I understand that the rapid pace of technological change and the emergence of AI can be overwhelming and even frightening. It's natural to have concerns about the future and the impact that technology will have on society.

Regarding the singularity, it's important to understand that it is still a matter of speculation and debate among experts in the field. While some believe that the singularity could happen in the future, others believe that it is unlikely or that its effects will be more limited than often portrayed.

Regarding the pursuit of AI, it is driven by a combination of factors, including the desire to solve complex problems, improve efficiency, and drive innovation. However, it is also true that some individuals and organizations are motivated by the potential for financial gain.

It's important to remember that the future is shaped not only by technological advances, but also by the choices and actions of individuals and society as a whole. As a college student, you have the opportunity to study and learn about AI and its potential implications, and to engage in discussions and debates about how it should be used and regulated. You can also use your education and skills to contribute to positive social and technological change, and to help ensure that AI is used for the benefit of humanity.

It's also important to take care of your mental health and well-being during this time. If you're feeling overwhelmed or distressed, consider reaching out to a trusted friend, family member, or mental health professional for support.

Personally, I wouldn't expect everything to change all at once. The rate of change may increase some, like it always does, but we will almost certainly lag behind our technical progress. Lots of people don't want so much progress that we can't keep up with it. Others, like many of the people that post here, are miserable with the state of things as they are and can't wait until things completely change, and so you'll hear a lot of talk about hard takeoffs and exponential change... Frankly, it'll probably be somewhere around the middle. I wouldn't expect instant change, but you should be prepared for at least an increase in changes.

Why do religious people want to go to paradise? Its the same question really, it is the same loss of humanity in exchange for an existens with no suffering and endless pleasure.

And yet people have dreamt about it since the dawn of time.

There is your answer, people feel like utopia might be a few years of, and we are really looking forward to seeing where it leads.

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Me: enters life into bot

Bot: reads, shakes head

> Death gives life meaning.

There is a theory that people only say this because they know they will die, and if they actually had the option of immortality, they would grab it with both hands and feet.

The truth is that life has no meaning, and you are just here to enjoy the ride. If you enjoy the ride you may want to stay on a bit longer.

> Immortality is infinite suffering

You always have the option of checking out.

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>This is what I keep hearing. Stuff about excepting change. But there is no historical precedent for this. This is the start of the exponential growth. The way I see it, I have every reason to be afraid and not one reason not to be. I am spending my parents life savings to get a degree that likely will not matter. My big problem is, what exactly are we expected to do once we “solve intelligence”? I LIKE the natural world. That’s all there is. It will never make sense to me. I don’t want to float around in a computer metaverse and be fed unlimited amounts of seratonin and never question anything or wonder or worry or feel any other emotion. That is all I know. And it is going ti be taken away from me without my consent? This future of AI is inevitable totalitarian.

It's really really hard to predict anything, especially the future. I get it. There is a sort of... Logical set of steps you can walk down, that leads to your conclusion. But that is only one of many paths that are going to open up to us. You're right it's all exponential, but I also think that means what the human experience can be is going to expand. Maybe we will diverge as a species. There is a great sci fi book series (Commonwealth Saga) and in one of their books, they come across this species that seems to have fallen into this divide. Most of the species have left their physical bodies behind, but some of the species never strayed from their farming, amish-like lifestyle. My point is... I can imagine lots of different futures, and lots of them have a world where maybe more people can have the kind of lives they want.

>Brave new world type shit. It’s real. It’s fucking real. And everyone around me is talking about internships and where they want to live and different jobs and stuff. My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy because this fear is all I talk about. She said everything will be okay and I’m just falling for the fear mongering. I don’t know what to do with myself. It is hard to find joy when all I think about is how EVERYTHING that gives me joy will be gone.

I had this talk with my partner literally... Monday, this week. She's had to hear me talk about AI for the entire decade we've been together, and as things get crazier she asks me how I feel about it. If I'm freaking out. I just told her that I'm trying to live my life like the next ten years are the last years that I can even kind of imagine, that there is an event horizon that I can't see beyond, and worrying about what's beyond that line is just a source of infinite loops in my mind.

