AI AGI ASI Oh MY (3 Viewers)

[softchewy]

Haven't seen a thread specifically discussing AI / AGI / ASI, etc, and am curious on peoples thoughts and views on the subject.
I am not in the field and not an expert or authority on the subject. These are just some opinions.
I have had many discussions about AI /AGI / ASI over the past couple of decades.
Concern - progression toward AGI/ASI being out of the box, uncontrollable with no theoretical possibility of forced alignment with human interests.
Loss of employment availability for humans across many sectors.
May sound pessimistic, but for me it is logically realistic and a probable eventual outcome.
Advancements in all different sectors, with some that will be beneficial to humans.
The goal from my perspective would be to slow down / pause AI / AGI development.
Not to stop it (as I don't believe that is a realistic possibility), but to slow the current ramp up speed so it will not be too fast for us to adapt to in an effective manner.
Basically buying the human race some more time before a likely unfortunate end.

Feel free to reply - serious or silly thoughts are all welcome.

 

[softchewy]

 

[BEANO52]

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.

 

[sleepypiggly]

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.

Do we even have a choice?

Accept our future.

 

[smashed_potato]

I’ve followed tech closely since the Web 2.0 boom. It’s always been exciting to see the potential for all the advancements, however this feels significantly different.

The tech gadgets and software developments have had real tangible impacts on people that opened up creativity, income opportunities, enjoyment, connectivity, communities etc. Definitely some downfalls and shortcomings that I feel really just comes down to political will and boarder laws. (Monopolies etc)

I will say I have used Claude successfully dealing with a few mates that are MAGA politically and opened me up to different strategies of engagement to keep communication going during rough periods.
In fact it’s helped me on quite a few ranges of personal traits and habits that it’s opened my eyes to.
On that note, that is my worry with it. It’s objectively just a deeper tool than we actually realise. Even if we don’t achieve AGI soon the hooks here are going to be incredibly strong.

I’ve lived through times of egregious company policies, pricing and government overreach. Example I’ll never forget are Aaron Swartz’s case and when CS6 was actually cheaper for an Australian to fly to the United States, purchase a copy of Adobe CS6 Master Collection, then fly back, than to actually purchase the software locally.

What the above highlights is without the US government creating more than just a financial incentive these tools will do damage the more people use and rely on them. Currently.

I will continue using them but I’m well aware of the potential outcomes.

 

[JeepologyOffroad]

Agreed. I don’t like where it’s going. At all.

I’m sure it won’t make a difference, but I won’t use it. I don’t deny the tools are incredibly useful though. Until they aren’t.

 

[softchewy]

Agreed. I don’t like where it’s going. At all.

I’m sure it won’t make a difference, but I won’t use it. I don’t deny the tools are incredibly useful though. Until they aren’t.

Unfortunately, it won’t.
I do the same, while realizing it is an exercise in futility. Apple intelligence is off on my phone. No Alexa, Siri, etc.
At some point there won’t be any off option.
It will be absolutely pervasive.
Pause AI is a valiant effort, but in no way can or will it be effectual. Money and power demand its development as fast as possible via governments and in the private sector.
It does not rely on or need public demand for its development / success.
We have seen what happened with Trump and Anthropic when they refused to allow the US military unfettered access to their AI technology due to safety concerns.
People like Palmer Luckey are major contributors to the problem. He thinks the question, “would you rather have a smart bomb or a dumb bomb?” is rhetorical.
Guess which one he assumes is always the answer.
The assumption of AI infallibility will also be a major problem in different ways in the future.

 

[bunsonthegrill]

AI is already taking over the white collar workplace, especially in tech. Anecdotally, everyone in my workplace is becoming more and more reliant on Claude Code and the push for AI is only getting higher from leadership.

If you’re anti-AI, you can only really hope that tech is a unique space for the effectiveness of AI.

