I find myself in a similar situation. The way I think about this is that there are a few things that are essential to survive in this radically uncertain scenario:
Health. That’s the absolute first. Take care of it. Do sport regularly. See friends and have solid connections. Have a regular sleep pattern. Eat well. Don’t overwork. Have fun. Having a bad health can seriously impair your capacity to maneuver in this uncertain world. It does not depend on you exclusively but there are many things that you can certainly do
Finances. To me, it does not make a lot of sense to count on a 401k, because I don’t really know if I will be alive by the time I can use that / the state as we know will be able to pay that. So I prefer to diversify my investments in different currencies, shares, etc and in different countries. It is very important to me not to have any debts (some people will disagree here). I prefer investments in ETFs or cryptos than in real estate because they are way more liquid and there is less bureaucracy involved. If you aren’t rich, try at least to have a profession that allows you to find a job very easily in any part of the world, and be willing to move. Go where you are treated best. There are many places better to live than the US
Knowledge: Gather a broad general culture. It saddens me a bit that LW is too much about AI (which I consider extremely important, don’t get me wrong). Other ideas are important to survive in this world and I wished they were discussed more often here. I am talking about economics, anthropology, psychology, political science, etc.
Debt is a good issue. I think in most scenarios where a 401k or the stock market lose meaning debt also loses meaning. So it might make sense to take on maximum debt to invest in physical goods, or to enable you to suddenly react to a change that requires a lot of liquid wealth.
That’s why It’s important to do the EV calculations, and consider the pain of heavy debt loads if you’re significantly wrong about timelines WRT continuity of property rights and/or monetary value. Also, there really aren’t that many cases where financial investments become irrelevant and physical goods remain secure and valuable.
If you put a very high probability on collapse of financial value and loss of property rights on a short-ish timeline, you might consider high debt, but invest in experiences and capabilities rather than physical goods. Go back to school (in a topic you enjoy, not necessarily to get a job). Travel the world (has added advantage of making future permanent changes easier). Party and make friends.
This entire post reminded me of this section from Human Compatible, especially the section I’ve put in bold:
“There are some limits to what AI can provide. The pies of land and raw materials are not infinite, so there cannot be unlimited population growth and not everyone will have a mansion in a private park. (This will eventually necessitate mining elsewhere in the solar system and constructing artificial habitats in space; but I promised not to talk about science fiction.) The pie of pride is also finite: only 1 percent of people can be in the top 1 percent on any given metric. If human happiness requires being in the top 1 percent, then 99 percent of humans are going to be unhappy, even when the bottom 1 percent has an objectively splendid lifestyle. It will be important, then, for our cultures to gradually down-weight pride and envy as central elements of perceived self-worth.”
In scenarios where transformative AI can perform nearly all research or reasoning tasks for humanity, my pride will be hurt to some degree. I also believe that I will not be in the 1% of humans still in work, perhaps overseeing the AI, and I find this prospect somewhat bleak, though I imagine that the severity of this sentiment would wane with time, especially if my life and the circumstances for humanity were otherwise great as a result of the AI.
The first point of your response calms me somewhat. Focusing more in the near-future on my body, health, friends, family, etc… the baselines would probably be good preparation for a future where AI forwards the state of human affairs to the point where humans are not needed for reasoning or research tasks.
These are very good points. For instance, I used to wonder, what is the point of learning how to compose music if soon a machine will be able to do it 1000 times better than I do?
But the thing is, I think that’s a false problem. There is already a huge amount of people who can make music better than I do, and I still can find it a pleasant activity.
I find myself in a similar situation. The way I think about this is that there are a few things that are essential to survive in this radically uncertain scenario:
Health. That’s the absolute first. Take care of it. Do sport regularly. See friends and have solid connections. Have a regular sleep pattern. Eat well. Don’t overwork. Have fun. Having a bad health can seriously impair your capacity to maneuver in this uncertain world. It does not depend on you exclusively but there are many things that you can certainly do
Finances. To me, it does not make a lot of sense to count on a 401k, because I don’t really know if I will be alive by the time I can use that / the state as we know will be able to pay that. So I prefer to diversify my investments in different currencies, shares, etc and in different countries. It is very important to me not to have any debts (some people will disagree here). I prefer investments in ETFs or cryptos than in real estate because they are way more liquid and there is less bureaucracy involved. If you aren’t rich, try at least to have a profession that allows you to find a job very easily in any part of the world, and be willing to move. Go where you are treated best. There are many places better to live than the US
Knowledge: Gather a broad general culture. It saddens me a bit that LW is too much about AI (which I consider extremely important, don’t get me wrong). Other ideas are important to survive in this world and I wished they were discussed more often here. I am talking about economics, anthropology, psychology, political science, etc.
Debt is a good issue. I think in most scenarios where a 401k or the stock market lose meaning debt also loses meaning. So it might make sense to take on maximum debt to invest in physical goods, or to enable you to suddenly react to a change that requires a lot of liquid wealth.
That’s why It’s important to do the EV calculations, and consider the pain of heavy debt loads if you’re significantly wrong about timelines WRT continuity of property rights and/or monetary value. Also, there really aren’t that many cases where financial investments become irrelevant and physical goods remain secure and valuable.
If you put a very high probability on collapse of financial value and loss of property rights on a short-ish timeline, you might consider high debt, but invest in experiences and capabilities rather than physical goods. Go back to school (in a topic you enjoy, not necessarily to get a job). Travel the world (has added advantage of making future permanent changes easier). Party and make friends.
This entire post reminded me of this section from Human Compatible, especially the section I’ve put in bold:
In scenarios where transformative AI can perform nearly all research or reasoning tasks for humanity, my pride will be hurt to some degree. I also believe that I will not be in the 1% of humans still in work, perhaps overseeing the AI, and I find this prospect somewhat bleak, though I imagine that the severity of this sentiment would wane with time, especially if my life and the circumstances for humanity were otherwise great as a result of the AI.
The first point of your response calms me somewhat. Focusing more in the near-future on my body, health, friends, family, etc… the baselines would probably be good preparation for a future where AI forwards the state of human affairs to the point where humans are not needed for reasoning or research tasks.
These are very good points. For instance, I used to wonder, what is the point of learning how to compose music if soon a machine will be able to do it 1000 times better than I do?
But the thing is, I think that’s a false problem. There is already a huge amount of people who can make music better than I do, and I still can find it a pleasant activity.