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This tweet seems very close to right to me, about a topic where almost everything I see seems wrong, either subtly or catastrophically.
The thing I vibe with is that this might be the last decade in which humans have a lot of meaningful control over how civilization goes, so do something beautiful. Do something beautiful that you actually believe in, do the beautiful thing, make your life into a work of art.
What I like most is his sensibility that the intersection with human systems takes so long, and has so many invisible internal feedback loops that overwhelm what seem like more foundational forces. This phenomenon is exactly relevant to bitcoin, too.
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the last decade in which humans have a lot of meaningful control over how civilization goes
This seems to go against the rest of the post, since he's telling people to be creative, something AI can't do as its effectively just autocomplete trained on the past.
AI's just another form of leverage, so if people are inherently creative then AI just gives them more leverage to manifest their ideas into reality. Luddite mentality has always been wrong about leverage, we re-forested land after the invention of the saw mill... less people have died in wars since nuclear weapons... etc etc.
How many great ideas are out there inhibited by productive capacity that autonomous technology solves for? Are the 2030s the return of beautiful architecture when AI and Optimus bots can safety review and construct anybodies design? Framing things as job elimination is backasswards and always has been.
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I think the advice to do something beautiful / creative is good not only as economic advice, but as advice for the soul -- be maximally human, because the expansive definition of that is the last vestige of competitive advantage, but also the entire point of being alive. It's easy to forget that. At least, many of us find it alarmingly easy to forget.
Luddite mentality has always been wrong about leverage
I think that's been true on the macro view, for most of the reasons you say. It has not, as best I can determine, ever been true on the micro scale, e.g., the Luddites were not wrong that the introduction of machines would be the end of their ability to inhabit the world in the way they knew how to do. On net, it's been great, but that's little comfort to the people who have fallen off the edge of the world.
Framing things as job elimination is backasswards and always has been.
The job-centric view of things has always ground my gears; it's like some people believe there are these Platonic entities called "jobs" that everyone must have, and so the discussion fixates on the details about what will happen to them. A preferable view is that life is all a giant dance, and sometimes the circumstances change and then the nature of the dance changes, and now being a horse trainer is part of the dance, and now it isn't, and now being a guy who carries heavy things in a wheelbarrow is part of it, and one day that will probably stop, too. But through it all the challenge is simply to figure out how to dance in a way the local environment will reward.
I don't have a sense of what this will mean post-AI, but I think it may finally be different. Doing something beautiful seems like as good a strategy as any.
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advice for the soul -- be maximally human
Yep, there's some great Navalisms about this that everyone should read/listen to
inhabit the world in the way they knew how to do.. little comfort to the people who have fallen off the edge of the world.
This is self-imposed though, refusing to adapt is a guaranteed way to fail to adapt... the ability to reframe from lamenting change to seeing new opportunity is entirely in the control of the Luddite. They have't fallen off the earth, they swan dove. It does highlight the importance of leadership though in talking people off the ledge and lighting other paths.
Doing something beautiful seems like as good a strategy as any.
Yep, and while it definitely feels like we're approaching something akin to techno-singularity, but people have also said that constantly throughout time. This advice would have been good in every period.
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I believe AI will be some kind of weird social darwinism with steroids. Only very talented and creative people of value will succeed in life.
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27 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 15 Feb
Do the beautiful thing before the massive unemployed rioter's come for your sats.
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I agree with that... because just as AI is going to change the way we see life and how we develop as people...
Bitcoin is going to be without a doubt the world's means of exchange... and we are already creating the work of art...
By stimulating our circular economy through sats and also stacking for our future!!
Without a doubt, in 2030 I will already have several UTXOs 🤠
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The thing I vibe with is that this might be the last decade in which humans have a lot of meaningful control over how civilization goes, so do something beautiful. Do something beautiful that you actually believe in, do the beautiful thing, make your life into a work of art.
This is so sad, but it is true.
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Even though AI knows how to perform the task, the amount of testing and adjustments needed to match human “sensibilities” will still limit its capabilities to some extent. AI is a revolution like many others, but we can’t treat it as if it were a thinking being from another galaxy that we found buried in the ice. It learns from us, humans, and fortunately or unfortunately, this process of fine-tuning is something it can’t fully do on its own because it isn’t human.
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(Oh, FYI: the tweet is one of those very long tweets, there's a lot more than just the section I quoted.)
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