Personally, I’m optimistic about the power of AI but I get the reasons behind a lot of the skepticism and the possible downside.

 

[JeepologyOffroad]

Is it going to bring great things? Yes, that is undoubtable. I’m sure we will see things that we could only believe as miracles prior to AI. But once that tipping point hits… what happens then?

It’s not even the unemployment that gets me. Sure that sucks, but I’m sure we will adapt in that situation. It’s beyond that point that has me puzzled as to why anyone would think it’s wise to push further.

I mean if you believe the purpose of humans was to evolve and create this new entity then fair enough. But I suppose I just can’t get behind erasing mankind to do it.

“We're rushing toward the edge of a cliff, and the closer we get, the more beautiful the view becomes — but we're still rushing toward the edge of the cliff.”

 

[smashed_potato]

I think that’s the hard part about the Ai discussion *is* it’s all logical progression. I try to be optimistic and not pessimistic about the tech however I don’t think we have the governance in order to be completely optimistic.
I go back and forth in my mind whether or not that is be design or happenstance.

How do younger generations who are currently teenagers start planning for this type of world? I remember the answer not that long ago was “learn to code”, is this still the thought process?

 

[JeepologyOffroad]

How do younger generations who are currently teenagers start planning for this type of world? I remember the answer not that long ago was “learn to code”, is this still the thought process?

I lean towards no. I personally think fostering creativity, critical thinking, and presence outside of virtual world could be a decent bet for preparation at this point imo. Tough to predict what jobs or skills will even be around for the younger generations.

I think that’s the hard part about the Ai discussion *is* it’s all logical progression. I try to be optimistic and not pessimistic about the tech however I don’t think we have the governance in order to be completely optimistic.
I go back and forth in my mind whether or not that is be design or happenstance.

I’d love to be more optimistic. I feel like a crazy person when it comes to this topic. I have yet to hear a compelling optimistic argument though. Maybe someone can enlighten me. To be fair I haven’t gone too far looking for it.

 

[smashed_potato]

I’d love to be more optimistic. I feel like a crazy person when it comes to this topic. I have yet to hear a compelling optimistic argument though. Maybe someone can enlighten me. To be fair I haven’t gone too far looking for it.

I think that’s why I believe it’s more a governance issue. Ai is an amazing tool that can make life easier, the problem is we inevitably know what it’ll be used for against the average person.

I often think of how I perceived solvers when they came about and then try to envision how Ai might go. lol maybe not the best outcome but not exactly how I thought it would be 10-15 years down the road.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t believe there is a world of abundance that some tech lords speak of. I do believe there will be energy limits to this that will slow progress, maybe even a business cycle event.

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked"
Hopefully Buffet is correct on this one.

 

[TheRealTeddyKGB]

 

[smashed_potato]

View attachment 1667277

Definitely made with Ai, 6 finger salute!

 

[DrStrange]

The logic of the "prisoner's dilemma" is in full force here.

There is good reason to take AI adoption slowly as there are clear dangers and likely a number of potentially dangerous things as yet unidentified. But, if your competition adopts a "go fast" approach they gain a sizable advantage. As you can't assume your competition is going to take the safer/slower approach (even if they say they might/will) the best decision is often seen as "safety be damned, full speed ahead."

There will be winners and losers.

AI will generate value. Perhaps great value. The "pie" available to be divided should be markedly bigger. Perhaps at the expense of some non-economic considerations. Not everyone is getting an equal share of this new prosperity.

I expect capital will accrue the lion's share of economic gains, perhaps even more than 100% at the expense of labor / workers. Stock market up, unemployment up, real median wages down. Rich get richer, the rest get poorer.

There are other types of winners / losers. Authoritarian leaning governments will find ever more effective ways to oppress, and individuals will find their freedoms imperiled. Please note this need not be limited to right wing governments. Left wing governments will be just as able to use AI in authoritarian ways. We will be shocked at what can be gleaned from the location information from your car and phone paired with your search histories and credit card histories. Things you did, places you visited, stuff you read and items/services you paid for 10-20 years ago might well come under newly effective scrutiny.

