With the rise of AI skills replacing humans in everything from acting, singing, writing and photography, to knowledge work in business, the question should be asked what humans are going to do in the future. A lot of people are pretty certain that there will be something worth doing, but I wonder how much is just hope. As I see it, the impetus for learning new skills is rapidly decreasing, because it is far easier to just get some machine to do it, as the result is going to be better than most people can accomplish themselves, and soon, any people can accomplish.
Why learn a new skill in the first place?
If you look at the way we have evolved, it is our ability to learn that has separated us from other animals. We have been able to learn to use our bodies in ways other animals couldn't, to craft tools other animals couldn't, and pass on information in ways other animals couldn't to be the greatest predator on earth, despite our soft skin and lack of power. It is our brain that has kept us competitive in the animal kingdom.
And with the way we have built the economy, it is also our brain that has kept us competitive against each other, which is the reason that people study and get good marks, to compete against other people in the job market. Generally, single skills are not enough to be competitive, which means there are a cluster of skills required to compete for a single position. Even with roles that seem very singular, many skills are actually required to be competitive.
For a simple example, a person could be the fastest person on earth, but if they don't have the ability to maintain their diet, they won't be. The potential to run fast requires a host of skills to realise that potential.
Most of us will not be the best in the world at anything at all. Not even close. However, for a while now we have been competing at a global level, which has turned a lot of potential local stars, into people who didn't even try. Nobodies. There is nothing wrong with being a nobody, but what happens when everyone is a nobody, because they have nothing to offer anybody?
We are already seeing clear direction in this path now, where many people are choosing to stay alone, without a partner of any kind, because it is easier. People fear getting hurt (meaning emotionally hurt) so much, that they would rather stay alone. It means that they have made a decision that there are more negatives in relationship, than positives. The explosion in adult "toy" sales is a good indication of this, where people believe like in Flowers, by Miley Cyrus,
"I can love me better than you can"
And even in the relationships, partners have to not only compete against the toys, but also against the unreal world of AI-characters that are designed to be far more perfect than any human can be, and will do whatever the prompt tells them. People's favourite artists are fast becoming characters, not people. Men aren't in competition with Brad Pitt and women with Angelina Jolie, they are in competition with an impossible at every level fantasy.
And our collective interpersonal skills have also declined, because we have been relying on tool support for a couple decades to do the work for us, from the finding a partner, to the way we interact with them to get onto a date. At the date, reality sets in or soon will, but there are a million other profiles waiting to hook-up, so it doesn't matter. But it will. Because at some point, no one can compete, so no one bothers.
Physical skills and trades like plumbing will likely last the longest as a profession, because it is going to take time to be able to develop a robot that is able to negotiate all the different conditions and positions that are required. But, that too will eventually decline, because the design of pipe work in buildings will change in ways that make it far more standardised and therefore, easier to programme for also.
The legacy will homogenise.
And this homogenisation is where we are heading now, driven by globalisation originally and then by all the algorithms and standardisations that have lowered the variation in order to improve profits.
It is all for profit.
Unlike how we would learn to make ourselves more competitive as a species, now the underlying driver is more competitive in business. Business doesn't require people at all to be successful and will generally perform better when people can be excluded from the operations, because people have too much variation. Variation is a cost.
As I see it, eventually all the human skills that we can possibly learn could be replaced by machine learning instead. That means, that there is very little reason to learn anything, other than for the pleasure of it. But that pleasure will always be soured by our own comparison to what else is out there, which will be so far ahead of us, we will never actually feel "good" at anything we do. And while some will try to deny it, we are competitive animals because we are comparative animals.
We have preferences.
And more and more, those preferences are being met through artificial means, where we can feel that we are getting what we want, when we aren't getting anything at all. We can feel that we are able, when we can do nothing ourselves. We can feel in love, when there is no object of our affection, just a machine.
As far as learning new skills goes, even if there are areas where some humans could compete with machines, the road to get to the point where that is possible is so long, requires such dedication and innate talent, and has no reward along the path, that it is unlikely that anyone will take it. And unfortunately, this is likely to be the same for many people who have the need for a loving relationship, but just aren't willing to learn the skills required to have one. So instead, they will choose a machine to fill the emotional void, and their body.
And think they are better off.
When we are no longer learning, when there is no reason to keep on pushing ourselves, even if we are taken care of physically, we will be living in a dystopic environment of stagnation. Our minds will atrophy, as will our bodies, and we will decline into more obscure preferences to fill the void, to feel special, to feel anything at all.
