It's been months I'm going to sleep hoping not to wake up.
Thank you for reading my blog post
You've got the solution to your problem in that phrase
The pleasure of the 1v1 or small team v. small team is inherently human , if AI is too strong it would take care of our needs while we compete against each other for brain and muscle bragging rights among humans. And it would feel exactly the same, much like the team who saves itself from relegation on the last matchday celebrates just as hard as the one who wins the Championship being some 70 points ahead.
This whole "ooh no I am not gonna be the one building the future, it's gonna be AI instead" panic is very unjustified, it's already like this.
In fact without the help of the other 8bn humans a single individual left alone in the wild would struggle to build a shelter and start a fire, and all the excel proficiency and LLM knowledge won't save your ass from wild animals either.
People who are afraid of AI need to zoom out and realize that their precious job they fear losing is not like being on top of a pyramid, it's more like being a cogwheel within a system of 8bn cogwheels interacting with each other. You might think yours is special because it's a little bit bigger or spins a little bit faster but if you zoom out you'd not even notice it and if it stops the effect on the whole system is zero and it's immediately replaced anyway.
Yuck, thanks but no thanks. I don't see any reason to find solace in reducing my own life to that.
> This whole "ooh no I am not gonna be the one building the future, it's gonna be AI" panic is very unjustified, it's already like this.
It's not, and I don't see it's unjustified
> In fact without the help of the other 8bn human a single individual left alone in the wild would struggle to build a shelter and start a fire.
Citation needed.
If the AI is doing the building, we have to take care of the destroying, in this case destroying other people within a ring or an oktagon, at the poker table or on the chessboard, sailing and surfing competitions for the more exotic personalities, also destroying pu*ies of all ethnicities too, that is always a good relief for anxiety.
> > It's not, and I don't see it's unjustified
Think for a second the source of the materials needed to put together the phone you are typing from and the whole internet infrastructure , it's the 8bn people who put together all of that not you
> > Citation needed.
Go do it then, also remember that the fact that wood + spark make a fire is not your knowledge it was passed over to you
Please don't do anything rash. It's not worth it. None of us actually know what the future holds.
But it really doesn't matter to me anymore what the future holds. I know I'll be unfit for it, that there will be no place for people like me in there.
There comes a certain point in life where everyone around you just looks in a different direction than you do, and when you cannot bring yourself to look in the same direction, you know you're finished.
Therefore, the best course of action is to not make any permanent decisions based on that faulty perspective.
try unplugging from the internet for a couple hours, days, weeks and maybe months.
it's either nihilistic optimism or that. i chose the former everyday.
if you don't have one, make one.
if you have one but you dread them, find better ones.
if you were unable to see nor read or if you were born in a different country will you have the same exact worries? you're probably taking for granted a lot of things in your life now that other people would fight and die for.
I won't be able to help my family anymore, not that where I came from, not the one I'd liked to build with my fiancee. I won't be able to provide anymore, I won't mean anything anymore as a human. The significance of an individual is already so brittle when taken out of every relationship with others that it takes very little to be left with meaning nothing at all.
> if you were unable to see nor read or if you were born in a different country will you have the same exact worries? you're probably taking for granted a lot of things in your life now that other people would fight and die for.
"Why are you complaining about your leg being cut off and bleeding, if there are people out there who were born without legs at all?" This kind of retorts go nowhere and just serve as an apathetic response to any event that can happen in life. I won't have that. I'll simply choose violence, and since nobody deserves to be hurt by anyone's else anger, I'll simply redirect it towards myself and reject the world that is going to come. That's taking action.
I just don't want to stick around and find that out. I simply do not belong in a world where everyone would be perfectly fine with the implications of this one bubble not popping.
Basically I've been without employment for months because my last job ruined me and treated me as expendable, without facing or understanding the consequences of getting too deep into the tech/engineering field. Lately I have only been able to hope that they receive their judgment sooner rather than later, so that we can slow down the progress of AI and carefully evaluate it as a proper engineering field rather than a cash-grab tech bubble that will burst at this rate.