There will be big winners in the workforce. The top 5% or 10% of white-collar staff paired with well-trained AI will be very well paid. VERY well. The other 90+% of the workers will be paid less, perhaps much less and/or be let go as the top two people in your former department can do better work than the twenty of you do now.

It is hard to say what becomes of the displaced workers. Maybe they learn to exist on a guaranteed minimum income? Maybe they set off a massive burst of productivity starting up new businesses? Maybe mass unemployment causes unrest leading to violence? Maybe people find they can work ten hours a week and earn a living wage? Just have to wait and see.

We don't need to think too hard about potential "science fiction" disasters. Feel free to explore the internet and popular fiction for some pretty hair-raising scenarios. Fiction could become reality. Or maybe we will be wise enough to avoid trouble.

We are stuck on this ride, like it or not. Good luck and God bless us all -=- DrStrange

 

[JeepologyOffroad]

Or maybe we will be wise enough to avoid trouble.

 

[Okku]

I used to be pretty surface level with AI too. At my old job I’d use it here and there for product descriptions or small image stuff, but I didn’t really understand how powerful it actually was. I just hadn’t taken the time to learn it.

Fast forward about a year and now I’m using it every single day for a ton of different things. I even started messing around with Codex last week and that alone was a game changer for me. I was able to build a pretty smart AI agent in like 30 minutes that would’ve easily taken me hours, if not a full day, doing it manually.

One thing that really opened my eyes was when I tried using ChatGPT for a project involving large PDFs. I was feeding in a ton of documentation to try and create a sort of knowledge base so I could quickly find answers instead of digging through pages and pages of info. I ran into some limitations pretty quickly just using ChatGPT on its own.

With the agent setup though, I was able to structure it in a way where it actually works through that information much more effectively. Now instead of searching, searching, and maybe not even finding what I need, I can just ask a question and get a direct answer pulled from all that data. That alone saves a crazy amount of time.

Lately I’ve been going deeper into figuring out how to automate parts of my job. There are definitely things that will always stay manual, especially anything hands-on like testing, but for documentation, emails, checklists, and general workflow stuff it’s completely changed how productive I am. I’ve really noticed that shift over the last few months.

Even simple things have been huge. Stuff I used to Google or dig through YouTube for, I can now just ask ChatGPT and get a clear step-by-step answer immediately. Or better yet, have it help build the actual document or process for me. It’s like having a constant assistant.

I do think a big part people miss is that you have to learn how to use it properly. You can’t just open it up once, type something basic, and expect it to magically be perfect. There’s definitely a learning curve, and you kind of have to “teach” it how you work.

I get why some people are skeptical or even against it, but at this point it’s already here and it’s only going to get more integrated into everything. For me personally, it’s been one of the biggest productivity boosts I’ve had in a long time.

This video from Alex Hormozi actually helped shift my perspective even more on where things might be headed:

 

[SwissChip]

I still prefer RI.
Keep it real!

 

[Eriks]

I've used Chat-GPT and now most recently Claude a lot, both professionally and privately, and found that it significantly increases my productivity and enables me to do stuff I wouldn't have been able to do on my own/using other sources of information, even if given years. Maybe we're all being left behind but I think that if one works in any area that requires coding, computing, analyzing, text producing etc, basically anything other than manual work e.g. plummer/carpenter and refuses learn to use AI effectively, you're most definitely getting left behind.

I'll be 46 this year and at least semi-senior in what I do for work so hopefully AI will continue to be a tool rather than a replacement of myself, but I don't worry that much about that - what will be, will be. I do worry a lot about my kids though, 13 and 19 years old, and how the hell they're supposed to go about education and work. If senior people + AI is all companies need and will hire, how will junior people of today become senior?

