(1) What really great things do we not have yet, which we might have in the future? Possibly accelerated by AI.
(2) What really great things absolutely require futuristic AI, and we can never have them without first inventing it.
I think (2) contains things like robot butlers, cleaning your house and doing your chores (whether they qualify as “really great” maybe up to taste). (1) contains things likes cures for {cancer/malaria/Alzheimer’s/depression/suicide headaches}, and machines that are more {cost/energy/carbon} efficient, which could all plausibly be invented faster with AIs helping.
When I imagine the future I imagine first an age of insane abundance: where some random university students replace their self-driving cars every few months just to keep up with the new season’s fashion. (This summer, drive a convertible. No black cars after labour day.). Then last-months self-driving cars all take themselves to a nano-bot factory to self-recycle into new ones. Sure, automobile-fast-fashion is basically just posing and a bit crazy. And I would be scoffing at the insanity of it and the shallowness of the people involved like the angry moralising old man I would be. But, none of those people in those cars are starving, none of them are in danger of malaria. Perhaps they would all be immune to aging. The abundance is the symptom of things sorted.
Then, at some point after that, I imagine an age where physical resource goods cease to have status associations. Like, even some poor looser could have a private jet if they wanted, it doesn’t prove anything. Why would you want one anyway? The gravity train is faster and the airstrip is miles away from your home. I don’t know what that world looks like. Maybe people find new ways of claiming status, everyone wants to tell your about their new book or their wonderful status-worthy politics, maybe people just move on and have fun.
This question can be interpreted two ways:
(1) What really great things do we not have yet, which we might have in the future? Possibly accelerated by AI.
(2) What really great things absolutely require futuristic AI, and we can never have them without first inventing it.
I think (2) contains things like robot butlers, cleaning your house and doing your chores (whether they qualify as “really great” maybe up to taste). (1) contains things likes cures for {cancer/malaria/Alzheimer’s/depression/suicide headaches}, and machines that are more {cost/energy/carbon} efficient, which could all plausibly be invented faster with AIs helping.
When I imagine the future I imagine first an age of insane abundance: where some random university students replace their self-driving cars every few months just to keep up with the new season’s fashion. (This summer, drive a convertible. No black cars after labour day.). Then last-months self-driving cars all take themselves to a nano-bot factory to self-recycle into new ones. Sure, automobile-fast-fashion is basically just posing and a bit crazy. And I would be scoffing at the insanity of it and the shallowness of the people involved like the angry moralising old man I would be. But, none of those people in those cars are starving, none of them are in danger of malaria. Perhaps they would all be immune to aging. The abundance is the symptom of things sorted.
Then, at some point after that, I imagine an age where physical resource goods cease to have status associations. Like, even some poor looser could have a private jet if they wanted, it doesn’t prove anything. Why would you want one anyway? The gravity train is faster and the airstrip is miles away from your home. I don’t know what that world looks like. Maybe people find new ways of claiming status, everyone wants to tell your about their new book or their wonderful status-worthy politics, maybe people just move on and have fun.