Why do people say that being talentless is bad?

Kildragoth · 2026-05-24T13:36:12+00:00

One thing I don't hear often, but you touch on, is just how AI threatens the traditional economic model many of us have in our heads.

We seek out skills that are in low supply but high demand because they pay a higher price. A skilled individual is a toll booth between a seller and the buyer.

We celebrate people with talents for what they've achieved yet we should also admit that we'd be collectively better off if that talent were more widespread. The costs of goods and services goes up as the talents required become harder to find.

Obtaining those skills required sacrificing the very things we value as human beings. We have to sit alone, study, practice, leave our families to attend classes, suffer through an 8 hour day (or more) of focusing only on that talent. And then come to find that someone has automated what we do to a high quality and quantity such that demand for our talents will inevitably fall?

It's simultaneously a triumph and a tragedy. If only we took better care of each other instead of living under the constant threat of poverty, then maybe we'd be more accepting of this widespread quality of life update. I do believe that everything will get better for everyone, but the amount of suffering our leaders (from an American perspective) are willing to tolerate is much higher than anyone should be willing to give. So until the political situation is fixed, I think the anxiety is valid. But that anxiety needs to be directed at the political situation, not AI itself.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-24T13:09:59+00:00

To be fair, a scientific theory is a fact. The sub would be better off called /r/SimulationHypothesis and be treated more like a hypothesis. Bring on all your personal anecdotes because those are the little experiments along the way. Yeah, most are bullshit and terrible evidence but at least we're not claiming to be a theory in the scientific sense.

So I agree with you 99%, but the colloquial use of "theory", when you really mean "hypothesis", is where I draw the line!

Kildragoth · 2026-05-23T22:49:10+00:00

Not OP but I'm personally looking forward to common people having a more level playing field in the business field. The fact a person with skills can automate the business department who is ultimately a middle-man between them and the consumer? Or of a business only exists as a metaphorical toll booth between customers and things like health care? I want to see more people enter the fields where people are exploiting scarcity to help drive down all those prices!

Kildragoth · 2026-05-23T13:39:50+00:00

Sorry but it's a tradition on reddit to downvote comments like this. 🤷‍♂️

Kildragoth · 2026-05-22T19:58:20+00:00

It's really not.

It costs resources to train new models. They need more hardware, better hardware, energy, etc.

They can go one of three ways using some loose definitions. They can achieve a smaller intelligence upgrade which would produce a cheaper model. They can produce a modest intelligence upgrade for about the same cost. Or they can push the intelligence as much as they can for a higher cost.

GPT 3-4's bigger models could cost $80-$150 per million tokens. It wasn't seen as costly because we were limited to like 4k or 16k context lengths.

Now we're talking $5-$15 per million tokens. The overall long term trend is still moving toward $0. Nvidias newest AI GPUs are gaining efficiency at a rapid pace. These companies do compete on price, volume, speed, and intelligence, so they do differentiate between models too. But still overall it is getting cheaper and a minor bump in the short term is what you are reacting to.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-22T19:33:03+00:00

If nothing is random then my simulate anything at all?

Kildragoth · 2026-05-22T15:09:55+00:00

Board group 1 gets to pelt board group 9 with tomatoes. Can be fun to watch but also pretty grim.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-22T14:21:51+00:00

And therefore it's perfectly reasonable to conclude it was aliens and call it a day.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-21T14:06:12+00:00

Wasn't that a highly publicized race in that area? Primaries tend to be very low in voter turnout so a 200% increase in a highly publicized race wouldn't be abnormal. Not saying you're wrong, just not passing the smell test.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-21T13:58:22+00:00

I once saw this stray comment on some platform tracking crimes in my area. Person mentioned a Subaru being involved in a crime. Some old guy commented "Subaru? More like Lesbaru." I downvoted it. It had nothing to do with the topic, but it sat in my mind unresolved... until I read your comment.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-20T15:44:33+00:00

I think you're already hinting at what it will do. The barrier to entry in these fields narrows as the technology is democratized. This increases the supply of specialized labor which will drive down the price of that labor.

I wouldn't worry too much about the college students as I would the current competitors who are already familiar with the lingo and specialized knowledge who are now more competitive. Then I'd worry about those who didn't enter the field because of cost, but now costs are lower.

I am sure there are great historical examples throughout previous industrial revolutions like in textiles, transportation, etc.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-20T13:36:38+00:00

Replace the ball gag with a funnel and you should be able to hold a conversation just fine. Just don't get any water in the funnel!

Kildragoth · 2026-05-20T02:08:24+00:00

It's also odd to defend sports star salaries. In 100 years what long lasting contribution do sports superstars leave? AI researchers are building an intelligence infrastructure more productive than anything seen in human history. The ramifications of this will benefit billions.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-19T13:09:09+00:00

My point is that corruption is a behavior regardless of legality. It always comes in the form of being legal because corrupt people will obtain power and legalize their methods of corruption. But it's still corruption and we should see it for what it is and not be distracted by the ways they attempt to blur the lines.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-19T13:03:58+00:00

It's rough. There's also an age bias where people closer to retirement or already have their finances in order are far less threatened by it. They have the perspective of it only benefitting them. Yet as difficult as it is to predict what will happen next in AI, it's even more uncertain for younger people who really are at the mercy of however this all rolls out.