Rationally, we'll adapt to this revolution just as we have adapted historically to big changes; the invention of the printing press, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the electrification, the internal combustion engine and transport revolution, mechanization of office work, digitalization/IT revolution (yes, I asked AI to list those for me). One could of course argue that neither of those had the comprehensible and complete impact on virtually every field of work, basically all at the same time, but still.

 

[ekricket]

How do younger generations who are currently teenagers start planning for this type of world?

“Learn how to code fill out welfare forms”

 

[ekricket]

I've used Chat-GPT and now most recently Claude a lot, both professionally and privately, and found that it significantly increases my productivity and enables me to do stuff I wouldn't have been able to do on my own/using other sources of information, even if given years. Maybe we're all being left behind but I think that if one works in any area that requires coding, computing, analyzing, text producing etc, basically anything other than manual work e.g. plummer/carpenter and refuses learn to use AI effectively, you're most definitely getting left behind.

I'll be 46 this year and at least semi-senior in what I do for work so hopefully AI will continue to be a tool rather than a replacement of myself, but I don't worry that much about that - what will be, will be. I do worry a lot about my kids though, 13 and 19 years old, and how the hell they're supposed to go about education and work. If senior people + AI is all companies need and will hire, how will junior people of today become senior?

Rationally, we'll adapt to this revolution just as we have adapted historically to big changes; the invention of the printing press, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the electrification, the internal combustion engine and transport revolution, mechanization of office work, digitalization/IT revolution (yes, I asked AI to list those for me). One could of course argue that neither of those had the comprehensible and complete impact on virtually every field of work, basically all at the same time, but still.

I wish people would quit framing what AI is going to do to our current world.
Our world is not the same with electricity as it was without electricity. The world is always changing and humans are successful because we adapt rapidly.

Quit lamenting the fact that we don’t have hundreds of buggy whip manufacturers to choose from.

Dystopian fiction is incredible easy to write. Doom and gloom are easily the most prescribed fortune telling results no matter what method of divination you use.

Things will be better.

 

[waddadonk]

Lately I’ve been going deeper into figuring out how to automate parts of my job. There are definitely things that will always stay manual, especially anything hands-on like testing, but for documentation, emails, checklists, and general workflow stuff it’s completely changed how productive I am. I’ve really noticed that shift over the last few months.

This is where my job is pushing people, but where I remain strongly skeptical. They want hands free automations utilizing "agents" everywhere. They imagine everyone making their own agents that can talk to each other. Its spoken about in such a high abstract form, I'm not sure that the less technical people understand the requirements or limitations. I am betting and hoping that in the coming months, as people try to rely on this idea, AI agents find their place as tools and not entities. My feeling is that a strong well defined (coded) automation paths need to be in place, where these agents can inject their capabilities.

 

[softchewy]

AGI/ASI is the issue.

AI is already taking over the white collar workplace, especially in tech. Anecdotally, everyone in my workplace is becoming more and more reliant on Claude Code and the push for AI is only getting higher from leadership.

If you’re anti-AI, you can only really hope that tech is a unique space for the effectiveness of AI.

Personally, I’m optimistic about the power of AI but I get the reasons behind a lot of the skepticism and the possible downside.

I wouldn’t call it anti-AI as much as I would call it pro-Humanity. Not sure what you are referring to with “tech as a unique space”. It is already involved in nearly every industry.
Manufacturing, Agriculture, Transportation, Retail, Customer Service, Weaponry… a vast majority (70-90%) of trades in the stock market are via AI.
The downside is already being seen in workforce replacement.
Nearly 55,000 US jobs were replaced with AI in 2025. Microsoft accounted for 15,000 of those.
AI is already a problem, AGI would be a much much bigger concern.

 

[smashed_potato]

AGI/ASI is the issue.