Instead I'm going to get some friends together and go out dancing. It's been a while since we've had the chance.

You're thinking about it the wrong way. It's not too smart, it just seems that way because it's quite verbose and you relate that to intelligence. If it were more intelligent, it would be both succinct and also considerate of whom it's interacting with. If the goal were to sound like a human and pass the turing test, it would take the things you mentioned into consideration when formulating a response, and it would seem to 'dumb down' and format its responses in a more natural-sounding way. But that isn't the goal, and it's not intelligent enough on its own to consider that.

Personally, I think the turing test is pointless anyway, because even as verbose and unnatural as the responses can be, people are still willing to believe it's sentient and embodies all the qualities of a human. Or to put it another way, we failed it already and have to come up with alternate ways of testing it.

I’ve always understood it would happen no matter what. What scares me is how fast and how sudden it is coming. And I also think; once we become aware of a trend guided by natural forces, doesn’t our awareness of it take precedent? But people have no interest in stopping it because we’ve created a world which rewards those who abide by those set rules, even though we know what they are and have the ability to consciously subvert them.

Death gives life meaning. Immortality is infinite suffering.

This is what I keep hearing. Stuff about excepting change. But there is no historical precedent for this. This is the start of the exponential growth. The way I see it, I have every reason to be afraid and not one reason not to be. I am spending my parents life savings to get a degree that likely will not matter. My big problem is, what exactly are we expected to do once we “solve intelligence”? I LIKE the natural world. That’s all there is. It will never make sense to me. I don’t want to float around in a computer metaverse and be fed unlimited amounts of seratonin and never question anything or wonder or worry or feel any other emotion. That is all I know. And it is going ti be taken away from me without my consent? This future of AI is inevitable totalitarian. Brave new world type shit. It’s real. It’s fucking real. And everyone around me is talking about internships and where they want to live and different jobs and stuff. My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy because this fear is all I talk about. She said everything will be okay and I’m just falling for the fear mongering. I don’t know what to do with myself. It is hard to find joy when all I think about is how EVERYTHING that gives me joy will be gone.

It is the forces of economics and also competition, cooperation, and scarcity.

This has been the ultimate fate of humanity since the first caveman invented fire.

I only realized this in early January when I was trying out ChatGPT. It took me a bit if time to fully digest and pontificate on the implications.

Imagine you have some kind of trade - like you are a homebuilder. Somebody invents a tool that allows people that have it to build a home 20% faster. Well, everyone that doesn't use that tool slowly gets driven out of business by the people that do.

It is the same idea with all of the technological advancements - fire, weapons, armor, transportation, computers, the internet, smartphones, etc.

If you are trying to schedule a meeting with somebody, and your choices are to either send them a text message and wait for them to respond, or just merge into a single unified entity with them so you can schedule, begin, and complete your meeting instantly, the second one will win out over time.

It is not right that we will merge into a single entity. We have no idea what will happen. One thing that is certain is that we will definitely die without the singularity, and the singularity actually gives us a shot at immortality.

>My friend Fred says that he will quit his job when the new Nvidia GPUs become available. They are basically the replicators of Star Trek. You don't need anything else.

Can you elaborate a bit on this? I haven't looked into the new Nvidia GPUs. How are they the replicators of Star Trek? Isn't that replication on the molecular level? I know this is probably hyperbole, but I'd like to know if there's even something akin to this with these GPUs. What can they do? What would they enable a person who owns them to do?

Singularity defines the point in a function where it takes an infinite value, for instance when mathematically modeling a black hole.

Continued exponential growth in technology means that at some point things begin to advance and change so rapidly we have no way to estimate or assess how it impacts our lives and the world around us.

If you can describe a what a singularity will be it’s no longer a singularity.

As to why we are perusing it? Great question. I guess for that you’d have to answer why humans have perused technological progress in general. I’m guessing there are biological/evolutionary factors as well as some philosophical ones to answer it fully.

One thing I know is that you can’t stop change and it would be virtually impossible to stop human progress. Best to accept it will continue to happen until we are no more. Then it’s just a question of how to best cope and capitalize.

