It isn't just work, it is purpose. We work for a purpose. Look at countries where unemployment is high, look at the level of depression in trust fund kids, or the transition retirees go through — a sense of identity and purpose are hard things to live with out.
I believe there is still plenty of work AI can't do, much of it centers on caring for other humans. Community and relationship were once the center of how we lived together. Now too much of life centers on a relationship with a computer rather than each other.
Excellent. Work is fundamental because creation is our essence or nature. Artistic expression grounds meaning. As Nietzsche says in a notebook "he who does not find greatness in God, finds it nowhere...he must either deny it or create it. Or, to recall Aristotle, hands are the instrument of intelligence, analogous to the soul. What are we doing with our free time? Creating AI as our aesthetic fate:
Postponing this question would indeed be a fatal mistake. I fear that if fewer and fewer people have to work, and more and more people start facing existential crises, a lot of them will take up one of humanity's oldest hobbies: slaughtering each other. Any reason will do: money, power, boredom, ego, depression from feeling useless, an attempt to impress online friends, the service of dangerous ideologies picked up during copious free time scrolling the infinite cesspool that is the internet.
"In that scenario, I guess what still matters is that my kids are good people, and that they have wisdom and virtue and things like that. So I will do my best to try to teach them those things because those things are good in themselves, rather than good for getting jobs."
I can't help thinking as I read this, "What a rotten apple capitalism is" ...that WORK is somehow the source of meaning in this economy... the lies of our culture are compelling!
This is a classic sci-fi trope if anyone has interest. "What if all work was gone?" Ilium by Dan Simmons comes to mind, the outlook wasn't any better than Douthat and Kokotajlo scrounged up.
But it's the wrong question, I think. Life's meaning has to contemplate two facts. 1) We are created creators, and 2) we are embodied souls. My theory is that if all work goes away, we'll keep making work, for right and wrong reasons, but ultimately striving to fit into what we were made for. As for virtues, I'm forever disappointed that people think they are superfluous to good business, but in the world system, good business is concerned with profits, not eternity.
We don't have to peer into the future to get answers to some of these questions.
People who have no goals, and who are cared for to an extent that they don't have to work, generally have sad lives.
I frequently think of our pets. They have it all, and with no responsibility. But they are pets. They don't get to make the decisions in their own life. There is no sense of accomplishment. But they are comfortable and enjoy life. There are those of us who can live like that, and those of us who can't.
The industrial revolution, now in its third century has already automated most production. AI is not some new frontier. It's just an extension of the old one.
It isn't just work, it is purpose. We work for a purpose. Look at countries where unemployment is high, look at the level of depression in trust fund kids, or the transition retirees go through — a sense of identity and purpose are hard things to live with out.
I believe there is still plenty of work AI can't do, much of it centers on caring for other humans. Community and relationship were once the center of how we lived together. Now too much of life centers on a relationship with a computer rather than each other.
Excellent. Work is fundamental because creation is our essence or nature. Artistic expression grounds meaning. As Nietzsche says in a notebook "he who does not find greatness in God, finds it nowhere...he must either deny it or create it. Or, to recall Aristotle, hands are the instrument of intelligence, analogous to the soul. What are we doing with our free time? Creating AI as our aesthetic fate:
https://apablog.substack.com/p/4ea9c33b-6022-40e6-ac7a-dbf52be28d94?postPreview=paid&updated=2024-11-27T15%3A00%3A42.972Z&audience=everyone&free_preview=false&freemail=true
2027?
Postponing this question would indeed be a fatal mistake. I fear that if fewer and fewer people have to work, and more and more people start facing existential crises, a lot of them will take up one of humanity's oldest hobbies: slaughtering each other. Any reason will do: money, power, boredom, ego, depression from feeling useless, an attempt to impress online friends, the service of dangerous ideologies picked up during copious free time scrolling the infinite cesspool that is the internet.
Great stuff Santiago!
"In that scenario, I guess what still matters is that my kids are good people, and that they have wisdom and virtue and things like that. So I will do my best to try to teach them those things because those things are good in themselves, rather than good for getting jobs."
I can't help thinking as I read this, "What a rotten apple capitalism is" ...that WORK is somehow the source of meaning in this economy... the lies of our culture are compelling!
This is a classic sci-fi trope if anyone has interest. "What if all work was gone?" Ilium by Dan Simmons comes to mind, the outlook wasn't any better than Douthat and Kokotajlo scrounged up.
But it's the wrong question, I think. Life's meaning has to contemplate two facts. 1) We are created creators, and 2) we are embodied souls. My theory is that if all work goes away, we'll keep making work, for right and wrong reasons, but ultimately striving to fit into what we were made for. As for virtues, I'm forever disappointed that people think they are superfluous to good business, but in the world system, good business is concerned with profits, not eternity.
That’s not my idea of utopia. If that’s the future, at 75 years old, I hope I don’t live to see it. I agree with many of the above observations!
We don't have to peer into the future to get answers to some of these questions.
People who have no goals, and who are cared for to an extent that they don't have to work, generally have sad lives.
I frequently think of our pets. They have it all, and with no responsibility. But they are pets. They don't get to make the decisions in their own life. There is no sense of accomplishment. But they are comfortable and enjoy life. There are those of us who can live like that, and those of us who can't.
The industrial revolution, now in its third century has already automated most production. AI is not some new frontier. It's just an extension of the old one.