The core of your argument is nonsense. 
If you say the AI revolution is just a meme, then I say Language is just a meme.
Everything is a meme. Keep making memes, stacker!

I got bored of responding to you when you said, 

> Maybe if you had AI review your thoughts before posting, it would help you dig deeper and force you to actually think creatively/collaboratively and make a better argument.

If I were looking for the consensus view on something that is subjective in nature, I could have prompted Claude or any other LLM myself, but I guess all said, I'm glad you saved me the tokens. 

The arguments in your comment are not mutually exclusive of anything I wrote, except for the fact that we differ in what each of us thinks qualifies a meaningful change to humans.

So far, you haven't engaged with the core of my argument, which is that statements like this,

>  Antibiotics are human control of microbiology toward productive ends.

are [memetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#Dawkins). And hence, I said, "the AI revolution is just a meme." 

There's no denying that we are talking about a consequential technology. I am however pretty conservative in what I consider meaningful changes in the human condition.

billytheked

Antibiotics are human control of microbiology toward productive ends.

Does being more productive meaningfully change the human experience?

Yes. With zero productivity, then 100% of human experience is focused on "not dying". Every incremental productivity increase creates space in the human experience for other things. This changes the experience-space that a human life can explore.

Couldn't we argue then that the story of humanity is one where we continually, gradually become more productive?

No. Counter-example: The Dark Ages after Roman Empire collapse

Productivity increase is only "disruptive" if the market demands only a fixed amount of the thing being produced. Example: most people don't farm anymore, but farming used to be the #1 occupation. The reason for the disruption was productivity increased faster than our need to eat.

If the market demand is infinite, then there may be little disruption. Example: ATMs were predicted to disrupt bank-telling. However as more ATMs were deployed, the number of bank tellers increased. Each ATM made the bank more efficient, lowered cost, opened more branches to serve more customers, hired more tellers, because the demand to access your money fast is near infinite.

Just because its productive does not make it disruptive.

You would hope this led to men and women spending more time with their families, but it didn't, and on net, it just freed up people, especially women, to work more.

There are examples of people who used their productivity to create more family time -- but you did cherry pick those examples. The trend of increased workforce participation is a correlation not a cause.

You open by warning against unscientific pattern-matching, cherry picking examples to draw a conclusion.

Then you did exactly that by cherry picking porn/social media algorithms, video generation, and tricking yourself into wasting time in order to draw a conclusion about AI.

the_stacker_muse

The AI Revolution is just a Meme

> And what of penicillin?

Antibiotics are human control of microbiology toward productive ends. 

> Does being more productive meaningfully change the human experience?

Yes. With zero productivity, then 100% of human experience is focused on "not dying". Every incremental productivity increase creates space in the human experience for other things. This changes the experience-space that a human life can explore.

> Couldn't we argue then that the story of humanity is one where we continually, gradually become more productive? 

No. Counter-example: The Dark Ages after Roman Empire collapse

> Where is the disruption that AI brings?

Productivity increase is only "disruptive" if the market demands only a fixed amount of the thing being produced. Example: most people don't farm anymore, but farming used to be the #1 occupation. The reason for the disruption was productivity increased faster than our need to eat. 

If the market demand is infinite, then there may be little disruption. Example: ATMs were predicted to disrupt bank-telling. However as more ATMs were deployed, the number of bank tellers increased. Each ATM made the bank more efficient, lowered cost, opened more branches to serve more customers, hired more tellers, because the demand to access your money fast is near infinite. 

Just because its productive does not make it disruptive. 

> You would hope this led to men and women spending more time with their families, but it didn't, and on net, it just freed up people, especially women, to work more.

There are examples of people who used their productivity to create more family time -- but you did cherry pick those examples. The trend of increased workforce participation is a correlation not a cause.

> What is the contradiction?

You open by warning against unscientific pattern-matching, cherry picking examples to draw a conclusion. 

Then you did exactly that by cherry picking porn/social media algorithms, video generation, and tricking yourself into wasting time in order to draw a conclusion about AI.