Hang in there, shit's just hitting the fan.
Also sorry to know you've been through that.
I can't, never got around doing that. And as I replied elsewhere, that bridge is held up by the will of many as if they made an Atlas of an idea that I simply cannot bring myself to share. I cannot pretend to belong to a future that holds no place for me.
Speaking objectively, with every change there will be a spread, in that spread winners, losers, and those who make the tread. All you really need to survive in this game of life (freak calamity aside) is to beat the averages.
On the personal account, emotional refactoring to loss is easier to drown out in methodical purpose. Get to work on something in which it's completion is it's own purpose and know that most every great succeeder was forged in the crucible of self determination. "Live lean" is a sage advice for uncertain times.
What you describe is a part of the ouroboros. your instinct I hope will motivate you to higher orders of completeness.
For the determined sort, there will always be a spread to beat and the ability to change the self will always put you ahead of whatever that curve will be.
Hopefully someone else will also read it if they stumble upon this thread, and find solace in it.
> beat the averages
That's the thing, I don't care about doing that this time. I've always been fine putting the most amount of effort I doing it, and it gave me meaning. This time, I don't find any reason anymore for doing that, because whatever comes is simply dehumanizing from my point of view. Beating the averages would be simply to admit defeat, and I don't feel like doing it. I really like the idea of simply saying no to this, and the only way to do that is to "leave the premises". Cheers
Perhaps the purpose of this experience is for you to stop clinging to the false God of your usefulness and instead clearly see your true nature and your true relationship with God.
> stop clinging to the false God of your usefulness and instead clearly see your true nature and your true relationship with God
I've been longing for that for a very long time. Hopefully I'll be able to feel loved that way sooner or later.
How do they do that?
I know it sucks to struggle with a lack of meaning, fulfillment, and agency. Many of us feel degrees of that too, with AI on the horizon and our careers (if not societies) possibly ending. As a two-time suicide survivor myself, I also totally understand the feeling of "I don't get the point of existing anymore", a mixture of hopelessness for the future, persistent dysthymia, and moments of intense pain/suffering. It's no fun... at all. I don't know your situation, but I'm sorry you have to deal with that :(
But before you jump to any conclusions (no pun intended), I would like to ask if you could please just consider how people find the will to go on despite recurring hardships and failures and an overall lack of purpose & fulfillment in their lives.
Is your career the only source of meaning in your life? Even if you are reduced to a mere commodity... well, so what? Billions of people are just commoditized pawns in the schemes of the rich & powerful, working 9-5s or worse to make someone else rich. That's the default state of human existence in our industrialized, capitalist world. Even before AI, most of us were still just pawns for the Bezos and Musks of the world, living slightly more comfortably, maybe, but ultimately doing forgettable work that will likely be unused and forgotten after a few years anyway.
But so what? Despite these existences, folks still have friends, hobbies, a love of poetry/nature/fishing/hunting/sports/games/whatever it is that they look forward to every week. They have struggles that they go through and feel satisfaction after resolving. They enjoy the simple pleasures of good meal, a hot bath or hot sex, a sunny walk, whatever.
On the other hand, our most famous movie and music stars overdose and die young, politicians live under constant hatred from millions, the rich live lonely, solitary existences not knowing who to trust... even if you "made it", or are on top of the AI revolution, that's no guarantee of happiness either.
All that is to say that in our lives, we're given no inherent right to happiness, only the chance to pursue it. And even when you find it, it's usually fleeting, with no guarantee it'll last the year, much less the rest of your life.
