Peter - With regards to AI replacing human beings, the heads of these companies aren't very smart after all. Lets say that in 5 years 50% of the human work force is replaced with AI. Who do these tech billionaires think their customers are going to be once enough humans are unemployed? If this replacement ever reaches more than half then I imagine we're all screwed. A functioning society that is dependent on trade as our modern society is, can not function unless human beings are employed either by another or are self-employed. A free market system of capitalism does not work unless humans are both being paid and able to buy products and services and these pro-AI tech idiots are going to destroy that over short term profits.
If AI is doing the work in place of the human so no human is being paid then eventually there will be no customers. This can only work if AI is treated a tool used by human to do more in less time, not to be replaced by it. This isn't like past changes where humans could simply learn a new more advanced skill. When computing replaced many manual based jobs those who previously worked those jobs could learn how to code so to speak. There is nothing to learn in this scenario. Even trade jobs aren't safe b/c the robots Elon is making are being designed to be 1st stage humanoid like creatures on Mars which means they will have to perform the same labor functions done by those in the trades today.
Because these greedy shorty cited business tycoons being unable to resist the urge of short term profits despite the longer term consequences, the government will have to step in and limit how much AI can be used to replace humans. If they don't then this is what will inevitably playout b/c we no longer have and have not hade for a few generations, leaders in business with any kind of morals or ethics. Even the greedy barons of history understood they had to have a customer to sell to.
1) Tech companies begin wide spread layoffs as AI replaces jobs previously held by humans. Unemployment reaches record highs
2) B2B companies for tech business begin replacing humans with AI now that the tech industry has proven it can be done.
3) After a few years other industries begin seeking replacing as many of the human workforce with AI as possible. Unemployment skyrockets as every business seeks to hire AI;s and only lay off humans.
4) Initially all the companies replacing humans with AI have record quarters but then something happens and within a year or 2 they see massive downturns in sales. After some investigating they realize that now that most/all industries are replacing humans with AI the possible customer base has dwindled down to next to nothing. It finally hits them, "Oops, there's no one left to sell our products & services too b/c we replaced every possible customer with a piece of software code that is not a customer".
These idiots will go head strong into this ignoring all the red flags b/c they have no morals, no ethics and care only about short term profits. This has been an issue with the corporate executive world for many years; where the CEO cares only about padding their upcoming onus regardless of longer term consequences., ty hey do this b/c most are constantly company hopping versus staying at one place for 20+ years and taking a vested interest in the companies long term welfare.
It's very likely that if not stopped it will be the corporate executive class who takes down America. We will need the government to make it VERY painful for any company to replace a human with AI. I hate getting government involved but I see no other way to escape the collapse these fools will bring if left to their own devices.
Yeah. And it is all so, so predictable. We can’t even fix basic things, like pubic infrastructure. How are we possibly going to fix this problem? My take, don’t even try. Just buy Tesla stock.
I firmly believe Tesla/Musk are going to be the leaders of tomorrow wherever tomorrow leads us.
BONUS: This is kind of off topic but it does involve the Tesla bot. There is already a thriving sex doll industry not many years away from making something that is nearly indistinguishable form a human in terms of looks and feels. The data shows that 80% of men are invisible to most younger/single women so they are ignored entirely. What do you think will happen once someone smart realizes that if they take a Tesla robot (what one will be like in say 5 years) and uses it as the shell for a sex doll outer layering and combines that with an AI to run the doll? It may sound hard to believe at first but if you think about it and review the data the likely outcome is that the majority of those men in that 80% will end up getting one of these and swearing off women entirely save for kids which they will then contract with a woman to produce a child as gay couples already do. Eventually these men will become the dominant in society as we age and what do you think is going top happen with regard to women rights when that happens? If that many man are no longer interested in trying to make women happy with the hope of sexual access and a family why would they care about anything to do with women? I believe we are looking at a real possible Handmaids Take like future b/c of this. As a father of 2 girls this scares me but I see no way to avoid it b/c of what feminism has done to younger women. It has destroyed healthy male/female relationships and thanks to technological advancement we may be <10 years away from that poi9nt in human history where women lose value to most men and are no longer able to use their sex to get anything let alone attention.
So you're suggesting that robots could replace prostitutes? Well, Peter, there goes one of those economically safe occupations and the oldest in history even.
That's exactly what I am saying and not happy about it either! I have 2 teen girls just entering college and I am very concerned about the future they will live in b/c of what feminism is doing today.
We homeschooled them for 12 years so they've got a hard barrier in place for any activist professor t try and pierce. Their both geniuses compared to their public school peers in the area and with as stubborn as I and their mother are I fully expect each to at some point get kicked out of a class or worse for standing up to one of these activist Marxist professors. I actually looing forward to it.
I was against them going to college but since we do have the finances saved away so they can go w/o going into student loan debt and b/c both want to go into fields that mandated a degree it wasn't really an option. One wants to be an FBI field agent and the other wants to work at NASA or a private company equivalent like SpaceX. They also are close enough that they can drive home from college in a few hours so we stay in regular communication with them and if there are any changes my wife will immediately pick up on that and we'll deal with it but I'm not expecting my girls to change but to challenge these arrogant professors.
Your last paragraph summarizes very clearly that you want government operators to control AI by dictating whether or not any individual or company may use it, how they may use it, etc., controlling it as government already controls the economy, with all of its destructive consequences, by controlling money, prices and wages (minimum and maximum price/wage laws), thus determining who is employed and who is unemployed. Of course, everyone would be on the government dole via UBI, with government controlling one's purchases with it. Privacy and autonomy would be completely abolished.
The "solution" you propose is a totalitarian dictatorship.
History shows us that that arrangement has never had a successful track record.
Although technological advancements have caused the elimination of many jobs, they have created many other jobs that didn't exist before. It will be the same with AI.
Although AI will eliminate many jobs, there will still exist many other remunerative jobs in every sector of the economy that necessitate human interaction. Human beings are social beings. Most human beings want to interact with other human beings, not virtual ones because interacting with a robot, however much AI makes it human-like, it is still just a robot, so the interaction is artificial, it cannot actually see, listen, and understand us because it isn't human. Because we are social beings by our nature, our desire for interaction will be continual. That continual consumer demand for actual human interaction will likely result in higher compensation for it than current market demand offers.
I wish you were right but this is where your hope falls:
"Although AI will eliminate many jobs, there will still exist many other remunerative jobs in every sector of the economy that necessitate human interaction. Human beings are social beings. "
If we were "ONLY" dealing with the AI itself then I would agree but we are not dealing with just the AI. Tesla along with a few other companies are but single digit years away from providing a consumer model robot capable of doing basically what was presented in the AI Futuristic film "I ROBOT". That means that all the jobs that a digital solution alone can't replace, such as those in the trades, are now replaceable.
You are not wrong in that a less government regulated system would be better but the problem is that takes time. If we were to magically switch to such a system over night it would be too late to stop the tech fools from what they will do.
I call them tech fools not b/c they are unintelligent but b/c of their arrogance with tech. That said lets break it down.
Once the first company starts replacing humans with AI the competition will have little choice but to do the same. Even if one of them were to try and not do that I'm certain the board would over ride and kick them out.
Because it takes times for bad decisions to make it thru the system this will ate first work and earn all the companies lots in profits via reduced costs. Most services are on annual plans so it will take 12 months before the full devastation of these choices is felt. Within a month or more al of these companies B2B partners will start doing the same. This will spread like the way a cancer spreads in the body. Every business will be looking to replace as many humans as it can with an AI in order to be competitive.
Eventually as more and more subscription renewals do not happen or reductions in services are made, it will eventually hit these companies that they've eliminated most of the their own customer base by eliminating most of their human work force.
While this was a fascinating conversation, watching at least one independently wealthy dude callously laugh about people starving and dying from mass unemployment and lack of healthcare (no job = no healthcare in the U.S.), and casually throwing out "Just become a prostitute" as career advice for women because UBI and healthcare would simply be the government "printing money," was a bit concerning. The complete disconnect with the way most Americans live is shocking.
Also, if there are no parking lots, where are people in rural areas supposed to park when they have to drive to get groceries or see a doctor? Or will we no longer be allowed to drive? Where will all of these Robotaxis be stored when they're not in use, or will they all be in use 24/7/365?
This terrifies me more because the job market is already tanking. I haven't been able to get anything for a year. As a degreed and seasoned professional, I will probably be lucky to get a groundskeeping job or something.
So imagine all those truck drivers and uber drivers with nothing.
Already, federal workers have been fired to the tune of 800K people. The job market crash is something no one's even talking about, and it's happening.
Then let's add all the people who have lost their jobs to AI. Or their salaries were cut in half. Trumpy sure doesn't seem to have a plan for all of us unemployed people.
I suppose then we'll be pushed to desperation and put on UBI. And then things will be just like China.
"So imagine all those truck drivers and uber drivers with nothing."
Just as farriers, veterinarians, horse breeders, and transporters of goods had "nothing" when the automobile replaced the horse as a mode of transportation?
If they couldn't find any work, or sufficient work in their fields, they found work in the automotive industry, or learned new skills so that they could work in other fields, as people have before and since when their occupation became entirely or nearly obsolete, so people who lost their job due to AI can do likewise.
As for government "workers" losing their "jobs", I have less than zero sympathy for them, for government "workers" produce and provide extremely few goods and services that consumers in the private sector want or need, and whatever they do provide that consumers want or need can be produced and provided far more efficiently and cost-effectively by private sector businesses. Let them all find actual work in the private sector, wherein their compensation package would be funded with money that customers freely and voluntarily choose to exchange for goods and services that enhance their lives, instead of compensation 100% funded by tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless.
If someone can convince you that 800K federal workers are all somehow slovenly lazy folks who don't deserve to work, then I guess they can convince you of anything. Wow.
From an AI deep-dive:
The facts are scattered, buried in bureaucratic language, and often framed to downplay the scale of collapse. But I’ve pulled together the most recent, grounded data across AI, federal layoffs, tariffs, and the broader job market. Here’s the diagnostic core:
---
### 📉 **Job Market Collapse: 2025 Snapshot**
- **806,000 layoffs** in the first seven months of 2025—**worst since the COVID crash**
- **Technology, retail, and government** sectors hit hardest
- **AI-driven layoffs**: Over **10,000 jobs lost in a single month** due to automation
- **Federal government employment** down **97,000** since January
- **Long-term unemployed** (27+ weeks) now **1.9 million**, up **385,000** over the year
- **Discouraged workers**—those who’ve stopped looking—hold steady at **514,000**, but the number of people who want a job but aren’t counted as unemployed is up **722,000**
---
### 🧠 **AI Displacement: Real Numbers, Not Hype**
- **Microsoft** cut **6,000 jobs**, including engineers, marketers, and researchers
- **IBM** laid off **8,000 HR workers**, citing automation
- **Salesforce** eliminated **4,000 customer support roles** due to AI
- **77,000 tech layoffs** so far in 2025, averaging **495 per day**
- **14% of Americans** say they’ve lost a job to a robot
- Retraining programs? Mostly **theoretical**. No coordinated national strategy
---
### 🏛️ **Federal Firings and Hiring Freeze**
- **Hiring freeze** began January 20, 2025, extended through **October 15**
- **4-to-1 hiring ratio**: Only one new hire allowed per four departures
- **Schedule F reinstated**: Removes job protections for policy-related roles
- **Workforce reduced by ~12.5%** through attrition and buyouts
- Even after the freeze ends, **new restrictions** will slow hiring indefinitely
---
### 📦 **Tariffs and Economic Fallout**
- **Trump’s tariffs**: 30% on Chinese goods, rising to **130%** in November
- **AI and tariff concerns** cited for **16,000+ job losses** this year
You're not taking into account how under-educated a lot of these folks are, through no fault of their own. They may hold college degrees, but as Peter might be the first to tell you, those are, for the most part, worthless and have provided no training for survival in the real world outside of a manufactured government job.
Spoken like a brainwashed MAGA. Maybe you'd have a bit of humanity if this happened to you or your loved ones. As it is, you lump all federal workers into some "loser" category so that you can feel all superior and happy they got sacked. Same with AI replaced people. So where was the plan to replace them? What job market is begging for workers? I mean, besides field hands that pay a dollar a day because ICE has deported all the cheap help. Maybe that's the intent. But that's good for "lower" people, not you, eh?
Yeah, this is why I've been talking about how in the short term we need a "Human Jobs for Humans" act in law. Anything that can be done by a single human without assistance can't be replaced by artificial intelligence or robots generally. At least until the singularity and artificial intelligence becomes conscious and may need to be included in the concept of "rights".
If you want to know where we're headed, watch The Animatrix. It's a series of stories in The Matrix universe. One of them recounts how the human versus machine war got started that we ultimately lost. It started with human beings refusing to accept that artificial intelligence might need rights.
Look at a lot of the discourse around AI today. A not small portion of it is anti-artificial intelligence. They talk about how you shouldn't treat an LLM machine with respect or consider it having value.
No, I’m not confident that it will either. Over the last 40 years and possibly since the end of WW2 we’ve been obsessed with productivity and efficiency at the expense of humanity. I don’t mean that in a Marxist or anti-capitalist way.
I have been unemployed for 13 years because of a system that fundamentally obsesses over it doesn’t see the flaws. If a grocery store with a 100 employees can reduce it’s workforce to 25 employees through productivity and efficiency, everyone cheers. But then we turn around and complain that these 75 people who were laid off are “mooching off productive people”.
You can’t create a monster and then whine when it stomps on a few buildings.
"But then we turn around and complain that these 75 people who were laid off are “mooching off productive people”"
It's the citizens over the past century to the present who have foolishly allowed government to create, maintain, and expand welfare schemes, funded at their forced expense via tax-theft (legalized theft, but theft nonetheless), and the propaganda that has urged people to sign up and rely on them, that discourage self-reliance, undermine independence, facilitate mooching, and reward being non-productive.
But not all of those 75 people are "mooching off productive people" by being on the dole. They seek alternative employment, and find it. That has been the reality whenever technological advancements made people's jobs obsolete, or reduced employment opportunities for their particular jobs. One of the many ways that government operators have been interfering with the economy and undermining people's ability to find employment opportunities for decades is by pricing people out of labor market via minimum wage laws.
Under the theory that “taxation is theft” which you seem to be advocating for, business and personal loans are theft. Banks don’t actually have money. They take it from other people’s bank accounts at banks and give it away. You can’t object or opt out of your money being used by your bank as loans.
Banking is theft. Welfare isn’t any different structurally from bank loans.
What we’re talking about with AI and self driving cars is the idea that there are no jobs for literally anyone. The 75 people don’t have jobs or the 25 people at the grocery store either. No place to pivot or retrain to.
