Ask HN: Will AI lead to complete human irrelevance?

After the recent mathematical advances in AI, it is clear that it is possible for AI to surpass the abilities of even the smartest humans in specific domains. I feel that it is thereby inevitable that AI will be able to surpass humans in any domain of economic, scientific, or otherwise practical relevance, it's just a matter of time. As a result, there will be nothing worth paying any human to do, as an AI system can do it faster, cheaper, more reliably.

What is your best argument against this possibility? People were laughing at the idea of AI doing math at all a few years ago, I feel that all those still secure in human superiority in any other domain won't be feeling the same way in a few years once robotics reaches a critical threshold. I think the only thing keeping humans in charge at that point would be very effectively managed regulation which gives humans a decisive, if artificial, advantage.

2 points | by atleastoptimal 4 hours ago

6 comments

  • __patchbit__ 3 hours ago
    It will be quite a while for AI to discover the synthetic biology to spawn juvenile cockcroach agility and endurance at that scale in automata form. The A, B venn diagram may see overlapping human and AI symbiosis make the most achievements. What the AI boosters claim they may achieve in math doesn't pass the shitkicksmell test unless all concerned are exponents in that space. Some say the bug in the LEAN kernel may throw proof claims off.
  • _wire_ 1 hour ago
    > Ask HN: Will AI lead to complete human irrelevance?

    Only if you want it to.

  • bigyabai 3 hours ago
    > As a result, there will be nothing worth paying any human to do, as an AI system can do it faster, cheaper, more reliably.

    Do you live in a world where farming, mining, refining, manufacturing, managing, policing, politicking, QA testing, investing, bartering and advertising are all completely automated?

    If you automated all of those things, there would be so much room for disruption that the AI wouldn't be able to maintain dominance.

    [-]
    • atleastoptimal 3 hours ago
      I don't mean currently, I mean in the future when an AI system exceeds all human abilities in that domain.

      > If you automated all of those things, there would be so much room for disruption that the AI wouldn't be able to maintain dominance.

      I think the skill "being able to identify and exploit areas ripe for disruption" is also a skill AI could hill-climb to become better than humans at. Being an entrepreneur is a mixture of domain knowledge, perseverance, intelligence, sales, and execution, and there is nothing keeping an embodied AI system, or even a trivially implemented AI-led system with ceremonial human representatives (for shaking hands when deals are made) from dominating in those domains and thus the entire entrepreneurial space.

  • beardyw 3 hours ago
    I think what's missing is the question "What is the point of it?". As humans we tend to assume that money has intrinsic value (it doesn't), that what we do is important (it isn't) etc. What will AI do that has any point other than to make human lives better?
  • yepyoukno 3 hours ago
    So ready to obsolete yourself?

    Sure things will change and possibilities will redistribute.

    There is this lost art called “quality of life”, which you may have noticed many modest people excel and many wealthy fail. Living well is a lost technology each and every one of us must find out for ourselves.

    “AI” is just a tool which refactors all that other shit we made up to make our crazy world work over the past decades.

    I don’t know what you’ve been paid to code, I’ve got some stories.

    Live well. Being a reliable talented or useful person will always find benefit. For myself, I am thinking “Epicurean garden.”

  • rvz 3 hours ago
    > What is your best argument against this possibility? People were laughing at the idea of AI doing math at all a few years ago, I feel that all those still secure in human superiority in any other domain won't be feeling the same way in a few years once robotics reaches a critical threshold.

    Would you trust an AI or a humanoid robot to safely fly and land a commercial plane with 300+ human passengers and zero human captains?

    We will always need humans for highly critical roles and tasks. Building yet another web app framework or building apps in Nextjs or React isn't one of them.

    > I think the only thing keeping humans in charge at that point would be very effectively managed regulation which gives humans a decisive, if artificial, advantage.

    It just means that someone has to take full responsibility for when it all goes wrong given that the cost might go into the millions or tens of millions of dollars.