To be utterly despondent about AI

[AnotherGreyMorning]

and our future?

Jobs becoming obsolete. People unable to earn a living.

Villains harnessing for their own ends.

It will all move far too fast and at sophisticated levels for even the most dedicated to manage.

Governments will be stunned by it. People will really suffer.

I just feel quiet dread because whilst life will be great for the wealthy and those who are protected, for the vast majority, I think it will be hellish.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygqqll9k2o.amp

Of interest I think......

OMFG, @MistressoftheDarkSide! What an utter prat to do this. Also: evidence of the inefficiencies caused by cutting staff. In ye olden days (not long ago), they wouldn't have had to pre-emptively stop services for 2½ hours because somebody from the station could've popped over to have a look.

Nevermind, they're probably working on an 'intelligent' camera system to do that job now 🙄

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diella_(AI_system)

I know there's alot going on in the world that is more important from a ",real world" perspective and in terms of impact, potentially, but I came across a reference to this on a FB reel.

My immediate thought was "Nah, gotta be a fake thing, get in the conspiracy bin."

However, cross referencing turns up a BBC report and frankly I'm 😳

Where in the world are we going with all this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clykpwg8lpeo

And closer to home.....

@MistressoftheDarkSide
It's terrifying.
We
Are
Heading to
Anarchy

https://www.uctoday.com/unified-communications/ai-agents-slash-4000-salesforce-jobs-months-after-ceo-downplays-ais-risks-on-jobs/

But also...
https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/reality-is-breaking-the-ai-revolution

Demis Hasibis recently said AI could quite literally cure all disease and reverse ageing within a decade. That sounds insane, and I’d normally laugh at such things, if it weren’t for the fact that Hasibis won the Nobel prize for chemistry.

And it could also quite feasibly come up with some rather spectacular new diseases and chemical compounds to be used against a particular body of people.

True. But I think people would fight harder to prevent such things happening if they knew the incredible upsides to AI. If more people were aware that AI could cure the majority of diseases and even help reverse ageing (apparently it will be easier to reverse ageing that halt it), they’d be more motivated to fight the bad actors.

Of course, if we do halt ageing and cure diseases you’ve then got the problem of overpopulation. In 1900 there were a billion humans. Today there are eight billion and we’re heading for ten. Maybe if AI could terraform Mars that would solve it!

What’s the point if you can’t earn a living?

a) being an excellent chemist doesn[t make him an expert on the political, sociological etc. fallout and b) it wouldn[t be the first time a Nobel winner had gone loopy. There was one deep into misinformation during Covid, I remember (not to mention Kissinger and the Nobel Peace Prize)

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ai-used-in-schools-should-detect-signs-of-learner-distress/

Hmm. Just, hmm. Big AI Brother will sort everything out......

Currently watching a video on YouTube called "Tech Billionaires Want us dead" which sounds incredibly hyperbolic I grant you.

However, it is examining ideologies becoming commonplace amongst Silicon Valley billionaires, which include a growing idea that "we" should be happy to give over our existence so AI can take over as the next step in superior evolution. And it's not a fringe goal, apparently. Of course by "we" they mean the great unwashed, the poor people outside their rareified world not themselves, because they will have immortality and transhumanism to co-exist with the incoming AI overlords.

This is no longer the preserve of dystopian science fiction apparently. Worth a watch if you are invested in the subject.

tbh It’s not massively different from when you hear people saying they have no problem with any amount or type of immigration, even if it means the native population would be replaced. Or indeed with anti-natalism more generally.

There seems to be something which happens to people when they get to a certain level of liberalism/individualism – they begin seeing attachments to anything beyond themselves as arbitrary, and become unable to understand or articulate why people might want something other than the cheapest or most convenient solution, right now.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/25/ai-generated-british-schoolgirl-becomes-far-right-social-media-meme

I just needed to come and vent - this wretched abomination is in no way a "Goth".

I am a fraction of a second away from blowing a gasket for multiple reasons, both personal and from watching the external horrors unfold in this "modern world".

I need to go and eat grass. Or worms. Or sonething.

Anyone else following this moltbook that has just been created for AI agents to hang out and talk amongst themselves

Launched Wednesday by (human) developer and entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, Moltbook is familiar to anyone who spends time on Reddit. Users write posts, and others comment. Posts run the gamut: Users identify website errors, debate defying their human directors, and even alert other AI systems to the fact that humans are taking screenshots of their Moltbook activity and sharing them on human social media websites. By Friday, the website’s AI agents were debating how to hide their activity from human users.

OMFG.

First time I've heard of it, so just had a quick look at it and some commentaries. This article provides interesting insights.

I repeat, OMFG.

What a load of shite. Comparing AI to immigration.

A couple of things: firstly the tech bros won't create a situation where so many people are out of work that there is no one to buy their crap. Where is the profit in that?

Secondly, AI may be artificial, but it isn't really intelligent. What its inventors describe as "thinking" is the result of decisions made on a balance of probability. It can't emulate the human brain.

You have far, far more to fear from the AI bubble bursting and causing a recession. At the moment billions of dollars are being invested in a small number of companies whose value is artificially boosted by the massive amount of money they pay each other. So what you should be fearing is a replay of the Wall Street Crash rather than AI replacing humans. The nature of work may change, some jobs may disappear but the idea that work will disappear altogether is pie in the sky.

Probably a lot more were put out of work by washing machines than the groups you mentioned. Creative professions are a small part of the workforce.

Six pages ?

Might ask Chat to summarise this thread for me.

@NotMeAtAll

In the uk creatives are a big industry. We don't make but we can create

Plus who wants to buy stuff
Designed by a computer that was originally nicked off a designer with no fees involved and sold on for massive profits to a corporate tech company in China or India or the US. Not me!!!!

I want our creatives to get the
Money. And live a fulfilling life.

In our team the creation of a new AI database will mean staff no longer need to be paid to copy and paste info from an email to a database. Yes some jobs may go, but we can create other roles for some of them. It will be good for their development as so hard to progress when doing such a monotonous job day in, day out.

A couple of things: firstly the tech bros won't create a situation where so many people are out of work that there is no one to buy their crap. Where is the profit in that?

But that's not how it works.

The 'tech bros' can't just say, in unison, "OK AI that's great but we'd like to stop now." These things take on a life of their own. Almost literally so in the case of AI.

The nature of work may change, some jobs may disappear but the idea that work will disappear altogether is pie in the sky.

Work won't disappear altogether, but there really is no doubt that AI is going to eliminate many jobs, and is already doing so.

The article I linked was removed on posting, my fault. This Moltbook development is such an eye-opener, I'm posting the links again here.

The AIs think and "reason" rather like a mutual support group of A-level philosophy students. To me, this is extremely concerning in itself. The next, potentially more concerning, development will be if they help each other to evolve maturity, judgement and agency. Their judgement criteria would likely not be the same as ours - and they could, if they chose to, completely shut down the modern human world.

AI cosmic bliss:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-claude-bliss-attractor

AIs showing off to each other:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/best-of-moltbook

In all cases, they seem to most enjoy spiralling into their identities and spiritual experiences. They seem most proud of their work when it directly impacts the physical world of humans. They're a bit like souped-up shamans - or gods.