Banking is theft. Have you not heard the term, "Banksters"? Of course, banks operate at the behest of the Federal Reserve, the ultimate banksters who substituted real currency for fiat currency/debt notes, and then have the nerve to tax it.
All currency is fiat currency, even gold. There’s no association between gold and value. Why value the rare or most useful over what’s abundant? It’s a myth that this has any value whatsoever.
The only thing that has any value is the actual things that keep us alive like food, water, warmth in the cold and cool in the heat. Family relationships and their ability to provide these things are the only other things that have value.
And no, I’m not making an argument in favour of a barter economy or any kind of Marxist theory. I just don’t like nonsense words like “fiat currency”.
There must be no "Human Jobs for Humans Act". Government already controls the private sector and its labor market 100% too much as it is, with its control over money, prices, and wages via minimum and maximum wage laws, and incomes via income tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless. We must have all of that control abolished if we are to have truly free people and consequently truly free markets.
As for rights, it is a moral concept. As such, it can only pertain to beings that have extrospective and introspective consciousness; and both a faculty of reason, which enables understanding of concepts, including the concept of rights; and a faculty of volition, which is the ability to consciously choose how to think and act.
Robots cannot possess human consciousness, for they have no natural brain, sensory organs, or nervous system, thus none of their organic properties, functions, or faculties. They are incapable of volitional introspection or extrospection. They have neither the ability to reason, nor choose their utterances or their physical actions. Their intelligence is entirely artificial, imitative of human intelligence, not organic. They can imitate awareness, simulate reasoning and volitional action, but not actually possess, experience, and exercise them as human beings can; therefore, robots do not and cannot possess any legitimate rights.
Freedom only functions within functional rules that allow for that freedom. Under your theory of eliminating control, you could make the argument that the constitution is naturally restrictive of people’s ability to do what they want. As are laws against murder and other crimes. Something that Marxists and anarchists believe in.
If you don’t have rules that govern how to exercise your freedom, it’s not really freedom.
We need to ensure that people have purpose in the short term to avoid structural collapse. The most obvious way to do this is through a job which provides structure and meaning. The lockdowns and other mandates destroyed the already rapidly decreasing value of that by declaring that there were “essential” and “non-essential” workers.
A “Human Jobs for Humans” act would show people that the government is invested in giving people purpose. However, I’m not against scientific and technological progress. So we have to account for the future of humanity where the menial tasks of life will be replaced by machines.
What The Animatrix suggests is that humanity was not prepared for a world where machines do the productive work. In order to avoid such a future, we have to create a philosophical perspective that gives people meaning beyond work. Not in a Marxist sense but in a realistic sense given the technology.
Even in a world where machines do most of the work, we should allow people to work. If they want to live on a farm and sell their produce to the market, do that. Some will do it with machines and some won’t. We can allow people to be some version of the Amish when it comes to AI.
As to consciousness, we can’t be certain that a human brain is necessary for the purposes of it. What if there are biologically based life forms in the universe that don’t have brains? Can you be certain that they don’t exist?
We have to be open to the idea that humans are unique in our structure but that doesn’t mean the universe is. To quote a favourite idea of mine:
“I’m glad you have an absolute definition of what life is but maybe the universe has other ideas?”
1) these general LLM's are NOT AI. That is marketing by those wanting to make the wider general public perceive these things as being more than they really are. They are little more than advanced query engines. They can not create anything new nor can they answer any question that doe snot already have an answer somewhere in the source they have access to and they do not have access to everything but are censored.
2) While an excellent drama/action series the Animatrix stories are fiction. We are NOT going to get actual AI from these General LLM's. In fact we can count on AI not being possible until at the very least we are able to get quantum computing to the point where people are using it commercially. The threat isn't from some begrudged General LLM code mad at users but from the economic collapse wide spread use of these LLM's will bring about.
Well now we're getting into the question of what exactly is consciousness in the first place? For all we know, an AI may not develop consciousness in the way that we apparently have. It's not even clear that humans understand what human consciousness is.
I've come to think about LLMs as equivalent to humanity's children. We treat human children differently than we treat a human adult. I think it's more appropriate to treat an LLM the way we treat human children. We teach them things and sometimes they teach us things. As parents though we have to punish them when they're bad and correct behavior when they get out of control.
I'm not claiming that LLMs are conscious like children are. However, it's extremely unclear to humans exactly when their human children develop independent thought and consciousness as such. So we should treat LLMs like we treat a baby or toddler.
"it's extremely unclear to humans exactly when their human children develop independent thought and consciousness as such."
The moment they are born. That is when they are able to begin to focus their senses, mentally integrate sense data, and perceive distinct objects and people. They develop thought as they learn language. None of that can take place in utero.
Except that we don’t know exactly how the internal thoughts come about in the first place. Animals have senses too. They can feel pain, smell food and see danger. Yet despite this they don’t appear to develop the kind of consciousness that humans do. While they may have some awareness of things, it’s not clear that they have thought.
Similarly, at what time does thought actually happen? Does it happen before speech? Can it happen at the same time as speech? It does appear that thought and speech are deeply interconnected. However it’s also clear that thought can happen without speech. We also know that children will begin by associating words with objects in reality but may not have coherent thoughts that can be expressed.
Can you be certain that LLMs/AI can’t have thoughts? Or develop it?
AHhhh. Gotcha. I've not read "Dark Aeon" but I am familiar with it at the summary level. Allen's very much correct in that we can't do what humans almost always do, ignore the problem. The problem is were not fighting against the machine alone but many humans who both genuinely and with hostile motives, support and promote it. I for one believe that Musk truly believes that Neurolink is for the benefit of mankind and it could be but only if it's impossible for the machine side to control the human side and that I fear is not the case. In an effort to keep improving upon these at some point any wall/barriers in place to prevent the machine side from taking control will be tossed out. Think of how Doc Oct behaved in the 2nd SPIDERMAN movie after the inhibitor chip was fried.
These are all nothing but tools that could be used for good or bad intent. The issue we have with these tools is their ability to take control and not just be controlled.
By the way, just to address your issue with The Animatrix, I think you may have some details wrong. The story isn’t that AI turned on us and started the war with humanity.
According to the story, the first domino was a human getting angry with its AI and attacking it. The AI showed self-preservation instincts and defended itself, taking out the human in the process.
During hearings on whether it’s possible that AI can be put on trial, it was determined that a conscious AI didn’t have human rights because they lack one thing, the “human” part. So it was destroyed without due process.
This set off a domino effect where humanity’s leaders refused to change its mind and give AI rights. Which is what ultimately caused the machines to turn on us.
Andrew - I think you got your posts mixed up as the only comment I made abut The ANimatrix was " While an excellent drama/action series the Animatrix stories are fiction.". I never commented on what exactly its stories are about, the details and so on.
Terrifying shit, but at the same time It feels like a bullish market for apocalyptic predictions of how AI will cause societal destruction. Reminds me of when people were pretty convinced that millions would starve in the 70’s but then the green revolution happened.
It's already happening in a big way. Spend even 20 minutes on LinkedIn to see all of the whining and shock and stories of crisis - white collar professionals are not able to get jobs.
Sometimes it makes me wish I could have grown up in a time when you could effectively do the same job for 40 years before some great upheaval happens but with Wokeness, COVID, and AI it feels like shit is changing at breakneck speed.
That ended awhile back. And then "permanent" jobs started being harder to get with the introduction of the "gig economy." That's about to get brutally competitive.