For a time, there might be a renaissance of learning, where people will return to craft, but eventually, without purpose, it will fall away. Because if we have no needs, we have no drive, and without drive, our willpower is not enough to sustain us for long and we will give in to convenience once again.
The same thing we are doing now.
We are learning nothing.
Taraz
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I guess it is about personal choices still.
To me, education is about learning how to learn, and I guess hopefully stumbling onto a path to a career you can pursue through secondary education. Once we progress toward adulthood (or completion of brain development) then we can make a living and are equipped to learn what we want for a better (more lucrative? More personal connection? More creative?) life. Or not.
Right now, it unfortunately seems that the whole world is actively burning anything good we have in order to be a cog in the machine that makes the disgustingly wealthy even more so. Ai is in the hands of the rich. Where does that leave us?
If anyone thinks that menial tasks being handled by ai (that is controlled by the insane) will mean we simply have more time to do the things we want to do, well they might be right. Unfortunately, it will leave us without the means to afford a decent lifestyle or participate in many of those fulfilling activities.
After rumination, I like to then progress to engaging my intellect and deciding what I am going to do about it. I am going to study the enemy/ally and constantly look for opportunities. Right now, I am learning how to use the tool to scale up the business without having to scale up the Human Resources investment which is not great I suppose. I preserve my people who could be replaced today with ai and encourage them to constantly be looking for new advancements and opportunities we can capitalize on together.
For now, I choose to learn regardless because of what I know it does for our brains, responsibility to those I charge myself to care for, and I know the value of having a purpose (and the shit hole that swallows someone when they don’t have one).
I choose to not let the sky fall on me and to take control of what I can. For what that will be worth in the future? Probably not much but enough to get me by while others look to do nothing and complain at their results
Idealistically. If only schools were taught in that way.
Actively and happily it seems. It is quite nihilistic, but driven by hedonism of a sort. I think it leaves us broken - because unless we are truly able to go off-grid and survive, society will collapse around us.
It is those menial tasks, those entry level positions that help us learn for more, while paying a little along the way. Imagine a coder who has to be better than the AI - they first have to learn all the basics and then all the advanced, and then the expert levels, before they can start adding value. They will be 50 before they get their first job, and a year later, they will be obsolete anyway.
I feel like the sky is falling on me at the moment perhaps. Fighting a losing battle. Still fighting though I guess.
I think this maybe the eventual future, but this will probably not happen during our working lifetime. At almost fifty I have another fifteen years or so before I can retire and I think it will take over twenty years to go to where machines are starting to really displace most of the workforce.
And I think physical professions such as plumbers will be one of the first displaced by robotics. Machines are already really good at finding ways to deal with all kinds of exceptions and rules, just think Splinterlands bots, humans cannot beat those... But machines are not great at imagination so far and creative thinking, but with time even that would go...
I am not so sure about that. I think it might happen a bit faster. But even if it does take twenty years and you are retired, does that make you safe? The world will be a very different place if 50% of people are unemployed and hungry. So will retirement funds, investments and rent returns.
Maybe at some point. But I suspect that it might not be worth making a toilet fixing robot who climbs behind cisterns in old houses for a while. But as said, the designs will change.
It is bleak and makes me glad I'm old! I'm quite happy I grew up when I did.
as much as I can't imagine my life without internet and am glad that things like medicine has advanced greatly sometimes I think that I would be happier if I lived in the past. And how much in the past I would be willing to go?
Even going back 50 years might be okay.
Yeah, I was in between. Not a bad childhood, but have had to deal with all of this modern crap :)
I do worry about my grandkids.
I think we still have a bit of time before AI gets to the point where it doesn't really need us anymore to get things accomplished. Who knows though. I for one and not ready to give up the reigns right away. I don't know, at this point, I kind of think the cat is out of the bag and no matter how hard we fight against it, it is coming. I don't think that's a good thing either, but knowing that, you can make a decision about how you want to do things moving forward.
Yeah, there is no fighting it, but it doesn't mean we have to go quietly into the night either.
It will need some of us for a while still. The problem is, your community and mine isn't held together by I only a few people. When enough are out of work, everything around it crumbles.
Yes, those are good points!
This really exposes how much of learning is tied to competition. Without the need to “beat” anyone, it will come to a point where the passion will be removed from the process and what is left will be just the reward or end result. AI removes the process, and i believe innovation and originality will also take a tumble. Ingenuity comes from the process, which A.I removes
Yes. When there is no "journey" there is no innovation.
today I wrote a second post using grammarly to fix my mistakes. I can see that it can be useful but I still hate it.
because placing all missing signs takes very long.I also sometimes ask chatgpt what to play in blackjack. Few days ago I won 3k hp (probably my biggest win ever and crossed 30k HP stake) but from time to time I get tired of asking chatgpt what to do. chatgpt just tells me what is the best play according to basic strategy. Useful but of course that still only makes House edge smaller. But still asking chatgpt again and again:Is annoying.
