This is a special post for quick takes by MaxIRL. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The benefits of lazy parenting.
My wife and I often look at ourselves as lazy parents. From as early as the kids could manage, we would expect them to get up and get their own water or snack or dress themselves or even shower themselves. On some occasions, the kids, at 4 and 6, would do the entire bedtime routine, saying goodnight downstairs, and then go up, shower, dress, teeth, and bed on their own.
Sometimes we feel guilty, but the kids love the independence we give them. We give them endless love, we show it, but we avoid doing things for them as much as possible.
I figure there's a fine line here, but I believe my kids are quite independent for their ages and so I condone and promote lazy parenting.
I've been thinking about company culture recently and the values to promote and hunt for when hiring. I feel 3 core values is the maximum you can have. If/when I start my own business, I would hire against and promote the below 3 core values:
Use good judgement
Tackle the hard things first
Drive it to the end
A culture where autonomy, accountability, and grit can build around these common values.
I think most of the result will depend on interpreting what "good judgment" means. I mean, almost everyone believes that their judgment is good, and many of them are wrong.
With the hype and concern surrounding AI, so many talk about how 80% of the population used to be farmers, and with the industrial revolution, people started working in factories, and as big strides were made in machinery, automation, and the heralding of the information age, we became knowledge workers.
So we're all knowledge workers and AI is coming for that. What's next? My theory here is that we become entertainers..
That might mean we start writing, performing, whether that be singing, acting, dancing, etc., of course there's also making engaging content on sites like YouTube, and with video generation, there'll be more opportunity to make engaging content for sites like Netflix.
With the time we may all have, we learn and hone skills. We spend the time to create and engage with each other.
Maybe the utopia that comes with AI, we call the entertainment age.
if we assume that the AIs are willing to support our hedonistic lifestyle despite us having zero bargaining power since we are completely unnecessary for the AIs continued existence plus an active drain on it's resources
then yeah this culture style utopia is probably the default outcome (though i don't see how video generation is going to help here, if AI is making the videos then it has already taken your job)
but let's dream about this after we figure out how to avoid rogue AIs and cyberpunk dystopias cause those are WAY more likely outcomes right now
I believe the chance of AI leading to dystopia is certainly non-0, and it's easy to come up with all the ways AI might try to take us out, but I find the more challenging ideas (beyond how we keep an aligned ASI) are related to how will society operate when AI does cover all jobs and we are left with time on our hands.
Agreed, higher priority is ensuring AGI/ASI is aligned with humanities best interests, but nice to think how society could look 10 to 15 years in the future if we get it right!