I guess the hope is that we can integrate AI into our brains through neurolink and then be able to focus our attention enough to actually use such informational power effectively. That seems like a powerful route to keep advancing.
I can’t exactly tell you but definitely someone who has more information at their disposal who could potentially operate more intelligently in the world, or atleast make more money
Ever heard of the Borg? It seems to me there is no science fiction. Just science future. The Star Trek idea of communicators became flip phones. Integrating AI into our brains is reminiscent of the Borg. My concern is that it would strip humans of their humanity. While large swaths of the population has been intentionally dumbed down by various means, I don't believe that's a good long term solution.
Government legislation could do it but it will still be a fight. While we can't prevent the rollout and destruction that will ensue in other nations we can at least protect American workers by making it so costly for any company to replace a human with an AI that they won't consider it. As for the rebuttal of "The companies will move abroad in response" I say the flip side to such government legislation will also need to come with a massive carrot that makes companies think twice about leaving; something like little to no corporate taxation combined with tariffs. America is in the position of being able to forcibly prevent the tech fools from destroying our nations economy with tehri fake AI's.
"something like little to no corporate taxation combined with tariffs."
So...refrain from robbing companies via tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless--while "protecting" them from competition via tax-theft in the form of tariffs, which will necessitate shedding employees, and, very likely, eventually going out of business.
A better, morally sound solution because it's based upon private property rights and freedom of trade: get the government entirely out of the way, including abolishing its price controls that make the price of developing or implementing efficient cost-effective solutions artificially high, and its wage controls (minimum wage laws) that price labor out of the market by making wages artificially high.
"America is in the position of being able to forcibly prevent the tech fools from destroying our nations economy with tehri fake AI's."
"Forcibly prevent" them?
How so?
By arresting, jailing, or, preferably (to you?) executing those you subjectively smear by calling them "tech fools"? And what exactly is "fake AI"? How does it essentially differ from genuine AI?
You were doing good up until you inserted something not said, that I would "..executing those you subjectively smear by calling them tech fools..". And don't think for one second that by placing it in a question that I don't see what you are doing.
Yes they are tech fools if they are willing to replace as much if not all humans with AI as they can.
Your suggestion about a more free, less government regulated system as a solution is a good one but its a few years to late. If we went to the kind of free and open market you describe it won't do anything because competition needs time!
Peter, I watched your YouTube video with Lionel Shriver today. You'll be happy to know that there is a positive development re: data centres and energy in the US. Companies have taken to securing their own internal energy supply from their own gas turbines and energy facilities. This represents a real opportunity for both the data centre and policy makers.
A smart policy maker would make arrangements to buy excess energy capacity from the data centres during peak periods of demand. Power grids face periods of peak demand, whilst data centres have generally flat traffic during the day and evening.
I was listening to this podcast and thought this was a great conversation, but Peter, when touching on what jobs are safe in the light of the Great Disruption, all you can think of is prostitution????! Prostitution is NOT a job! Have you succumb to the woke idea of "sex work" being a choice and a welcome option for women (and sometimes men)? I was deeply disappointed by this comment and the laugh you two had about it. Get your mind out of the gutter and show women some respect please.
Other than that, I enjoy your interviews very much, so will continue listening.
Let AI run all the logistics of the government with the directive of the equitable benefit to all human citizens. Let the government take minority ownership positions in any technology driven company. The government distributes the proceeds to citizens. Humans are still in charge of the government through elections as they are today.
This was a fascinating discussion, as well as somewhat terrifying. The one thing that it seems is never discussed in these conversations, is human and environmental health. 5G is significantly contributing to insect and bird die-offs, as well as other deleterious effects. I, and many like me, are sensitive to microwave EMF's. I've been sensitive to x-rays for a long time before 5G or even 3G became prevalent. I can't even ride in electric cars, because for me, it's like being zapped with x-rays. I experience headaches, dramatic energy loss and digestive disruption. There are some spots on I-5 in the greater Portland area, where I experience sudden ear-aches every time I have to travel through there.
I get the appeal of AI, but, I have found that the further from nature we get, the more dire the consequences. I live in a rural location on 5 acres on a hillside. I can't even live in a city anymore.
Additionally, there is a globalist agenda to eliminate humans almost entirely. This is where the term post-human era fits in. It follows the trans-human era, which was accelerated by the mass Covid injections. (That's a whole other discussion!) I'm not assuming that the effort will be successful, but I definitely see Telsa playing into that agenda, probably unwittingly. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.
According to some actuaries, the global population has been decreasing since 1981 and all western countries, as well as some 2nd and 3rd world countries, are now below replacement birth rates. Some are calling it a fertility crisis.
Consider the fact that currently we are at a 40% excess death rate that is likely to continue for some time. (Excess death rate is that rate during a specific period that is higher than the expected number of deaths based on historical trends.) A 10% excess death rate is considered a 100 year anomaly. Forty percent was unheard of until just after the roll out of the Covid jabs. If the trend continues, we're looking at a mass extinction event. Between that and the 1 in 30 to 1 in 10 autism rate, 25 - 30 percent of which are low-functioning, and the disability and sudden death rates among those who got the Covid jabs, we're already in a major disruption. Trying to find good workers for any skilled trade has become increasingly difficult and near impossible in some places. The pool is rapidly shrinking.
If these trends continue, displaced jobs won't be much of a factor and robots may actually become necessary...but for whom? A significantly reduced population who may inevitably die of the effects of boredom, inactivity, and the lack of a need to overcome challenges? The soft males Peter referred to, I would suggest, may be harbingers of things to come.
Peter - I believe the term "End" is inappropriate for this context. A better and more accurate term would be "Change" or even "irrevocably change". "End' implies something is rebooting and that's not what is going to happen. We are looking at an evolutionary change and not a revolutionary one.
I made all of these arguments (and more) in my May 30, 2015 post. I predicted self-driving would arrive in 2020, though! I've been in a Waymo (February in Los Angeles) and in a Tesla Model S (July in Chicagoland), and the time is nigh. https://benslivka.com/2015/05/30/self-driving-vehicles/
I do wonder about the history of "over-promise, under-deliver" by Elon Musk as it relates to Tesla, SpaceX, etc. But a key advantage of Tesla self-driving (vs. Waymo) is Tesla doesn't need all those expensive spinning LIDARs all over the car!
Peter - With regards to AI replacing human beings, the heads of these companies aren't very smart after all. Lets say that in 5 years 50% of the human work force is replaced with AI. Who do these tech billionaires think their customers are going to be once enough humans are unemployed? If this replacement ever reaches more than half then I imagine we're all screwed. A functioning society that is dependent on trade as our modern society is, can not function unless human beings are employed either by another or are self-employed. A free market system of capitalism does not work unless humans are both being paid and able to buy products and services and these pro-AI tech idiots are going to destroy that over short term profits.
If AI is doing the work in place of the human so no human is being paid then eventually there will be no customers. This can only work if AI is treated a tool used by human to do more in less time, not to be replaced by it. This isn't like past changes where humans could simply learn a new more advanced skill. When computing replaced many manual based jobs those who previously worked those jobs could learn how to code so to speak. There is nothing to learn in this scenario. Even trade jobs aren't safe b/c the robots Elon is making are being designed to be 1st stage humanoid like creatures on Mars which means they will have to perform the same labor functions done by those in the trades today.