I wouldn’t call it anti-AI as much as I would call it pro-Humanity. Not sure what you are referring to with “tech as a unique space”. It is already involved in nearly every industry.
Manufacturing, Agriculture, Transportation, Retail, Customer Service, Weaponry… a vast majority (70-90%) of trades in the stock market are via AI.
The downside is already being seen in workforce replacement.
Nearly 55,000 US jobs were replaced with AI in 2025. Microsoft accounted for 15,000 of those.
AI is already a problem, AGI would be a much much bigger concern.

Is it Ai replacing people in jobs or is it a convenient excuse this late in a business cycle that reflects glowingly on a company’s stock price. This is what I can’t quite work out right now, don’t tech companies notoriously have excess employees?

 

[softchewy]

I wish people would quit framing what AI is going to do to our current world.
Our world is not the same with electricity as it was without electricity. The world is always changing and humans are successful because we adapt rapidly.

Quit lamenting the fact that we don’t have hundreds of buggy whip manufacturers to choose from.

Dystopian fiction is incredible easy to write. Doom and gloom are easily the most prescribed fortune telling results no matter what method of divination you use.

Things will be better.

We all have our opinions, but the fact that you are trying to equate electricity with a new form of intelligence would point to you not grasping what AI is and what AI/AGI will be. There is no advancement in human history that equates to AI.
It’s not fiction, it’s science. It’s predictive modeling.

 

[softchewy]

Is it Ai replacing people in jobs or is it a convenient excuse this late in a business cycle that reflects glowingly on a company’s stock price. This is what I can’t quite work out right now, don’t tech companies notoriously have excess employees?

AI is replacing jobs. I can only point you to statistics (which of course can be questioned) and give you a recent anecdotal example. My wife’s friend works at facebook. She managed 30 people. She was instructed to fire 28 of them and keep 2. The 28 were replaced with AI. She is the one interacting with AI to perform the tasks of those 28 people and said it is working.

 

[BarrieJ3]

Is it Ai replacing people in jobs or is it a convenient excuse this late in a business cycle that reflects glowingly on a company’s stock price. This is what I can’t quite work out right now, don’t tech companies notoriously have excess employees?

 

[smashed_potato]

She was instructed to fire 28 of them and keep 2. The 28 were replaced with AI. She is the one interacting with AI to perform the tasks of those 28 people and said it is working.

This is interesting and kinda why I’m not completely convinced Ai is “replacing” jobs. Yes jobs that were there are replaced but if Ai was that good would they not be better off getting more productive out of all 30 with Ai? Maybe that’s not how teams work and I have heard tech podcasts talk about agents doing a lot more with less, but they are start ups.
This sounds like semantics on my behalf but I follow market cycles and these waves of job losses have happened many times in recent past and Ai was not the reason.

I do believe and understand what you are saying but I just can’t quite decide in my owe head whether it’s normal business cycle stuff with a different name or truely a different world we are entering.

 

[ekricket]

We all have our opinions, but the fact that you are trying to equate electricity with a new form of intelligence would point to you not grasping what AI is and what AI/AGI will be. There is no advancement in human history that equates to AI.
It’s not fiction, it’s science. It’s predictive modeling.

You are right. Mankind is doomed. Machines will replace people and simply exist to do thing people used to do even when there are no people. After all, they are designing AI to replace humans, not just increase efficiency. They will go around buying groceries nobody uses, producing reports no humans can see cause there are none, and just generally continue 2025 society forever because that’s where it reached prominence. Kinda like how we “fixed” the ENTIRE WORLD borders after WWII. OH, and we also fixed the moon ownership back then too.

 

[ekricket]

AI is replacing jobs. I can only point you to statistics (which of course can be questioned) and give you a recent anecdotal example. My wife’s friend works at facebook. She managed 30 people. She was instructed to fire 28 of them and keep 2. The 28 were replaced with AI. She is the one interacting with AI to perform the tasks of those 28 people and said it is working.

Train better. It will be a long time before AI replaces bed pan cleaners.