I wish that I could memorize all the right moves. And avoid using AI.Also I saw an advertisement in youtube that said something about creating your own AI ,,companion.'' sad. But if even I (AI hater) started using it some cases I imagine that someone else would be intersted in AI companions as well.
The more you use AI, the stupider you will get. Blackjack is just card counting though, so it is probably going to always be better than someone who can't count cards. The thing is, when everyone is using AI, are there any winners?
I don't gamble though.
In regards to an AI companion. I think I'd rather just sleep and never wake up.
The governments of the world need to establish some form of control over the AI sector, I've always maintained. They should come together to form a body of laws that every citizen and country would abide by.
I think the reason this may not have happened is because no one sees the rise of AI machines as a treat to human existence. If they did they'd be having conferences for it the way they did when global peace was threatened, especially by the use of deadly weapons in the second world War.
Let's not forget AI takes cyber and other forms of crime to another level. It's clear to me AI if not controlled, it will cause a lot of chaos in the society. Something needs to be done.
Governments are the worst for it. Their control is still profit fed, except driven by populist stupidity on top.
I agree that we become nobody due to an AI-dominated world. As AI continues to handle more responsibilities, we need to discover new reasons to seek knowledge and creativity. If not, I think we could face stagnation in our personal development and the progress of society.
Look at all the people posting to social media like X, getting zero replies, but feeling like they are heard. People don't like being a nobody.
Our advanced brain has made us different and superior to other animals. But even though we are called social creatures, we have become rivals to each other in the world of competition. We are becoming more dependent on technology day by day and it seems that we have left ourselves behind a lot. Even today, many people are comfortable with a lonely life, but we are social creatures. People are more afraid of pain than joy.
We are no longer competing against each other, it is just machine against machine.
The part about “everyone becoming a nobody” hit hard. If AI gives everyone equal access to excellence, then skill becomes less of an identity and more of a commodity. What fills that space afterwards is the real mystery.
We are already seeing it. Identity is less on skill these days than on a self-provided label. People make themselves feel special by naming themselves something special. They don't need skills, they don't need to do anything special - they just give themselves a new pronoun, or a gender label, or whatever.
Physical skills and trades like plumbing will likely last the longest as a profession, because it is going to take time to be able to develop a robot that is able to negotiate all the different conditions and positions that are required.
Are these not already in practice today? Like there are now sophisticated AI machines that might wipe out major lucrative skills, well if maybe I am guessing wrong but I fear it might soon be in reality. There are building more crazy devices out there. But again there is always a edge on humans capacity over machines, they act base on programmed rules not precision, so a minor mistake can be continually done if not quickly adjusted and again machine do not have emotions or thinks in probability. Thanks for this masterpiece @tarazkp
A robot to fix your toilet? They don't exist. Neither are there robots that pull wiring through a house. Not yet at least.
Today I listened to a poet's poetry on YouTube. Half of the videos were created using AI. I can say that some of the videos are pleasant to watch.
Erich Kästner, one of my favorite authors, envisioned a world where almost all of the work is done by machines in one of his books for children, "May 35th". Back then, the vision was that everyone was enjoying their spare time by learning new skills, practicing what they knew, gardening, and so on. Little did he know...
People could do just that when their work is not needed anymore, nor their consumerism. But they most likely won't. They happily jump into the matrix-pods as long as they can watch reels all day.
I never thought about it, in fact, I never had such strong ambitions to be the best at something.
With what has now come with AI, I am thinking only in this direction, that I will continue to be an amateur, but I will use AI as a tool, an extension of my brain for what I am already doing. Now, as for what implications this will have on society as a whole, we can look at the individual segments that have started using it. I think that what happens will also be influenced by the cultural environment in which individuals find themselves.
Because it's fun!
But yeh I know some people despise even the mildest of inconveniences and discomforts xD
Very interesting!! In my work life I am constantly out running AI and don't think it will every become a part of my art in anyway. It surprises me how many people are embrassing it, and even letting AI make decisions for them.
I found it interesting how you say that many people are choosing to be alone. In my personal experience I see friends of mine being forever single not because they want to be but because they don't have a clear idea of the type of person they want to be with. So they just end up with th person who pursues them ... for a while at least.