Have some shame? Or if genuinely not able to feel that, at least minimally perform it?
As another poster said, hating the player is acceptable, as is self-hate for the things we must do. We're all complex and can't all make the grand gestures, but I would hope people have dissonance about that, and maybe sit with it and speak to it like it's real * shrug*
I already chose a job that I believe is minimally harmful within the AI space. I work in an autonomous vehicle company which I believe puts safety first and is on track to reducing injuries and deaths to humans. This is not the thread where I wish to debate that premise, but that's just my belief so I'm happy to work towards it.
I realize that we are complicit in enabling Anthropic, OpenAI, NVIDIA, TSMC, et al. in the rest of the AI space.
I only have space to think about this so much. I still need to pay rent next month, and I don't have enough saved up to pay rent for the remaining several decades of my life.
Hey, I retract my comment. I'm a little confused by what to think or feel in all this that's going on -- sometimes I feel hopeful, and sometimes anxious. It's not fair to lash out at strangers who I don't know and shouldn't easily judge, so I apologize.
I have mad respect for people who can actually throw away a shit ton of financial security for themselves and their families for something they believe in. It’s rare for a reason. Everyone has a price.
If you can get financial security without selling your soul, fewer people would do that, across every industry where selling your soul for security is possible.
I feel people who sell their souls to be in finance or work as corporate attorneys for bad companies deserve criticism, but people who sell their souls to work for an enterprise they themselves believe is at the very least going to destroy civilization absolutely are pathetic and evil.
If AI is going to do that, AI needs to at least get good enough to autonomously produce all the chips and energy it needs to execute. That seems like a pretty far way off, considering we don't even have robots that can fold laundry competently.
If AI exists but there are still humans producing chips for it, I don't think you would be able to say that civilization has been destroyed
I am not the relevant one with a position on this. I am referring to people who believe this but work at these companies (especially in capability research).
I’m reacting to this
> I also feel a need to amass retirement levels of wealth right ASAP before this all comes crashing down, and then move to somewhere else away from this mess.
and further context is the WSJ story from yesterday discussing the resignation of anthropic engineers and another anthropic engineer who says it will “kill us all by the end of the decade”.
Essentially I continually hear the perspectives of people who work at AI labs. They frequently brag about escaping the “permanent underclass” and often rationalize ideas like “well better they be the ones in poverty and not me”.
> well better they be the ones in poverty and not me
I'm not this extreme, and don't wish for others to be in poverty.
But I do wish for myself and my family to not be in poverty or suffering.
If the system is designed for these to be in conflict, that's not something I have the power to change, beyond voting for the less-shitty of 2 shitty choices on a ballot. At the end of the day I will prioritize myself and my family, and I think that's natural for 99% of people.
It doesn’t matter what you wish if you are actively working towards causing others to fall into poverty on the idea that you and your family must become absurdly wealthy to survive.
My personal take is almost all capitalist enterprises are on a path to cause destruction to civilization. AI is not unique here, and every industry is "AI or die" right now.
As for short term survival, I don't have the option to just quit in protest without income, nor do I think that will be effective in accomplishing anything. If anything I will just pigeon-hole myself into becoming a worse future-victim of the system than I already would be.
How valuable will your money be once civilization is destroyed and you, self-admittedly, have no skills that would help you after the collapse? Seems like a better use of your time may be in identifying and developing those skills and cultivating a community around yourself (or joining in one) that can survive your predicted end of civilization.
Money is useful to weather the storm and relocate myself and my family to somewhere less affected by AI, or possibly have some minimal influence over redirection of resources in an AI-controlled future world. It's just insurance and optionality.
> have no skills that would help you after the collapse
That's not what I said. I only have 1 high-paying skill that can help me buy that optionality, and that's software engineering. I don't know of anything else high-paying that I could study quick enough, and other high-paying industries including lawyers and doctors are also predatory in different ways. I don't think the alternatives are better.
As for post-collapse skills, I think the ultimate is just being able to live off the land and move to somewhere that has the right climate and natural resources for that. Moving to another country isn't logistically straightforward, but money can help remove some of those hurdles, both in terms of residence permits and in terms of buying land and housing. So the priority is still financial. The learnings happen in parallel.
> Seems like a better use of your time
Not looking for advice on time management advice. I'm only trying to protect my family's future by building optionality. My individual decisions aren't going to change what the system is doing.
I guess my real confusion is this: You keep predicting the end of civilization in your comments, but you only seem to talk about collecting money to deal with it. Does your end of civilization not also involve the severe loss in value of our current currencies and other financial assets? How do you intend to grease palms to get into other countries if the USD (I'm making an assumption that you live in the US, adjust as appropriate) has become valueless because the US as a civilization has collapsed?
I don't keep assets in USD. I also don't think civilization collapse is the same as an economic collapse. In fact I don't think we'll have a long term economic collapse, but the new economy will be run by AI and will be absolutely terrifying for anyone who still needs to work for that AI to survive.
