alt Hacker NewsThese are all great points but I'd also point out that the 'dark age' scenario is a highly competitive scenario, while the 'golden age' scenario is a highly collaborative one.
I don't think technology will fizzle out in either scenario. In the 'dark age' highly competitive scenario, you will still have those who 'understand what is produced' seeking progress and advancement. They will cohort with whoever/whichever organization is producing the best, most validated results.
I don't think knowledge would be become alien to human understanding, it would just become highly concentrated again as it was in the past. In the past, only the wealthy and noble could afford to spend time on education.
And usually, those who went deep into any field and provided contributions to science were those who had time to devote entire lives to the study or pursuit of knowledge. We still have these issues today, and these issues will always be present.
There is a supply chain of economy, and we provide different rewards based on the value of what is produced. The jobs never go away, the desire for prestige, greed, etc., never goes away. It's why economies exist, and it's why everyone is considering the value of LLMs, and their place in economies, and academies (presumably which exist to advance human understanding/appreciation, but also to prepare younger generations for future work).
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That was my thought as well, that what we're really talking about here is an inversion of our current values, or more accurately the first time that our assumptions about them can be challenged and tested in an automated fashion.
As in: does competition or cooperation produce greater economic gains in terms of cost of living, quality of life, etc?
Subjectively, I've been forced to live and work under a competitive capitalist system that goes against most of my instincts for my entire adult life, which has resulted in a profoundly negative economic outcome for myself.
Others I know have done better, either finding ways to tread water as independent freelancers/artisans or managing to save modest nest eggs (although only by finding themselves on the winning side of the stock market, rarely/never through work at a job).
Vanishingly few have reached economic independence by winning the internet lottery for example, and I don't know them personally.
So based on the evidence before me, competition is a failed model. Yes yes, I'm writing this on an electronic device that cost billions of dollars of R&D to produce. I have food in my stomach and a roof over my head. But have I worked on important problems that would advance the state of the art in my chosen field? Of course not. And neither have most of you reading this.
So I would rephrase the question: will AI allow us to explore cooperation as an alternative economic model to the one we have?
I believe that it will, but not from the top down. If we wait for the wealthy and powerful to share, we'll be waiting forever. No, progress now must come from the most downtrodden among us creating alternative ways to provide time/money/resources to the underemployed and indigent so that they can finally self-actualize outside of the status quo.
Specifically, that means automating necessity. How do I acquire enough money to pay for my food and shelter today, even if I don't have a job? How can I acquire enough money to provide for myself, someone else, and some children (my personal definition of success) without being beholden to an employer? How can I remain insulated from inflation and the tendency for the owners of private property (not personal property) to devalue currency to make the means of production they own more profitable? How can I pay this forward to the next generation so that they can become educated and someday enjoy the commons which I myself have enjoyed? And so on and so forth.
If AI can't do those things, then frankly change may remain forever out of reach. Which makes the question of whether specific fields like math and science will benefit rather moot.
Well, the unlimited competition paradigm has the potential for limitless AI fueled warfare as well.
The original European Dark Ages involved a social collapse and resulting period of raids and warfare. But this warfare was limited by society's very limited resources. A period of warfare where intelligent, autonomous entities are directed or choose to engage in a fight without boundaries against other such things - we're already seen LLMs will cheat to get the answers they are directed to find.