But you at least have that chance. I can't promise you will find career fulfillment, much less happiness, after AI. Many of us will probably lose our paths and have to start over from scratch, competing with hordes of others. But guess what? That just makes us like the other 99% of people... the kid born into poverty, the Uber immigrant driver with no education, the person scammed out of their life savings, the mom who lost her whole family in a car crash. Everyone's struggling, and compared to most, we're still better off, with more resources, professional experience, connections, education, whatever. All you have is a chance, and it's up to you to drive the rest of your life the way you want it to go, with or without a tech career.
Maybe you'll find another fulfilling tech job, or maybe work in another field altogether, or maybe have to be unemployed for a long time and go back to school or just work dead-end gigs for the rest of your life. OK, fine, but those are possibilities for any of us, whether you're a tech worker or a factory worker or a coal miner. Employment is never guaranteed, especially in a fast-changing world. But so what? That's just life, and you find or make other paths to happiness, one day at a time. That's all anyone can do.
AI or not, you'll be dead by the turn of the century anyhow. What's the rush? You can only play the cards you're dealt, as you're dealt them, and the only variable is what you do in response. I believe the struggles we go through ultimately make us stronger, kinder, and I would argue, happier in the end.
Ultimately I'm not going to tell you not to do it if that's really what you want. I think everyone deserves the right to make that decision for themselves. But if you're not yet sure, well, just consider what truly makes someone's life fulfilling, and whether a career is the only thing worth living for. Maybe it's worth giving other small things a chance.
FWIW, some of the happiest people I know are musicians, farmers, carpenters, people who work with animals, or their hands, or their communities. Their jobs aren't glamorous, but their lives are overflowing with meaning and love, and community closeness, in ways that tech almost never offers. Maybe it's a good time to try something different? Just a thought.
It def gave me some food for thought.
The one thing that does strike me is the fact that you're reducing everything to a very simplistic and one dimensional viewpoint. Yes AI is coming, but AI is not everything. There will still be love, laughter, games, nature, human interaction, beauty, art, cute cats, crafts, sex, music, dance, culture, food...
Life doesn't stop just because AI arrives. In the same way that it didn't stop when the steam or oil age arrived. Or when we moved from an agricultural age to an industrial age. Our money and our work don't define us, our life defines us. In totality. Our experiences, our learnings, our curiosity, our passion, our relationships. There's so much interesting stuff going on, all the time, if we can only stop and engage with it.
Good luck!
I see 2 things that are good news here, the first is that you reached out to others for help, speaking purely statistically this is a good indicator that you are a survivor! The second good news is that much of the AI hype you're hearing is embellished for profit. Things feel really bleak because of where your head is at right now, and that can change!
Please go get help from the people waiting to give it to you, you can make it through even this!
> I don't have any hopes whatsoever for my future anymore after having worked hard to reach the point I am, and the future looks as bleak as ever.
If you are in a good place now thanks to your hard work, you should have more faith in yourself that regardless of the time you live in, your good qualities will help see you through more situations :)
> Reading AI shit every single day, even when it's hyped, and knowing it's coming for everyone no matter its actual capabilities is driving me insane
One thing I always do when scrolling through Twitter etc is try to see the conflicts of interests of the people spreading AI FOMO. They inevitably have something they want to sell, or an AI company, or are trying to position themselves as thought leaders to secure an investment. In today's world, everyone is trying to sell us something or trying to tell us what to think. Let's be strong and not fall for it! I agree with some of the other commenters about disconnecting from social media, and talking to real people in the living world, not disembodied voices online!
> I don't get what the point of existing is anymore if the only two paths left in life are either a rat race to death and being reduce to a mere commodity for menial tasks that cannot be automated with current technology, or basically not having anything to do whatsoever because you cost too much and AI can do whatever you do at an acceptable quality.
The world is so beautiful, and we are so young. If you have the resources, try to travel, to another country, or city or neighborhood. There are people from all walks of life who have never even heard of AI, and who are happily going about their business. We are just like those people, we are small specks on the scale of the universe. Let's celebrate the life we have. In our world there is a lot of anguish, war, hunger, it's also worth remembering all the blessings we have.