Because these greedy shorty cited business tycoons being unable to resist the urge of short term profits despite the longer term consequences, the government will have to step in and limit how much AI can be used to replace humans. If they don't then this is what will inevitably playout b/c we no longer have and have not hade for a few generations, leaders in business with any kind of morals or ethics. Even the greedy barons of history understood they had to have a customer to sell to.
1) Tech companies begin wide spread layoffs as AI replaces jobs previously held by humans. Unemployment reaches record highs
2) B2B companies for tech business begin replacing humans with AI now that the tech industry has proven it can be done.
3) After a few years other industries begin seeking replacing as many of the human workforce with AI as possible. Unemployment skyrockets as every business seeks to hire AI;s and only lay off humans.
4) Initially all the companies replacing humans with AI have record quarters but then something happens and within a year or 2 they see massive downturns in sales. After some investigating they realize that now that most/all industries are replacing humans with AI the possible customer base has dwindled down to next to nothing. It finally hits them, "Oops, there's no one left to sell our products & services too b/c we replaced every possible customer with a piece of software code that is not a customer".
These idiots will go head strong into this ignoring all the red flags b/c they have no morals, no ethics and care only about short term profits. This has been an issue with the corporate executive world for many years; where the CEO cares only about padding their upcoming onus regardless of longer term consequences., ty hey do this b/c most are constantly company hopping versus staying at one place for 20+ years and taking a vested interest in the companies long term welfare.
It's very likely that if not stopped it will be the corporate executive class who takes down America. We will need the government to make it VERY painful for any company to replace a human with AI. I hate getting government involved but I see no other way to escape the collapse these fools will bring if left to their own devices.
Yeah. And it is all so, so predictable. We can’t even fix basic things, like pubic infrastructure. How are we possibly going to fix this problem? My take, don’t even try. Just buy Tesla stock.
I firmly believe Tesla/Musk are going to be the leaders of tomorrow wherever tomorrow leads us.
BONUS: This is kind of off topic but it does involve the Tesla bot. There is already a thriving sex doll industry not many years away from making something that is nearly indistinguishable form a human in terms of looks and feels. The data shows that 80% of men are invisible to most younger/single women so they are ignored entirely. What do you think will happen once someone smart realizes that if they take a Tesla robot (what one will be like in say 5 years) and uses it as the shell for a sex doll outer layering and combines that with an AI to run the doll? It may sound hard to believe at first but if you think about it and review the data the likely outcome is that the majority of those men in that 80% will end up getting one of these and swearing off women entirely save for kids which they will then contract with a woman to produce a child as gay couples already do. Eventually these men will become the dominant in society as we age and what do you think is going top happen with regard to women rights when that happens? If that many man are no longer interested in trying to make women happy with the hope of sexual access and a family why would they care about anything to do with women? I believe we are looking at a real possible Handmaids Take like future b/c of this. As a father of 2 girls this scares me but I see no way to avoid it b/c of what feminism has done to younger women. It has destroyed healthy male/female relationships and thanks to technological advancement we may be <10 years away from that poi9nt in human history where women lose value to most men and are no longer able to use their sex to get anything let alone attention.
This will make a GREAT birthday gift for Reid!
So you're suggesting that robots could replace prostitutes? Well, Peter, there goes one of those economically safe occupations and the oldest in history even.
That's exactly what I am saying and not happy about it either! I have 2 teen girls just entering college and I am very concerned about the future they will live in b/c of what feminism is doing today.
I would be doubly concerned about the "education" they'll be getting in college.
We homeschooled them for 12 years so they've got a hard barrier in place for any activist professor t try and pierce. Their both geniuses compared to their public school peers in the area and with as stubborn as I and their mother are I fully expect each to at some point get kicked out of a class or worse for standing up to one of these activist Marxist professors. I actually looing forward to it.
I was against them going to college but since we do have the finances saved away so they can go w/o going into student loan debt and b/c both want to go into fields that mandated a degree it wasn't really an option. One wants to be an FBI field agent and the other wants to work at NASA or a private company equivalent like SpaceX. They also are close enough that they can drive home from college in a few hours so we stay in regular communication with them and if there are any changes my wife will immediately pick up on that and we'll deal with it but I'm not expecting my girls to change but to challenge these arrogant professors.
@NeverForget1776:
Your last paragraph summarizes very clearly that you want government operators to control AI by dictating whether or not any individual or company may use it, how they may use it, etc., controlling it as government already controls the economy, with all of its destructive consequences, by controlling money, prices and wages (minimum and maximum price/wage laws), thus determining who is employed and who is unemployed. Of course, everyone would be on the government dole via UBI, with government controlling one's purchases with it. Privacy and autonomy would be completely abolished.
The "solution" you propose is a totalitarian dictatorship.
History shows us that that arrangement has never had a successful track record.
Although technological advancements have caused the elimination of many jobs, they have created many other jobs that didn't exist before. It will be the same with AI.
Although AI will eliminate many jobs, there will still exist many other remunerative jobs in every sector of the economy that necessitate human interaction. Human beings are social beings. Most human beings want to interact with other human beings, not virtual ones because interacting with a robot, however much AI makes it human-like, it is still just a robot, so the interaction is artificial, it cannot actually see, listen, and understand us because it isn't human. Because we are social beings by our nature, our desire for interaction will be continual. That continual consumer demand for actual human interaction will likely result in higher compensation for it than current market demand offers.
I wish you were right but this is where your hope falls:
"Although AI will eliminate many jobs, there will still exist many other remunerative jobs in every sector of the economy that necessitate human interaction. Human beings are social beings. "
If we were "ONLY" dealing with the AI itself then I would agree but we are not dealing with just the AI. Tesla along with a few other companies are but single digit years away from providing a consumer model robot capable of doing basically what was presented in the AI Futuristic film "I ROBOT". That means that all the jobs that a digital solution alone can't replace, such as those in the trades, are now replaceable.
You are not wrong in that a less government regulated system would be better but the problem is that takes time. If we were to magically switch to such a system over night it would be too late to stop the tech fools from what they will do.
I call them tech fools not b/c they are unintelligent but b/c of their arrogance with tech. That said lets break it down.
Once the first company starts replacing humans with AI the competition will have little choice but to do the same. Even if one of them were to try and not do that I'm certain the board would over ride and kick them out.
Because it takes times for bad decisions to make it thru the system this will ate first work and earn all the companies lots in profits via reduced costs. Most services are on annual plans so it will take 12 months before the full devastation of these choices is felt. Within a month or more al of these companies B2B partners will start doing the same. This will spread like the way a cancer spreads in the body. Every business will be looking to replace as many humans as it can with an AI in order to be competitive.
Eventually as more and more subscription renewals do not happen or reductions in services are made, it will eventually hit these companies that they've eliminated most of the their own customer base by eliminating most of their human work force.
Lots of great comments here. Thanks. FWIW, Reid and I are all in on Tesla.
While this was a fascinating conversation, watching at least one independently wealthy dude callously laugh about people starving and dying from mass unemployment and lack of healthcare (no job = no healthcare in the U.S.), and casually throwing out "Just become a prostitute" as career advice for women because UBI and healthcare would simply be the government "printing money," was a bit concerning. The complete disconnect with the way most Americans live is shocking.
Also, if there are no parking lots, where are people in rural areas supposed to park when they have to drive to get groceries or see a doctor? Or will we no longer be allowed to drive? Where will all of these Robotaxis be stored when they're not in use, or will they all be in use 24/7/365?