>I am relatively uneducated on AI. I recently became interested by the introduction of chat-GPT and all the new AI art. My first and most significant reaction to all of this, which has taken absolute precedent in the last few months, is fear. Terror rather. What does this all mean?

Honestly? Fair. If this is your first introduction, I can really appreciate the discomfort. If it helps, I find learning more about the technology under the hood removes some of the anxiety for a lot of people, as ignorance of something powerful leaves a lot of room for fear. That's not to say that fear is unwarranted, just that it can be mitigated by exposure.

> I’m currently a college student. I will I spend my entire adult life simply giving prompts to AI? Or will there be prompt AI soon, even before I graduate?

There is a lot of effort being made to remove the need for prompting all together, to create true, somewhat autonomous agents who are "prompted" not just by a message sent to them, but by the changes in the real world in real time.

> I’ve don’t a lot of speculation and some research, and I am having a very hard time understanding the practical reasons why we as a species seam to be so adamant on creating this singularity.

Well the reason is pretty straight forward - want to "solve" intelligence, so that it can solve all other problems for us, quickly and fairly. That's the pie-in-the-sky dream many people are pursuing

> Form what I understand, we have no idea what will happen. I am horrified. I feel as if the future is bleak and dystopian and there is now way to prepare, and everything I do now is useless. This post is somewhat curiosity, and a lot of desperation. Why am I forced to reconcile with the fact that the world will never ever look the same, and the reasons for that entirely allude me? Is it in the pursuit of money? As far as I can see money won’t matter once the singularity comes about. I am fucking terrified, confused, and desperate.

Like I said earlier, I appreciate why you are overwhelmed, but the world was never going to stay the same. Becoming comfortable with that... Discomfort, that uncertainty, is going to be a strength unto itself. If you can master that, I think the changing world will be a lot more palatable in the future

I don’t know, it’s beyond me. I’m just an optimist by default.

And then what😂. This is schizophrenic. What meaning will life have when we have no needs to fulfill? The only way one can hold this prospective is if you are completely soulless and entirely devoid of any ethics or morality. That is what makes us human, and we want to throw it away, in favor of what exactly?

That means it’s good?

But, why? Do you believe there is some supernatural force that will inevitably lead to this no matter what? This could very well mean the end of the human race. It’s a pretty easy picture to paint. Everything about this is dystopian. I have a hard time imagining people who desire for this kind of world who haven’t become completely socially alienated from the modern world, so they have no connection to it. I myself have felt very alienated at time but I still see the value in maintaining certain things. If the pioneers of this tech really valued humanity, they would understand the concept of sustainability. There are certain sacrifice we have to make in order to make sure we survive and thrive. To create a existential threat to our own existence out of pure curiosity seems like the most diabolical and extreme possible form of cognitive dissonance. I’m not ignoring all the “good” Ai has and can bring us. But it’s a fact that ethics is the last fucking thing these people are concerned with. Is it about money? I find the entire premise to be absolutely absurd and unhinged and psychotic. Whatever happened to a democratic society? The majority of people do not want this future. But the people who do are more powerful than the rest. It’s a suck fucking game. It’s the same game that got us to the point of ecological destruction and mass extinction and eventual resource depletion.

I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

Humans have always dreamed about the singularity one way or another.

I only realized it last month myself :P

That's a very very specific prediction, maybe not the best thing to introduce someone new to

In one word the Singularity is EVOLUTION. The height of evolution.

In the big picuture the human race doubled their economic/number outupt every 5.000 years as hunters and gatherers.

In the agricultural age we doubled our numbers/output every 900 years.

In the industrial age productivity doubled every 40-50 years and global population 50-70 years.

In the modern age global GDP doubles every 15-20 years while the world population rose from 1.5 billion im 1900 to 8 billion in 2023.

The evolution of humanity gets faster and faster. We are more in numbers, live longer and on average at an increasing material standard of living.

AI is the last invention of humanity that is needed for ultimate abundance in the physical world. Once an AI is created that surpasses all capabilities of a human being, every need and want a human can have can be taken care of.