars will become better, although at that point they'd have already surpassed most of our driving skills anyway, or Syri/Alexa/Google will be smarter and easier to use, or your phone or VR headset has better graphics while killing less battery life. Meanwhile the big thing will be how businesses are using it to basically "stock market" better. I imagine it'll be used to organize things that are hard to organize now - namely interdisciplinary things that require knowing traditionally separate fields.
Basically, we'll be using the first generation of AGI for the same things we're already using regular AI for, just we'll be getting better results from it.
Now, second or third generation or higher AGI? Then we might start seeing more of the really fun and cool sci-fi stuff. But even then? It's still not a wizard! It won't just start burping out robots and farting nanobots and gifting us with digital cyber brains and immortality and uploading us to the matrix. Whatever AGI does, will still need to be tested, built, discussed, have millions to billions spent on it, etc.
So yeah. We might get AGI before the decade is out. We might even be affected by it to some extent by the time the next decade is out. And it might even get really cool by the time the decade after that is out.
At least, that's my down to the ground conservative guess. Basically, AGI will have the most immediate affect on whoever builds it first, by making them more money leasing out it's artificially intelligent might for businesses, and for those businesses purchasing that service by making them business better and thus making more money. Then it'll impact scientists and engineers by helping them science and math better, coming up with novel solutions or theories to this or that thing, depending on whichever field of science they're pursuing. And then it'll impact the rich as the first novel AGI enhanced consumer products become available. Then slowly as prices come down, us. Because even after AGI comes online, the future it'll bring still needs to be built, and it's still going to be built in our current capitalist system.
But after all that? When things do change, they'll have done so gradually in such a way that we'll barely have even registered the change unless we stop and actually think about it, like how we treat the super computers we call our phones. So there's nothing to prepare for. The future just happens, in fits and spurts but it happens, and there's no way to get ready and prepared for it. You just got to be ready and open to notice when it does happen and take advantage of it when you can. And until that fateful future comes, dream big.
On top of that, when AGI does get here? It's not a wizard! It's not god-like. It probably won't even be that good. Like, it won't be the transhumanist/futurist mythical "Singularity" superintelligent AGI of science fiction. That'd probably be a few decades down the road even after that. It'll be useful, it'll be impressive, but it'll still be limited. Whenever it does come online, the first year or so will just be some scientists, programmers, and engineers throwing tests at it and trying to commercialize it for business somehow and generally just studying it and running it through it's paces. Then it'll be opened up for academia and business uses, helping to solve scientific questions, correlate data, come up with novel solutions, yada yada yada things that we'll read about in papers but won't really effect us. Some years after that, then we'll notice it, but like, in how more efficient certain technologies will have become, subtle things like those self driving cars will become better, although at that point they'd have already surpassed most of our driving skills anyway, or Syri/Alexa/Google will be smarter and easier to use, or your phone or VR headset has better graphics while killing less battery life. Meanwhile the big thing will be how businesses are using it to basically "stock market" better. I imagine it'll be used to organize things that are hard to organize now - namely interdisciplinary things that require knowing traditionally separate fields.
Basically, we'll be using the first generation of AGI for the same things we're already using regular AI for, just we'll be getting better results from it.
Now, second or third generation or higher AGI? Then we might start seeing more of the really fun and cool sci-fi stuff. But even then? It's still not a wizard! It won't just start burping out robots and farting nanobots and gifting us with digital cyber brains and immortality and uploading us to the matrix. Whatever AGI does, will still need to be tested, built, discussed, have millions to billions spent on it, etc.
So yeah. We might get AGI before the decade is out. We might even be affected by it to some extent by the time the next decade is out. And it might even get really cool by the time the decade after that is out.
At least, that's my down to the ground conservative guess. Basically, AGI will have the most immediate affect on whoever builds it first, by making them more money leasing out it's artificially intelligent might for businesses, and for those businesses purchasing that service by making them business better and thus making more money. Then it'll impact scientists and engineers by helping them science and math better, coming up with novel solutions or theories to this or that thing, depending on whichever field of science they're pursuing. And then it'll impact the rich as the first novel AGI enhanced consumer products become available. Then slowly as prices come down, us. Because even after AGI comes online, the future it'll bring still needs to be built, and it's still going to be built in our current capitalist system.
But after all that? When things do change, they'll have done so gradually in such a way that we'll barely have even registered the change unless we stop and actually think about it, like how we treat the super computers we call our phones. So there's nothing to prepare for. The future just happens, in fits and spurts but it happens, and there's no way to get ready and prepared for it. You just got to be ready and open to notice when it does happen and take advantage of it when you can. And until that fateful future comes, dream big.
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
I won't be doing anything extraordinary. I don't believe that AGI will suddenly greatly change everything. It doesn't (unfortunately) work that way. Real changes needs momentum. For example, building gigafactories or chip/mems fabs takes time. Even exponential change needs years to gain momentum. The number of robots is going to rise exponentially (and I believe it's a double exponential).
The closest important change for me personally may be media synthesis, so I will be able to synthesize using AI what I want to see or hear. I mean images mostly, not videos, whole movies or computer games - that's further in the future. I imagine reading books in the late (perhaps even mid) 2020s that are illustrated by AI, which is going to be DALL-E 2 descendant. I just read a book that had only 2 illustrations inside and I believe it could have 30 with AI.
I hope that my computers become much smarter during this decade. So they will actually understand me. I might buy a new robot vacuum cleaner if it's going to be much more intelligent, because this one is as smart as the dumbest insect. I imagine seeing more and more robots cleaning outside glass on buildings. Probable there will be exponentially more videos featuring AI or content made by AI. Deep fakes quantity doubles every 6 months.
I imagine that in 2029, I will be seeing autonomous cars, but I probably won't own one myself, because of the cost. Progress won't stop and will continue gradually with or without AGI, but it will be slightly faster with AGI. I don't believe we are anywhere near a point where further progress is not possible without AGI. 1 in 4 people still lack access to flush toilets, which are XVIII century invention, so there's still a lot to do even without AGI. For example wealth inequality isn't caused by the lack of AGI. Wars and terrorism aren't caused by the lack of AGI. 5G networks are scarce and that's not because of no AGI. Everyone could have at least 10 gigabit Internet connection even without there being any AGI. GTA Definitive Collection isn't so bad because of lack of AGI. We could end extreme poverty and hunger without any AGI. There could be more and better dentist care with or without AGI. Everyone could have access to safe drinking water without AGI. There could be 50 m² of living space per person without AGI. I do believe however, that for a serious Mars colonization project, we need AGI.
The closest important change for me personally may be media synthesis, so I will be able to synthesize using AI what I want to see or hear. I mean images mostly, not videos, whole movies or computer games - that's further in the future. I imagine reading books in the late (perhaps even mid) 2020s that are illustrated by AI, which is going to be DALL-E 2 descendant. I just read a book that had only 2 illustrations inside and I believe it could have 30 with AI.
I hope that my computers become much smarter during this decade. So they will actually understand me. I might buy a new robot vacuum cleaner if it's going to be much more intelligent, because this one is as smart as the dumbest insect. I imagine seeing more and more robots cleaning outside glass on buildings. Probable there will be exponentially more videos featuring AI or content made by AI. Deep fakes quantity doubles every 6 months.
I imagine that in 2029, I will be seeing autonomous cars, but I probably won't own one myself, because of the cost. Progress won't stop and will continue gradually with or without AGI, but it will be slightly faster with AGI. I don't believe we are anywhere near a point where further progress is not possible without AGI. 1 in 4 people still lack access to flush toilets, which are XVIII century invention, so there's still a lot to do even without AGI. For example wealth inequality isn't caused by the lack of AGI. Wars and terrorism aren't caused by the lack of AGI. 5G networks are scarce and that's not because of no AGI. Everyone could have at least 10 gigabit Internet connection even without there being any AGI. GTA Definitive Collection isn't so bad because of lack of AGI. We could end extreme poverty and hunger without any AGI. There could be more and better dentist care with or without AGI. Everyone could have access to safe drinking water without AGI. There could be 50 m² of living space per person without AGI. I do believe however, that for a serious Mars colonization project, we need AGI.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
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funkervogt
- Posts: 1178
- Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 pm
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
I don't think that proto AGI and real AGI are "incredibly close." If I had some kind of reliable inside information that they were going to be invented by 2029, I'd probably stick to my current life plan. The only difference is that I might buy an off-grid house in the forest to use as a refuge in case the AGI were hostile. I'd spend the next few years slowly upgrading it, stocking it with supplies, and landscaping the lot.