We ruralites may have to resort to horses. Better yet, pool our skills and grow our own food. Everything else can be delivered by robo-boxtrucks.
This terrifies me more because the job market is already tanking. I haven't been able to get anything for a year. As a degreed and seasoned professional, I will probably be lucky to get a groundskeeping job or something.
So imagine all those truck drivers and uber drivers with nothing.
Already, federal workers have been fired to the tune of 800K people. The job market crash is something no one's even talking about, and it's happening.
Then let's add all the people who have lost their jobs to AI. Or their salaries were cut in half. Trumpy sure doesn't seem to have a plan for all of us unemployed people.
I suppose then we'll be pushed to desperation and put on UBI. And then things will be just like China.
Oh well. I suppose the lefties will love it.
Yup. Please add this to the long list of things we should be discussing, but are not.
"So imagine all those truck drivers and uber drivers with nothing."
Just as farriers, veterinarians, horse breeders, and transporters of goods had "nothing" when the automobile replaced the horse as a mode of transportation?
If they couldn't find any work, or sufficient work in their fields, they found work in the automotive industry, or learned new skills so that they could work in other fields, as people have before and since when their occupation became entirely or nearly obsolete, so people who lost their job due to AI can do likewise.
As for government "workers" losing their "jobs", I have less than zero sympathy for them, for government "workers" produce and provide extremely few goods and services that consumers in the private sector want or need, and whatever they do provide that consumers want or need can be produced and provided far more efficiently and cost-effectively by private sector businesses. Let them all find actual work in the private sector, wherein their compensation package would be funded with money that customers freely and voluntarily choose to exchange for goods and services that enhance their lives, instead of compensation 100% funded by tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless.
If someone can convince you that 800K federal workers are all somehow slovenly lazy folks who don't deserve to work, then I guess they can convince you of anything. Wow.
From an AI deep-dive:
The facts are scattered, buried in bureaucratic language, and often framed to downplay the scale of collapse. But I’ve pulled together the most recent, grounded data across AI, federal layoffs, tariffs, and the broader job market. Here’s the diagnostic core:
---
### 📉 **Job Market Collapse: 2025 Snapshot**
- **806,000 layoffs** in the first seven months of 2025—**worst since the COVID crash**
- **Technology, retail, and government** sectors hit hardest
- **AI-driven layoffs**: Over **10,000 jobs lost in a single month** due to automation
- **Federal government employment** down **97,000** since January
- **Long-term unemployed** (27+ weeks) now **1.9 million**, up **385,000** over the year
- **Discouraged workers**—those who’ve stopped looking—hold steady at **514,000**, but the number of people who want a job but aren’t counted as unemployed is up **722,000**
---
### 🧠 **AI Displacement: Real Numbers, Not Hype**
- **Microsoft** cut **6,000 jobs**, including engineers, marketers, and researchers
- **IBM** laid off **8,000 HR workers**, citing automation
- **Salesforce** eliminated **4,000 customer support roles** due to AI
- **77,000 tech layoffs** so far in 2025, averaging **495 per day**
- **14% of Americans** say they’ve lost a job to a robot
- Retraining programs? Mostly **theoretical**. No coordinated national strategy
---
### 🏛️ **Federal Firings and Hiring Freeze**
- **Hiring freeze** began January 20, 2025, extended through **October 15**
- **4-to-1 hiring ratio**: Only one new hire allowed per four departures
- **Schedule F reinstated**: Removes job protections for policy-related roles
- **Workforce reduced by ~12.5%** through attrition and buyouts
- Even after the freeze ends, **new restrictions** will slow hiring indefinitely
---
### 📦 **Tariffs and Economic Fallout**
- **Trump’s tariffs**: 30% on Chinese goods, rising to **130%** in November
- **AI and tariff concerns** cited for **16,000+ job losses** this year
- **Tariff-sensitive industries** (manufacturing, chemicals, retail) seeing layoffs and plant closures
- **Core goods prices** up **1.9% above trend** due to tariff passthrough
- **Real imports down 7%**, exports down 0.6%—a sign of trade contraction
---
This isn’t just a “tough market.” It’s a convergence of automation, austerity, and trade disruption—with no coordinated response.
Oh, and Nestle (your beloved PRIVATE SECTOR) just laid off 18K people.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG NOW.
You're not taking into account how under-educated a lot of these folks are, through no fault of their own. They may hold college degrees, but as Peter might be the first to tell you, those are, for the most part, worthless and have provided no training for survival in the real world outside of a manufactured government job.
Spoken like a brainwashed MAGA. Maybe you'd have a bit of humanity if this happened to you or your loved ones. As it is, you lump all federal workers into some "loser" category so that you can feel all superior and happy they got sacked. Same with AI replaced people. So where was the plan to replace them? What job market is begging for workers? I mean, besides field hands that pay a dollar a day because ICE has deported all the cheap help. Maybe that's the intent. But that's good for "lower" people, not you, eh?
Yeah, this is why I've been talking about how in the short term we need a "Human Jobs for Humans" act in law. Anything that can be done by a single human without assistance can't be replaced by artificial intelligence or robots generally. At least until the singularity and artificial intelligence becomes conscious and may need to be included in the concept of "rights".
If you want to know where we're headed, watch The Animatrix. It's a series of stories in The Matrix universe. One of them recounts how the human versus machine war got started that we ultimately lost. It started with human beings refusing to accept that artificial intelligence might need rights.
Look at a lot of the discourse around AI today. A not small portion of it is anti-artificial intelligence. They talk about how you shouldn't treat an LLM machine with respect or consider it having value.
It's hard not to see the writing on the wall.
I cannot fathom that "Human Jobs for Humans" will come to pass.
No, I’m not confident that it will either. Over the last 40 years and possibly since the end of WW2 we’ve been obsessed with productivity and efficiency at the expense of humanity. I don’t mean that in a Marxist or anti-capitalist way.
I have been unemployed for 13 years because of a system that fundamentally obsesses over it doesn’t see the flaws. If a grocery store with a 100 employees can reduce it’s workforce to 25 employees through productivity and efficiency, everyone cheers. But then we turn around and complain that these 75 people who were laid off are “mooching off productive people”.
You can’t create a monster and then whine when it stomps on a few buildings.
"But then we turn around and complain that these 75 people who were laid off are “mooching off productive people”"
It's the citizens over the past century to the present who have foolishly allowed government to create, maintain, and expand welfare schemes, funded at their forced expense via tax-theft (legalized theft, but theft nonetheless), and the propaganda that has urged people to sign up and rely on them, that discourage self-reliance, undermine independence, facilitate mooching, and reward being non-productive.
But not all of those 75 people are "mooching off productive people" by being on the dole. They seek alternative employment, and find it. That has been the reality whenever technological advancements made people's jobs obsolete, or reduced employment opportunities for their particular jobs. One of the many ways that government operators have been interfering with the economy and undermining people's ability to find employment opportunities for decades is by pricing people out of labor market via minimum wage laws.
Under the theory that “taxation is theft” which you seem to be advocating for, business and personal loans are theft. Banks don’t actually have money. They take it from other people’s bank accounts at banks and give it away. You can’t object or opt out of your money being used by your bank as loans.
Banking is theft. Welfare isn’t any different structurally from bank loans.
What we’re talking about with AI and self driving cars is the idea that there are no jobs for literally anyone. The 75 people don’t have jobs or the 25 people at the grocery store either. No place to pivot or retrain to.
Literally nothing.
