AI & AGI have me kinda terrified

If you’re young, you should be.

I’m not and I’m nearing the end of my professional career. Even if I get the sack tomorrow, I’ve had a very good run. And I have other skills that simply can’t be replaced by AI or robots, so I’m not really worried. Concerned, yes. But not worried.

But I know I won’t have any retirement, that’s for damn sure. Still, it beats not having any professional prospects from the get-go.

All new technologies eventually displace obsolete jobs. But crucially, they usually do it slowly enough that the workers whose jobs are being obsoleted aren’t all sacked virtually overnight (i.e. society has the time to evolve relatively peacefully) and more of the new and better paying jobs are created for newer generations.

The internet is no different. My Grandpa was a telegraph operator. My Father worked for AT&T installing landlines and I’m a computer guy. Both their jobs are virtually gone and mine will be soon. But I did manage to make a career out of it.

The first real, violent disruption is happening now however: AI is on the verge of obsoleting a MAJORITY of all jobs within a few years, and no new jobs are really created to replace them. Society will be deeply uprooted and won’t have time to prepare for the shift. A lot of people will lose their jobs with no alternatives to put food on the table. That’s a recipe for war.

The saving grace for postal services is the rise of online stores like Amazon. They all shifted from delivering mail to delivering parcels.

Hell, I don’t even have a TV in my living room.

It’s like AI was trained on videos of Trump cabinet meetings.

I hate the hospital for the same reason. Nothing like the mixed smells of chlorhexidine and death in a cancer ward.

But as a human, I can at least rationalize being there on an intellectual level

Most people have money in the SP500 through their 401(k), sadly.

https://www.hhs.gov/

It’s worse: unlike Molotov, Zelensky didn’t even bring the cocktails.

Awesome! I didn’t know. I’m gonna try it now. Thanks!

Oh wow interesting. Thanks!

…for the desktop.

Newpipe and Grayjay are still going strong on Android.

Fixed.

There has been so many of them, to be honest I picked the first one I found 🙂

You’re not that important. Nobody wants to kill you.

A car without an internet connection.

Yeah but look at the chaos necessary to overshadow Ron DeSantis…

I’d rather plug my ears and shout LALALALA when I see DeSantis than watch the orange Dr. Evil and the South African Nr. Two wreck the nation.

I mean someone actually shot at drump so it can’t be that complicated.

• Firstly it wasn’t an RPG. I don’t think you realize how complicated it is to get your hands on a functional RPG. Not to mention, if you want to blow up Musk’s aircraft, you probably want a portable surface-to-air missile like a Stinger. Good luck getting one of those too.
• Secondly the dude missed Trump, so it is a bit complicated. You need some sniper skills he obviously didn’t have, and a lot of preparation - and probably a good dose of luck - to set yourself up for a shot and not get caught.
• Thirdly, the dude was wasted. So anybody thinking about fixing America’s problems that way should feel ready to lay down his life for the cause. People usually talk the talk but rarely walk that kind of walk.

The first thing you can do is not buy anything that makes the tech billionaires more money. All they care about is money: don’t give them any if you can help it.

Well then err on whatever you read being written in a positive tone if the intent is ambiguous. If you’re wrong, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you look overly optimistic. But at least you won’t raise your blood pressure feeling aggression that may not be there.

I mean well incidentally. I don’t want to sound patronizing.

Here’s a little something I learned many decades ago:

When you read something someone has written, always remember that you didn’t hear the person’s voice what they wrote, and you didn’t see their body language. So you’re missing 67% of the information that person meant to convey.

Your brain naturally makes up the missing information: it might assign a male or female voice to the author of the text, and it might imagine them smiling or being angry, or in some other state of mind if the text can have several meaning, like in the case of irony of sarcasm (that isn’t explicitely marked as such with “/s”).

My advice is this: when you think someone is insulting you, re-read the sentence, but imagining the person smiling or laughing while writing it instead: does it work too? Does the sentence work better with the author smiling or being angry in your mind’s eye?

This has helped me immensely online. It might help you too.