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
I am trying to brainstorm how to make time go faster.
I want to base my life around getting over the "hump" being that I get access to the resources and technology to be happy.
I want to base my life around getting over the "hump" being that I get access to the resources and technology to be happy.
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MythOfProgress
- Posts: 140
- Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:42 am
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
the hopium in here gets overbearing at times, so to read something like this is a little refreshing given the current circumstances, regardless, don't really think ill change anything too significantly since the premise of the question is flawed and makes the assumption of AGI automatically translating towards a better future for us all or if its existence would even be sustainable given the vast energy requirements that come with maintaining artificial intelligence models.wjfox wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:35 am I'm still going to have lower back pain, insomnia, bouts of extreme fatigue, astigmatism in my left eye, problems with my digestion, and other stuff that's too embarrassing to talk about on here. I'm still going to struggle with horrendous living costs in one of the world's most expensive cities. I will still feel boredom, frustration, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions that come from living in this world. I will still feel hatred towards politicians, our economic system, wealth inequality, climate change deniers, racists, and other stupid people.
R.I.P Ziba.
Re: How will you change your life now that AGI is super close?
Energy cost is not a significant barrier to entry for AI models when the renewable energy global capacity additions are expected to rise this year to 320 gigawatts – equivalent to an amount that would come close to meeting the entire electricity demand of Germany or matching the European Union’s total electricity generation from natural gas. Solar PV is on course to account for 60% of global renewable power growth in 2022, followed by wind and hydropower.
Even less so when you consider the huge efficiency gains that were proven last December: https://towardsdatascience.com/meet-m6- ... 7092cbe5e8
https://www.iea.org/news/renewable-powe ... ottlenecks
Moreover we have no idea what a true superintelligence is actually capable of. Imagine trying to describe the construction, manufacture and usage of an WIFI router to someone in 1850. If you had the required information it would be entirely possible to have built such a device hundreds of years ago, the reality though is that even if you could there is no way you would have been able to use it or even know what it's usage could be. That is the stage we are at when it comes to understanding a theoretical general superintelligence that is orders of magnitude beyond what a mere human mind can understand or learn or comprehend, we have a tendency to anthropomorphize - to apply human limitations logic and functioning to a non-evolutionary-based intelligence because as it stands we are the only reference for any true intelligent life. Doing this though is a fundamentally flawed way of calculating or understanding how an artificial superintelligence will behave what goals it may set or what it may decide to deem as relevant or irrelevant information would be similar to a squirrel trying to understand the value of a human stock trader's portfolio - we do not have the required level of data or intelligence to be able to understand how something that is not human and is incredibly more capable may act or what it may do.
Even less so when you consider the huge efficiency gains that were proven last December: https://towardsdatascience.com/meet-m6- ... 7092cbe5e8
https://www.iea.org/news/renewable-powe ... ottlenecks
Moreover we have no idea what a true superintelligence is actually capable of. Imagine trying to describe the construction, manufacture and usage of an WIFI router to someone in 1850. If you had the required information it would be entirely possible to have built such a device hundreds of years ago, the reality though is that even if you could there is no way you would have been able to use it or even know what it's usage could be. That is the stage we are at when it comes to understanding a theoretical general superintelligence that is orders of magnitude beyond what a mere human mind can understand or learn or comprehend, we have a tendency to anthropomorphize - to apply human limitations logic and functioning to a non-evolutionary-based intelligence because as it stands we are the only reference for any true intelligent life. Doing this though is a fundamentally flawed way of calculating or understanding how an artificial superintelligence will behave what goals it may set or what it may decide to deem as relevant or irrelevant information would be similar to a squirrel trying to understand the value of a human stock trader's portfolio - we do not have the required level of data or intelligence to be able to understand how something that is not human and is incredibly more capable may act or what it may do.