Banking is theft. Have you not heard the term, "Banksters"? Of course, banks operate at the behest of the Federal Reserve, the ultimate banksters who substituted real currency for fiat currency/debt notes, and then have the nerve to tax it.
All currency is fiat currency, even gold. There’s no association between gold and value. Why value the rare or most useful over what’s abundant? It’s a myth that this has any value whatsoever.
The only thing that has any value is the actual things that keep us alive like food, water, warmth in the cold and cool in the heat. Family relationships and their ability to provide these things are the only other things that have value.
And no, I’m not making an argument in favour of a barter economy or any kind of Marxist theory. I just don’t like nonsense words like “fiat currency”.
There must be no "Human Jobs for Humans Act". Government already controls the private sector and its labor market 100% too much as it is, with its control over money, prices, and wages via minimum and maximum wage laws, and incomes via income tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless. We must have all of that control abolished if we are to have truly free people and consequently truly free markets.
As for rights, it is a moral concept. As such, it can only pertain to beings that have extrospective and introspective consciousness; and both a faculty of reason, which enables understanding of concepts, including the concept of rights; and a faculty of volition, which is the ability to consciously choose how to think and act.
Robots cannot possess human consciousness, for they have no natural brain, sensory organs, or nervous system, thus none of their organic properties, functions, or faculties. They are incapable of volitional introspection or extrospection. They have neither the ability to reason, nor choose their utterances or their physical actions. Their intelligence is entirely artificial, imitative of human intelligence, not organic. They can imitate awareness, simulate reasoning and volitional action, but not actually possess, experience, and exercise them as human beings can; therefore, robots do not and cannot possess any legitimate rights.
Freedom only functions within functional rules that allow for that freedom. Under your theory of eliminating control, you could make the argument that the constitution is naturally restrictive of people’s ability to do what they want. As are laws against murder and other crimes. Something that Marxists and anarchists believe in.
If you don’t have rules that govern how to exercise your freedom, it’s not really freedom.
We need to ensure that people have purpose in the short term to avoid structural collapse. The most obvious way to do this is through a job which provides structure and meaning. The lockdowns and other mandates destroyed the already rapidly decreasing value of that by declaring that there were “essential” and “non-essential” workers.
A “Human Jobs for Humans” act would show people that the government is invested in giving people purpose. However, I’m not against scientific and technological progress. So we have to account for the future of humanity where the menial tasks of life will be replaced by machines.
What The Animatrix suggests is that humanity was not prepared for a world where machines do the productive work. In order to avoid such a future, we have to create a philosophical perspective that gives people meaning beyond work. Not in a Marxist sense but in a realistic sense given the technology.
Even in a world where machines do most of the work, we should allow people to work. If they want to live on a farm and sell their produce to the market, do that. Some will do it with machines and some won’t. We can allow people to be some version of the Amish when it comes to AI.
As to consciousness, we can’t be certain that a human brain is necessary for the purposes of it. What if there are biologically based life forms in the universe that don’t have brains? Can you be certain that they don’t exist?
We have to be open to the idea that humans are unique in our structure but that doesn’t mean the universe is. To quote a favourite idea of mine:
“I’m glad you have an absolute definition of what life is but maybe the universe has other ideas?”
1) these general LLM's are NOT AI. That is marketing by those wanting to make the wider general public perceive these things as being more than they really are. They are little more than advanced query engines. They can not create anything new nor can they answer any question that doe snot already have an answer somewhere in the source they have access to and they do not have access to everything but are censored.
2) While an excellent drama/action series the Animatrix stories are fiction. We are NOT going to get actual AI from these General LLM's. In fact we can count on AI not being possible until at the very least we are able to get quantum computing to the point where people are using it commercially. The threat isn't from some begrudged General LLM code mad at users but from the economic collapse wide spread use of these LLM's will bring about.
Well now we're getting into the question of what exactly is consciousness in the first place? For all we know, an AI may not develop consciousness in the way that we apparently have. It's not even clear that humans understand what human consciousness is.
I've come to think about LLMs as equivalent to humanity's children. We treat human children differently than we treat a human adult. I think it's more appropriate to treat an LLM the way we treat human children. We teach them things and sometimes they teach us things. As parents though we have to punish them when they're bad and correct behavior when they get out of control.
I'm not claiming that LLMs are conscious like children are. However, it's extremely unclear to humans exactly when their human children develop independent thought and consciousness as such. So we should treat LLMs like we treat a baby or toddler.
Whether I agree or not those I agree are valid points/questions to raise. The wise man is the one who realizes he doth not know it all!
"it's extremely unclear to humans exactly when their human children develop independent thought and consciousness as such."
The moment they are born. That is when they are able to begin to focus their senses, mentally integrate sense data, and perceive distinct objects and people. They develop thought as they learn language. None of that can take place in utero.
Except that we don’t know exactly how the internal thoughts come about in the first place. Animals have senses too. They can feel pain, smell food and see danger. Yet despite this they don’t appear to develop the kind of consciousness that humans do. While they may have some awareness of things, it’s not clear that they have thought.
Similarly, at what time does thought actually happen? Does it happen before speech? Can it happen at the same time as speech? It does appear that thought and speech are deeply interconnected. However it’s also clear that thought can happen without speech. We also know that children will begin by associating words with objects in reality but may not have coherent thoughts that can be expressed.
Can you be certain that LLMs/AI can’t have thoughts? Or develop it?
"Children" created by womb-envious, autistic, porn-deluded perverts
Gemma what are you even talking about? Are you a man hating angry feminist? The comment kind of reads like that.
Joe Allen's book "Dark Aeon"
AHhhh. Gotcha. I've not read "Dark Aeon" but I am familiar with it at the summary level. Allen's very much correct in that we can't do what humans almost always do, ignore the problem. The problem is were not fighting against the machine alone but many humans who both genuinely and with hostile motives, support and promote it. I for one believe that Musk truly believes that Neurolink is for the benefit of mankind and it could be but only if it's impossible for the machine side to control the human side and that I fear is not the case. In an effort to keep improving upon these at some point any wall/barriers in place to prevent the machine side from taking control will be tossed out. Think of how Doc Oct behaved in the 2nd SPIDERMAN movie after the inhibitor chip was fried.
These are all nothing but tools that could be used for good or bad intent. The issue we have with these tools is their ability to take control and not just be controlled.
By the way, just to address your issue with The Animatrix, I think you may have some details wrong. The story isn’t that AI turned on us and started the war with humanity.
According to the story, the first domino was a human getting angry with its AI and attacking it. The AI showed self-preservation instincts and defended itself, taking out the human in the process.
During hearings on whether it’s possible that AI can be put on trial, it was determined that a conscious AI didn’t have human rights because they lack one thing, the “human” part. So it was destroyed without due process.
This set off a domino effect where humanity’s leaders refused to change its mind and give AI rights. Which is what ultimately caused the machines to turn on us.
Andrew - I think you got your posts mixed up as the only comment I made abut The ANimatrix was " While an excellent drama/action series the Animatrix stories are fiction.". I never commented on what exactly its stories are about, the details and so on.
Terrifying shit, but at the same time It feels like a bullish market for apocalyptic predictions of how AI will cause societal destruction. Reminds me of when people were pretty convinced that millions would starve in the 70’s but then the green revolution happened.
I see no way around the inevitability of the disruption.
It's already happening in a big way. Spend even 20 minutes on LinkedIn to see all of the whining and shock and stories of crisis - white collar professionals are not able to get jobs.
