Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling.
Moreover, truth be told, I don't really see myself doing any less math and requiring less from my skills. At least from the moment I've begun incorporating LLMs into my research workflow to now, the demand I've had from my own skills has only grown. At least in an era prior to Lean formalization.
Humanity is having those discussions, heck you are in one RIGHT NOW not some Hollywood future.
What is coming of those discussions is the ownership class balks at the idea of raising their taxes (see recent interview with bezos), and therefore balks at the idea that you or I should have any value beyond what we produce... And if AI can replace you or I, well how do we survive if we can't produce in a technological society?
i wonder if this is physically/mathematically impossible: the mere act of living involves processing energy, and therefore doing work :)
And there is a lot of energy to be processed in this Universe before the heat death...
Mind you, there are places in the universe that we have no way of knowing ever existed... The non-obserable universe if you will. For when physicists talk of the observable universe, it is only the fraction we have any chance of receiving data/light/radiation of/from
In the (probably unlikely) event that AI use results in a post-scarcity economy in which there's no need to work to survive, a lot of people wouldn't regret sentiments like the ones in question.
On the contrary, it would mean they could work on whatever they please, including potentially standing on the shoulders of giants - the AIs - and seeing even further.
If we actually worked to create a society that work for the benefit of all its members, there would be a lot less reason to worry about developments like these. Much of the worry arises because for various reasons - none of them really good ones - we've ceded control of these developments to the people least suited to manage it.
To a society that provides a livelihood to all humans, equally?
For, I would love to hear how we get from here to there during an era with the largest wealth disparity ever seen in human history. (Yes, it's worse than the robber Baron era of US history). For I have yet to see any signs that the capital/ownership class has any intentions other than vacuuming up even more wealth and power for themselves. And that anathema to your desired outcome.
This is just an application of the philosophy "automate yourself out of a job every 6 months"- I've been doing that for a long time, and the outcome is generally a more interesting job.
The answer is that we simply need to decouple the "right to exist" from "worth."
You should have the right to exist and explore the world simply because you're human, not because you can use your skills to provide some sort of transactional value to someone else. Deprogramming so many people is going to be hard...
Not so many years from now, some of them will surpass you. A few years after that all (that survive to that point) will surpass you.
Does that terrify you just as much?
A child is a living, breathing, growing, and changing conscious entity. It is the natural order for the young to supplant the old, no matter what the politicians and billionaires desire.
"AI" - terrifies anyone who understands the pact our society rests upon: that labor is valued and can be exchanged for goods and services to survive. Thereby enabling a person to support their families without having to do everything themselves.
If AI replaced a noticeable fraction of society, destroying their capacity for work. That threatens and ultimately blows up this compact between working class and capital class... With it, the foundations of a modern technological society.... It may sound like hyperbole, or some fantastical prediction. But really it is basic economics, like econ 101... And personally the last few years have terrified me, not because of AI directly, but because how ignorantly blind many smart and tech savvy people are... You are marching us to collapse with a smile on your face...
Perhaps it is time for life to be considered intrinsically valuable, instead of being "worthy" only based on output or capability. Disability, animal and environmental advocates have been fighting for this for a long time. Not too long ago women and minorities were in the same boat. Even now, there are many advocating and fighting for a return to the dark old days.
> Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling.
Some humans. Many are content to enjoy simply existing, and the beauty of life and the universe around us. Just like many non-scientists today enjoy and benefit from the work of scientists, tomorrow too many will enjoy learning from, and applying the coming advancements and leaps in many fields.
And those of a scientist or other research-type mindset? No doubt they will contribute meaningfully by studying the frontier, noting what remains unanswered, and then advancing the frontier, just like researchers do today; just because scientists in the past solved many questions doesn't mean that there aren't any questions to answer today.
IMHO, AI means that the frontier expands faster, not that it is obliterated. Even AI cannot overcome the laws and limitations of physics/universe: even Dyson spheres only capture the energy of one star, thus setting a limit on the amount of compute, and thereby a limit on intelligence. And we are a loooong way from a Dyson sphere.
PS: I think you're being unfairly downvoted. Your question is not invalid and deserves responses, not downvotes.
A dedicated engineer is always looking to automate themselves out of existence, so that they can move on to the next thing to automate. Ongoing repetitive work is less engineering and more akin to toiling on a line.
It may be the beginning of thinking, but to many who view things on a longer timeline. It starts to look like it will breakdown the frameworks of which are required to get to that position. Otherwise, you just end up retreading explored ground. This removing the joy of discovery from any humans hand/mind.
Perhaps your name-calling is not actually as logically grounded as you think. It definitely seems to depend on unfounded leaps.
This technology is solving interesting math/physics problems for us, which is completely different.