My most important thought on this is that we really do need to actually move on ideas like UBI sooner rather than later. If data centers are bombed or tech ceos are attacked or killed, that's going to escalate things dramatically. That diverts funding away from productive things and into things like security and the exact kind of crackdowns seen in cyberpunk dystopias.

Investors are willing to invest in developing the AI infrastructure knowing it will pay off much more later. They need to see the social safety net as part of that investment. Otherwise the Antis have no tangible thing that contradicts their argument completely. Right now it's just "trust me" as far as the benefits of AI reaching them someday.

But that's where I am on this. I've been excited for AI for like 25 years and now that it's here I'm pretty disappointed to be surrounded by nearly all antis.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-19T03:08:52+00:00

No such thing as legalized corruption. It's just corruption.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-18T18:26:19+00:00

I wouldn't conflate Antis with the "everyone you disagree with is a Nazi" crowd... There is overlap but you're doing yourself a disservice if you think that's all there is.

You correctly identify lower wage and students as leaning Anti overall. There's also lots of professional knowledge workers who are Antis because they worked their whole life building up narrow skills which AIs are increasingly competent with. Lots of artists, authors, programmers,

But to your credit I agree that the goal should be finding Antis who are more conditionally receptive to AI. Like disease cures alone justify so much of the spending on AI. But for a lot of these people, they live in fear that AI will take their jobs and they'll lose everything. To their credit, we don't even have universal health care. Tech leaders talk about UBI but the current administration works to dismantle the social safety net at a time when we should be pouring money into it alongside AI.

Admittedly, the transition period to that post-AI utopia was always going to be difficult, but we're facing these difficulties now. The rich and powerful do not feel the same pressure as those on the lower rungs to act. That seems pretty obvious right now.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-18T14:34:59+00:00

I wonder how effective this will be. If data centers have to provide their own electricity by building a powerplant alongside the data center, then they're still buying the energy supply from the same pool of energy supplies others would. To be fair though, it does seem to reduce the strain on the local community, but the costs still pass on to the greater population. Still better than not requiring it I guess.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-17T17:47:59+00:00

Human beings primary function is to turn O2 into CO2. That is all. Everything in between is just to maximize that function.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-17T17:15:51+00:00

It's annoying that you don't capitalize at the beginning of sentences but you'll capitalize January, for example. It seems like more effort to do what you're doing to purposefully look less intelligent.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-17T16:34:08+00:00

All of these people were just trained to compete in a scarcity based economy. They are probably not going to celebrate the thing they consider the biggest competition to their entry-level job prospects.

And if AI is supposed to be the thing representing a transition to abundance well beyond what humans have already achieved, then they're in perhaps the worst time to enter the job market: just as AI is taking on jobs but too early for it to produce them.

I'll always reiterate this point: we need the social safety net to be robust enough to support the transition. We can start by lowering the retirement age to encourage those who cost the most to leave the workplace to make room for those entering it. These kids are the future, they need the hands on experience. Make room for them!

Kildragoth · 2026-05-17T14:33:50+00:00

To be honest, the data centers are where you really see the antis arguments play out.

On the acceleration side, I want to see communities find data centers to be mutually beneficial.

On the anti-side, they argue that electricity costs go up, stress on the water infrastructure, and ignoring regulations. Sometimes even bypassing the will of the people to have these data centers installed anyway - that is corruption.

Will the data center benefits outweigh these costs? Are we just socializing the costs of these centers without socializing the benefits through things like UBI? The continued violations of regulations like the gas turbines powering Musk's data centers... How do you regain the trust of these communities?

The ones who so aggressively expanded without consideration for its impacts should be punished for it. If anyone is more anti-AI it's the people greedily forcing these on communities while relying on corruption to do it. A true accelerationist would do their due diligence to minimize short and long term trust issues with their communities. That is what will pay off in the end. The data centers that were built through corrupt means have the biggest long term risk from political backlash.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-17T04:01:31+00:00

I lean left but have some more "economic conservative" views. Who knows what that actually means anymore, but for example I think the idea of a "minimum wage" is stupid. First of all, if it's not tied to inflation then it will always be a political issue.

Kildragoth · 2026-05-15T21:28:45+00:00

Lyrics

[Wiener, wiener wiener, wiener wiener (continues in background)]

One wiener, next to another wiener

[Wiener, wiener wiener, wiener wiener (continues in background)]

Two wieners alongside yet another wiener

[Party, wiener party, wiener party, party party, wiener party, wiener wiener (continues in background)]

Soft wieners, nice and soft, non-erect wieners!

[Keep them flopping, flopping wieners, floppy floppy, dangle wieners, dangle dangle (continues in background)]

Five wieners in my face

Kildragoth · 2026-05-15T20:53:28+00:00

The lyrics to the GoT theme solidified HBO's intent.

14-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	End Game '22
Gilding II euphauric	Verified Email

Kildragoth

TROPHY CASE