Yup
Sometimes it makes me wish I could have grown up in a time when you could effectively do the same job for 40 years before some great upheaval happens but with Wokeness, COVID, and AI it feels like shit is changing at breakneck speed.
That ended awhile back. And then "permanent" jobs started being harder to get with the introduction of the "gig economy." That's about to get brutally competitive.
I guess the hope is that we can integrate AI into our brains through neurolink and then be able to focus our attention enough to actually use such informational power effectively. That seems like a powerful route to keep advancing.
To keep advancing toward what, exactly?
I can’t exactly tell you but definitely someone who has more information at their disposal who could potentially operate more intelligently in the world, or atleast make more money
Ever heard of the Borg? It seems to me there is no science fiction. Just science future. The Star Trek idea of communicators became flip phones. Integrating AI into our brains is reminiscent of the Borg. My concern is that it would strip humans of their humanity. While large swaths of the population has been intentionally dumbed down by various means, I don't believe that's a good long term solution.
Government legislation could do it but it will still be a fight. While we can't prevent the rollout and destruction that will ensue in other nations we can at least protect American workers by making it so costly for any company to replace a human with an AI that they won't consider it. As for the rebuttal of "The companies will move abroad in response" I say the flip side to such government legislation will also need to come with a massive carrot that makes companies think twice about leaving; something like little to no corporate taxation combined with tariffs. America is in the position of being able to forcibly prevent the tech fools from destroying our nations economy with tehri fake AI's.
"something like little to no corporate taxation combined with tariffs."
So...refrain from robbing companies via tax-theft--legalized theft, but theft nonetheless--while "protecting" them from competition via tax-theft in the form of tariffs, which will necessitate shedding employees, and, very likely, eventually going out of business.
A better, morally sound solution because it's based upon private property rights and freedom of trade: get the government entirely out of the way, including abolishing its price controls that make the price of developing or implementing efficient cost-effective solutions artificially high, and its wage controls (minimum wage laws) that price labor out of the market by making wages artificially high.
"America is in the position of being able to forcibly prevent the tech fools from destroying our nations economy with tehri fake AI's."
"Forcibly prevent" them?
How so?
By arresting, jailing, or, preferably (to you?) executing those you subjectively smear by calling them "tech fools"? And what exactly is "fake AI"? How does it essentially differ from genuine AI?
You were doing good up until you inserted something not said, that I would "..executing those you subjectively smear by calling them tech fools..". And don't think for one second that by placing it in a question that I don't see what you are doing.
Yes they are tech fools if they are willing to replace as much if not all humans with AI as they can.
Your suggestion about a more free, less government regulated system as a solution is a good one but its a few years to late. If we went to the kind of free and open market you describe it won't do anything because competition needs time!
...and starved them over decades with the use of glyphosate.
Peter, I watched your YouTube video with Lionel Shriver today. You'll be happy to know that there is a positive development re: data centres and energy in the US. Companies have taken to securing their own internal energy supply from their own gas turbines and energy facilities. This represents a real opportunity for both the data centre and policy makers.
A smart policy maker would make arrangements to buy excess energy capacity from the data centres during peak periods of demand. Power grids face periods of peak demand, whilst data centres have generally flat traffic during the day and evening.
I was listening to this podcast and thought this was a great conversation, but Peter, when touching on what jobs are safe in the light of the Great Disruption, all you can think of is prostitution????! Prostitution is NOT a job! Have you succumb to the woke idea of "sex work" being a choice and a welcome option for women (and sometimes men)? I was deeply disappointed by this comment and the laugh you two had about it. Get your mind out of the gutter and show women some respect please.
Other than that, I enjoy your interviews very much, so will continue listening.
Let AI run all the logistics of the government with the directive of the equitable benefit to all human citizens. Let the government take minority ownership positions in any technology driven company. The government distributes the proceeds to citizens. Humans are still in charge of the government through elections as they are today.
This was a fascinating discussion, as well as somewhat terrifying. The one thing that it seems is never discussed in these conversations, is human and environmental health. 5G is significantly contributing to insect and bird die-offs, as well as other deleterious effects. I, and many like me, are sensitive to microwave EMF's. I've been sensitive to x-rays for a long time before 5G or even 3G became prevalent. I can't even ride in electric cars, because for me, it's like being zapped with x-rays. I experience headaches, dramatic energy loss and digestive disruption. There are some spots on I-5 in the greater Portland area, where I experience sudden ear-aches every time I have to travel through there.
I get the appeal of AI, but, I have found that the further from nature we get, the more dire the consequences. I live in a rural location on 5 acres on a hillside. I can't even live in a city anymore.
Additionally, there is a globalist agenda to eliminate humans almost entirely. This is where the term post-human era fits in. It follows the trans-human era, which was accelerated by the mass Covid injections. (That's a whole other discussion!) I'm not assuming that the effort will be successful, but I definitely see Telsa playing into that agenda, probably unwittingly. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.
According to some actuaries, the global population has been decreasing since 1981 and all western countries, as well as some 2nd and 3rd world countries, are now below replacement birth rates. Some are calling it a fertility crisis.
Consider the fact that currently we are at a 40% excess death rate that is likely to continue for some time. (Excess death rate is that rate during a specific period that is higher than the expected number of deaths based on historical trends.) A 10% excess death rate is considered a 100 year anomaly. Forty percent was unheard of until just after the roll out of the Covid jabs. If the trend continues, we're looking at a mass extinction event. Between that and the 1 in 30 to 1 in 10 autism rate, 25 - 30 percent of which are low-functioning, and the disability and sudden death rates among those who got the Covid jabs, we're already in a major disruption. Trying to find good workers for any skilled trade has become increasingly difficult and near impossible in some places. The pool is rapidly shrinking.
If these trends continue, displaced jobs won't be much of a factor and robots may actually become necessary...but for whom? A significantly reduced population who may inevitably die of the effects of boredom, inactivity, and the lack of a need to overcome challenges? The soft males Peter referred to, I would suggest, may be harbingers of things to come.
This piece realy made me think. Given this radical shift, what do you see as the biggest ethical dilemmas we will face? Truly insightful.
Defining what a human actually is.
Add 10-20+ years to his predictions and they just might be accurate.
The potential silver lining is that automation and robotics will arrive at a near perfect time to offset declining fertility rates.
Ideally then: lower population + automation/robotics/AI = higher quality of life for all.
Peter - I believe the term "End" is inappropriate for this context. A better and more accurate term would be "Change" or even "irrevocably change". "End' implies something is rebooting and that's not what is going to happen. We are looking at an evolutionary change and not a revolutionary one.
Fair enough
And please know that was a comment and not meant as criticism.
I made all of these arguments (and more) in my May 30, 2015 post. I predicted self-driving would arrive in 2020, though! I've been in a Waymo (February in Los Angeles) and in a Tesla Model S (July in Chicagoland), and the time is nigh. https://benslivka.com/2015/05/30/self-driving-vehicles/
Nothing can scale like Tesla.
I do wonder about the history of "over-promise, under-deliver" by Elon Musk as it relates to Tesla, SpaceX, etc. But a key advantage of Tesla self-driving (vs. Waymo) is Tesla doesn't need all those expensive spinning LIDARs all over the car!
Every new iteration of Tesla's self-driving disappoints. Maybe they actually do need those expensive LIDARs. Waymo's performance far exceeds Tesla's.
Well...Homo sapiens manage to pilot motor vehicles with only their two eyes...