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As it just so happens, I was struggling with this in Python recently and this post describes a better solution than what I came up with.

> Essentially, if this is a feature you must have, Python seems like the wrong language.

While I don't disgree in the absolute sense, there are constraints. You can't just switch language or change the problem you're solving. If you have the need for more type safety, then this is a price worth paying.

I agree with the overall sentiment, but it's is not necessarily the case that "the world has collectively decided to lose their minds with this AI crap". You only need a relatively small number of bad actors for this to be the case.

Conversely, if you don't want to use OpenAI and/or SO, you are free to do so. SO has no obligation to continue losing users for your whims.

On top of this, you could say the same about any disrupting technology.

I don't think it's common for people to wait for flow to come in order to get things done. You can set up the conditions for it and likely reliable trigger it, but getting things done (or concentrating on a problem) is how you get to flow in the first place.

You might be in the flow state without knowing. :)

Tesla has absolutely not been the #1 selling vehicle in the world, especially not for years.

With that said, I do largely agree with your main point.

We can't unless the whole world agrees to. It's simply impractical to limit your own progress when you have foreign adversaries not doing the same.

> Let me be more clear: individual programmers are improving AI for its intellectual amusement, but organizations use it for its disruptive powers. Two different groups of people, with a bit of an intersection.

That's clearer, but I still take issue with it. You can say the same about any software project or maybe even most work in general. As software engineers (I assume that's your profession too), we automate things that could have kept hundreds of people employed. There isn't that much different with AI - as long as there is money spent on the problem, there will be people willing to work on it, especially at the forefront of technolgy.

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I agree with your second point. With that said, climate is way clearer distructive behavior, while also being more of a nuissance, a side effect of growth. AI has enormous potential and could, in the most optimistic outcomes, lead us to a utopia. Obviously, we all know that will not happen.

Also, the reason why AI progress will not be halted - we cannot allow our adversaries take the lead on this. It's really that simple.

There were plenty of people 'complaining' about Copilot and there are plenty 'complaining' about Devin.

However, what can you really complain about? Technological progress? We can't just decide to ignore AI. Just to play devil's advocate, if there really were clear signs of this impending distruction, there could be some sort of international agreement to halt progress. Realistically, this will never happen.

> All along, we are incrementally improving AI because it is an intellectual amusement

You're contradicting yourself here. Is it just 'intellectual amusement' if this technology is as disruptive as you claim?

If what you were saying was accurate and taken at face value, then we would see companies and products simply crumbling every few years, for seemingly unknown reasons.

There is definitely some amount of truth to this but, by definition, it cannot be as bad as you portrey it.

As with everything else, it's all about incentives. If well-crafted software made more money, then all we'd have would be craftsmanship. But it doesn't.

There is plenty of software which has to be reliable and without surprises, and that is where you will find craftsmanship. Except that doesn't usually make as much money as "big tech", so it won't pay as much and that is the problem. People want to have their cake and eat it too - spend countless hours on problems that tickle their intellectual curiosity and sense of achievement, while also being paid handsomely.

David Grusch is supposedly in the process of writing an op-ed in which he reveals more about his actual knowledge. He was not allowed to talk publicly about his actual involvement.

As to "for the sake of national security", I am really not buying this angle. There are plenty of scarecrows to use for increased spending - Russia, China, Middle East, North Korea. The media has not covered this topic at all. You would expect more engagement if this was really a push for more money.

> You're talking to someone who spent N years, for uncomfortably large N, as a grad student in a philosophy PhD program, so it ought to be very obvious that I'm not a ruthless wealth maximizer. In fact, I still have student loan debt from that undertaking.

And that's great, but your specific example is not what we are discussing here. We are talking about averages, not particular examples.

> My earlier suggestion, though, is that there's a correlation between wealth and lack of ethics, because "our economic system tends to select for people who are unethical and ruthless".

Hmm, I think we can agree here, I don't think I've said anything that would suggest otherwise.

> You still, after repeated prompting, resolutely refuse to explain exactly what you mean by "hard work"

Because I'm not sure it's worth it. However, your example with the guitar is good and actually fits exactly into what I'm trying to say.

Maybe you can never get to be like Jimi Hendrix, no matter how much you practice, but generally speaking, those who practice more, ON AVERAGE, will be better than those who practice less. Yes, there are other factors like natural talent and whatever else, but OVERALL those with 2k hours of guitar will be X% better than those with 1k hours.

Now, in the example above, replace guitar with "hard work" (however you want to define it, that matters less) and "better" with "more money".

In our economic system, the thing that gets rewarded is the creation of value. All things being equal, the harder you work, the more value you create. It's obviously not perfect and there are many, many caveats, but averaged across the whole economy, this is definitely true.

> It's important because you seem to consider your own views as axiomatic and in need of no defense.

Not all of them. I'd be perfectly okay with having to explain my stance on the accomplishments of Bin Laden. However, yes, I do find it axiomatic that working harder is correlated with more wealth.