I once read a book by a primate researcher that started with a charming paragraph something like this.
Growing up, I always wanted to become a lowland gorilla. Instead, I became a baboon.
He'd studied and gotten the right degrees, but the wildlife research organization that hired him sent him to study baboons instead of lowland gorillas. He became intimately familiar with them. I might have my sources crossed here, but the gist of it is accurate.
Baboons only need a few hours each day to forage enough to feed themselves. The remaining hours in the day is spent being jerks towards each other.
UBI, Universal Basic Income, is touted by the super-smart set as the solution to the problems that will arise should technology wipe out massive swaths of industry. For example, what happens if all of our trucks become self-driving? No problem, say the people with letters after their names, we will implement UBI and those barely-above-farm-animal humans will be able to eat and maintain their crude dwellings.
Life isn't about subsistence. It's about being needed, genuinely needed. Without that, well, we will most likely become jerks. What else are we going to do with our time?
I don't understand the "Without that, well, we will most likely become jerks." sentence.
ReplyDeleteThat's already happened. Here in the land of "Minnesota Nice", I can't stand the majority of people.
We have a stray cat problem in Minnesota, most of the rescues can't take any in. We got with a trapper with access to money for TNR, and caught around 20 cats (11 kittens that we got homes for).
This morning, one of the strays was on the deck waiting for me to come out to feed them. She even meowed at me. She is the littermate of two of our cats that we caught 2 years ago.
By "stray cat problem" what I mean is we have a "people suck and are completely irresponsible problem".
But yeah, I agree, UBI would not solve a single thing. But Minnesota will find a way to screw it up worse that any other state.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the main thing with UBI is that it is a solution to a problem that we aren't sure yet that we have. Something like that would only be necessary if the better-than-human AI *and* the full general-purpose robots both come to pass exactly as Elon Musk predicts. If either one misses, there will be plenty for people to do for a living for the forseeable future.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I just saw this document from the Department of energy, laying out the areas that they plan on funding research in:
https://www.energy.gov/documents/genesis-mission-science-and-technology-challenges
Reading this, I am not so much concerned about the AI, as what it shows about how the government apparently thinks about AI. They are treating it as if it is a magic genie that will grant wishes if we just figure out how to ask it right. These people have obviously never read any wish-granting genie stories, where things always go pear-shaped for the person making the wishes. This is likely to all end in tears.