[GeoAtreides]

I tried leaning into the joy, took about 10 seconds before I remembered I don't have any discretionary spending, that the job market is crashing, that I don't own a house, and the AI is destroying the very industry I trained on since I was eleven, taking my means of surviving away. And no personal project will save us, because everything will drown in a deluge of vibeslop that devalues any kind of work and knowledge.

Tell me Simon, what happens with the economy when no one affords more than barely survival? To whom are we going to sell those side projects? To the 1% with their soon to crash stocks? To the disappearing white collars? To the proles that only spend on food, alcohol and gambling?

Is that where the joy is? In seeing the hope fading away? In our stolen future? Tell me, so I too can be joyful like you.

[simonw]

> Tell me Simon, what happens with the economy when no one affords more than barely survival?

Everything is awful for almost everyone. I expect even the ultra wealthy will find their lives significantly less pleasant than they were before.

I hope that doesn't happen. That's why I don't write much about "AGI" - I'm unexcited about the concept, at least until someone can convincingly explain how the economy doesn't collapse for regular humans as a result.

I maintain my joy partly by not believing the AGI hype. I refer to that as the science fiction version of AI. I don't think that's what we have today.

We're three years into the ChatGPT revolution now and so far the main observable impact on the craft that I care about is that I can build more ambitious things.

[GeoAtreides]

great sleight of hand there, making it all about AGI when it wasn't about AGI at all