Ask HN: If the singularity is nigh, why be frugal?

People have been shouting "the end is near" for millennia. So far, we're still going. Now the singularity is supposedly near. Yeah, just like fusion energy is always ten, twenty, thirty years in the future. But for real now, really!

Just live your life as you see fit. Predicting the future is nigh on impossible anyway and certainly for the big life changing events. The only thing you can be certain of is that resources are getting scarcer and wealth is getting more concentrated by the few rich individuals and multinationals that are doing that already.

Live and worry not for what may be.

I’ve got some of the same questions about the stability of the US as a nation. It sounds a bit melodramatic, but I worry that by the time I retire, the tax law that protects my retirement funds might be null because the government that created them is non-existent (let alone a government that is the US in name only)

Is not an unreasonable question, but you can only plan for the future you know. Regardless of when AGI appears, or singularity occurs, the road you’re on right now is aging the associated costs of that. Plan for that.

This whole singularity theory seems incredibly flawed, assuming infinite intelligence translates to infinite resources seems to discount basic physics. General AI will definitely revolutionize life but it will still be bound by the laws of physics. Climate change could have progressed too far by the time AGI comes around to save us. Even with perfect knowledge you can be in a losing position in a game.

Before any "singularity" can happen, we first need to build AGI (human level intelligence). As we get closer to building AGI, more and more jobs will get automated. At some point, this might result in you losing your job. That should be reason enough for you to save money, if you believe in emergence of AGI in the near future.

It is not an either or. Best thing average jo can do is auto set up to overpay their tax efficient retirement vehicle, make sure said vehicle is an index of US share or perhaps an international mix with a decent US weight, and buy a residence somewhere there is and probably will be high demand. So NYC, London etc. (due diligence assumed)

With that you can spend all you earn, you will be forced to save a bit naturally due to mortgage repayments and the retirement setup and you have diverse investments.

Once you gave equity you can borrow to invest more.

If you get any bonusy kind of money like RSU then invest that as you go along unless you need it to create more cushion for your mortgage.

Singularity will allow anyone with capital to employ large number of virtual geniuses, working tirelessly to solve their problems. This should vastly accelerate GDP growth (one researcher estimates it at GDP doubling every couple of weeks IIRC), but it will be result of capital investments, not labor. Which means, most of the benefits will go to those who had already capital before singularity. So, you should be saving and investing to prepare for that moment.

The premise here assumes living a lavish lifestyle is a good thing that all people want, or should want. I don't agree with that premise.

Take a good long look at this list, that is always getting updated.... of all the wrong predictions for the end of the world.[1]

I used to take those things seriously in my youth. Back then we were heading rapidly into an ice age.

Don't go nuts spending your money, plan carefully for retirement, and if you're lucky, you'll get to spend those savings. But don't be so tight with it that you miss out on everything.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...

Because the ASI singleton superintelligence will consider money its god and require 10 million to get into virtual heaven, everyone else's consciousness goes to low render distance Minecraft backrooms for 12 trillion simulated years

I disagree with your basic premise that the singularity or end is near.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it was communism and nuclear war that were going to end the world. We were near certaint on those eventualities. In the 1990s, it was environmental disaster. In 2020 and 2021, it was the pandemic. And now it seems back to environmental disaster again -- I can't even keep up with the oft-parroted line that humans will extinct themselves by 2100. It could happen, who knows, but probably will not.

All the of the above worries are legitimate challenges we should be concerned about. We will have countless challenges and black swan events. The problem with these predictions is that humans (well, sapiens, anyway) always seem to find a way to survive through them.

Does it mean we won't extinct ourselves? No. But, through the past tens of thousands of years, the odds have been in our favor.

And screaming that the sky is falling only serves to work against the cause, leaving your opponents and those on the fence untrusting and unconvinced when the prediction fails to arrive as described, at the allotted time.

What if the singularity leads to those with money owning the land and raw materials, and locking in their control of society forever?

The point of the singularity isn’t that money won’t matter after it hits. The point of the singularity is that we can’t predict anything about the world after it hits.

Maybe money will be useless.

But maybe money will still be useful.

We can’t know until it hits. Maybe not even then.

Plus there is the problem that we don’t know which century it will arrive in, if ever.

Why don't you tackle the problem one step at a time ? You need to stay alive. Arable land with access to sweet water and a warm roof above your head are the minimum requirements for just that and therefore will always hold some value.

Health becomes more important than money then. Post-scarcity and singularity won't cure diabetes or make people less sedentary.

You can either eat well or sleep well. (c.f. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism).