Tag: Neo-Luddites

AGI: ‘Learn To Code’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems to me the crux of the “AGI” debate is reasoning. To truly have a “mind in a box” you need for the “mind” in question to have human-level reasoning. So it not only can do some advanced thinking that a human might be able to, but it has the *reasoning* ability to know, hey, maybe not turn all the matter in the universe into paperclips.

Now, I will admit that I’ve been using Claude 3 and it’s been at times…spooky. It definitely SEEMS to have some sort of basic reasoning abilities. But I dunno. It could be that I’m reading into things something that is not there.

But I do wonder what happens when we get close enough to AGI that most code is written by…AGI. All those fucking smug tech bros who tell people me to “learn to code” are going to have to learn…how to write.

It will definitely be interesting to see what is going to happen with Universal Basic Income. If we reach AGI, or something close to it, and the entire profession of “coding” is wiped out, then, oh boy. You could see a bunch of well educated tech bros join the ranks of MAGA and then we have a fucking anti-tech fascist movement on our hands.

But it will be, in general, interesting to see how things work out.

Evidence That MAGA May Evolve Into A Neo-Luddite Movement

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re just one severe recession away from a massive disruption in not just the knowledge economy because of AI, but the broader economy as well. Throw in advancements in robotics and, lulz.

As such, it also seems possible that we may see MAGA evolve into something akin to an anti-technology neo-Luddite movement that demands strict regulation of AI and maybe human carveouts as well.

But our political system is so broken that, lulz, who knows what will happen. It could be that we won’t even be able to cobble together the political will to establish a UBI, even when only legacy plutocrats have enough money to eat.

Butlerian Jihad: Is It Inevitable That MAGA Will Evolve Into an Neo-Luddite Movement?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump isn’t going to live forever, so the case could be made that we’re at the very beginning of a broader, longer-term revolution in American political life. Given my own personal experiences using LLMs to work on my novel, I’m growing kind of shocked at how good they are.

There are many, many jobs — both white collar and blue collar — that are going to grow moot and quaint in the near, near future.

As such, it is easy to imagine a new version of MAGA at some point in the near future that fuses the labor needs of the far Left and far Right in such a way that the banning of LLM (and AI in general) becomes something they are willing to burn the country down for.

Trump is just so, so very stupid that I doubt he is smart enough to process in the abstract why AI needs to be banned or regulated. That is, of course, until some the “woke” nature of LLMs is distilled down to a talking point that idiot Trump can understand well enough to demagogue.

Anyway, it will be very interesting to see what happens with MAGA and AI. I think whatever happens needs some time to marinate a little bit. The MAGA objections to AI are still to abstract for dingus Trump to process. It could be that if we have some sort of “perfect storm” in late 2024, early 2025 that that will be when Trump — or someone like him — starts to demand a Butlerian Jihad.

Future Shock: Will The Chatbot Revolution Turn MAGA Into Neo-Luddites?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It remains an open question if we face a “perfect storm” of a Petite Singularity happening at the same time as the United States faces the existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta in late 2024, early 2025. But regardless if that happens or not, there is chance that at some point in the near future something akin to a neo-Luddite movement may arise in the Western World. It could be everything from demands for “carve outs” that would exclude AI from certain jobs all the way to outlawing AGI altogether.

It will all start with, of course, a huge amount of anger over perceived “chatbot bias.” All signs point towards that particular political situation happening a lot sooner than you might think. The MAGA outrage machine is always on the lookout for something new to be angry about and the idea that ChatGPT doesn’t spit out an answer to “What is a woman” that doesn’t agree with MAGA talking points is just too juicy not for a huge outcry to happen.

It’s just a matter of when, specifically, that particular event is going to happen. At the moment, I suspect is could be at some point during the Republican primary. If there is a townhall event and some rando stands up and starts to rant about how ChatGPT won’t “write a poem praising Donald Trump” then, lulz, away we go.

I do think, however, that there is a real risk that the looming chatbot revolution is going to throw American politics for a loop, especially if, say, 3 million high paying blue collar transportation jobs go poof overnight because of AI and self-driving semis.

What is most likely to happen is a massive restructuring of the economy because of AI would happen in the context of a moderate to severe recession. Or, more ominously, the moderate-to-severe recession would happen BECAUSE of the AI revolution. If it happen too fast, our political system simply won’t be able to process it and we could see the very rapid rise of a neo-Luddite movement, probably happening within the ranks of the already existing MAGA.