alt Hacker NewsI imagine this is like how microwaves put restaurants out of business, how TTS obviated literacy, how the automobile age made it unnecessary to walk, how Zoom caused every office to close, how helicopters put mountaineering firmly behind us, Amazon obsoleted brick and mortar stores, and payment cards made cash disappear.
It's not only ahistorical to fail to consider preferences and politics, but it's also an indictment of the author's ability to judge the quality of a machine output versus that of a competent person. No doubt that like any of the examples above, some displacement of resources and effort will happen. But that doesn't indicate that something as central as "thinking" (lol) will fade into the past.
Replies
Side note, I did stop using motorized transport (due to the luxury of full remote jobs) and it's quite an eye opener. For places in a 3 miles radius, walking is often a full blown bonus. Less time, more fun, incredibly better for mental and somatic health. Morning and evening walks are priceless.
> how the automobile age made it unnecessary to walk
Given how little Americans walk and how much blame their sedentary lifestyle has gotten for obesity and diabetes and so on, i don't think this is a good example.
EDIT: If anything it's something of a counter-example: of an activity that technology has made to a great degree superfluous, and which has to be added to one's lifestyle simply for the purpose of wellness.
If you're making the restaurant comparison, look at how many restaurants now just order everything premade from Sysco and "cook" it with a TurboChef™ convection-oven-microwave.
You do realize that a number of those are true right?
Cash is dead in many places. Stores all around me have "cash not accepted" signs.
For many Americans walking is dead. Sad but true. Cities got designed or redesigned to be car first.
Amazon put numerous types of stores out of business. There are entire categories of products that can now only be bought online.
Audiobooks replaced reading for a lot of people once those audiobooks became available on their smartphones, for others it was podcasts. For many, they walk only to and from their car.
I've saved no end of hours of transport thanks to Zoom and Teams meetings, and hybrid is now a thing (just not for me).
Bricks and mortar stores around here have been empty for years in some cases, and I'm the last person in the office who carries cash.
Seriously, how can people read this and take it serious lmfao
Your argument is like Terrence Tao’s yesterday for Math 2.0 - “don’t you want to understand your cancer treatment?” Simple answer “I couldn’t give a flying f**” you give a series of examples that span over 100 years, and imply that the progress over the last 6-12 months is just another instance. It’s a contrarian ignorance, but in reality nobody cares about snowflake thinking except your family, friends and art lovers. That’s why Etsy crafts are irrelevant compared to steadily improving cheap quality you get for the most products they you rely on every day - none of them depend for production on someone’s “craft” it’s simple economics driving them instead. Realize that the process happens now for thinking - and useful to distinguish hubris from reality.
> how the automobile age made it unnecessary to walk
It made it unnecessary to ride a horse.
> Amazon obsoleted brick and mortar stores
Pretty much did.
> payment cards made cash disappear
Pretty much did in China. A good example how something seems essential for someone is just completely replaceable for the others.
Mechanisation/Mechanization of farming basically put 99% of farm-workers out of a job.
Banking apps closed 99% of high street banks (here in the UK at least).
Amazon is basically destroying the shopping high streets.
Technology has a way of disrupting what we've been doing for generations. I think the whole AI thing isn't made up - we're going to see rapid change in a very short time frame. Personally I'm trying my hardest to adjust, as I don't want AI to "happen" to me, by learning the skills that I can only predict will be important.
* Some figures may have been pulled out of the air :)