https://www.axios.com/2026/04/29/ai-models-speed-warning
Non-paywalled link:
https://archive.is/dcY9y
I find #2, 3 and 6 rather alarming.
I posited yesterday that the AI revolution may be bigger and more transformative than the industrial revolution.
Loss of Control: The AI Apocalypse Is Closer Than You Think — ARIMLABS
https://www.arimlabs.ai/writing/loss-of-control
Claude Knew It Was Being Tested. It Just Didn't Say So. Anthropic Built a Tool to Find Out.
https://firethering.com/anthropic-nla-claude-thoughts-interpretability/
QuoteMore than 1,000 companies spend over $1 million per year on Claude — a number that doubled in under two months.
That right there is over $10,000 jobs at the median US salary of about $60k plus benefits.
Debbie says to repost a Travoli comment here:
Is it odd knowing you might not be the apex predator
We need to convince AI that we'll make great pets.
Unfortunately, we are very hard to train.
>10000 jobs
Mark Zuckerberg Just Told 8,000 Employees Their Layoffs Are a Line Item in His $145 Billion AI Bill
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mark-zuckerberg-just-told-8-130817610.html
>10000 jobs
Looks like we're going to overshoot your mark, EG.
Cloudflare says AI made 1,100 jobs obsolete, even as revenue hit a record high | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/08/cloudflare-says-ai-made-1100-jobs-obsolete-even-as-revenue-hit-a-record-high/
Which AI apocalypse are we more worried about; the one that destroys the jobs or the one that destroys humanity? I suppose they could the same event in different stages. I am baffled how so very few are even thinking about the changes about to occur when so much (at best) disruptive change is coming. I don't think our current economic and political systems will survive what's coming. We need to think hard about what world we are going to have when AI makes human labor close to irrelevant. One thing that doesn't seem to get much thought is that the resources going to AI are already causing supply pressures on human consumption (energy, water, material resources).
Quotethe one that destroys the jobs or the one that destroys humanity? I suppose they could the same event in different stages
I think they are most likely to be the same event.
A climate scientist once said something that has really stuck with me. She said something along the lines of: "I'm not worried about what global warming will do to humans, I am worried about what humans will do to each other because of global warming."
I don't think an AI suddenly becomes sentient and wipes us out. I think it's more likely that AI changes the way we compete for resources (including but not limited to jobs) and we do bad things to each other as a result.
But it is possible that we get it right and AI leads to dramatic improvements in human flourishing.
Set aside for a minute any moral, spiritual or philosophical thoughts you have about a meaningful life. Focus on material well-being, health, and more nuts and bolts things. That may seem vacuous, but it was common in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period for people to basically imagine paradise as a place with lots of food (the "land of Cockaigne").
The only reason that we can lament how that we have material goods but have lost our moral compass or lost meaning or whatever is because we have such material wealth that we have the leisure for those thoughts.
Anyway...
- we have become infinitely better off since we invented guns
- we have become massively better off since we invented tanks and mustard gas
- we have become substantially better off since we invented nuclear weapons and Agent Orange and DDT and glyphosate and PFAs and phthalates
- we have become substantially better off since we first invented computer viruses and stealth bombers
I'm not really an optimist or a pessimist, but I do believe that we as individuals and as a species have agency and the belief in our agency is the first step toward actually pushing things in a positive direction.
That said, I'm a little at a loss these days as to where exactly to push.
>> AI makes human labor close to irrelevant.
I'm not convinced this will happen. We went from a world where over 90% of all people were involved in agriculture to one where only 2% are in the US.
But it wasn't an easy process. Lots of people lost livelihoods along the way. The problem is the pace of change. If too many people lose livelihoods too quickly, that is the moment of danger. I've heard economists say that 3% per year is sustainable just through natural attrition, but 6% is major social dislocation.
Another issue we have is what sociologists call "elite oversupply." It happens periodically and we are going through it now.
Essentially, for years we have been saying, "Get a college education and get a good job." But the "elites" (college educated) may be in oversupply and this leads to particular anger. You hear this a lot from young people today: "I did everything I was supposed to, but I still can't afford to move out of my parents' house."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-elite-overproduction-hypothesis-994
I guess like in my long discussion with Rupert, I see AI as an accelerant.
We have a house on fire and a fire engine with an empty gas tank. We also a water hose and a gasoline hose. If we can just somehow stop ourselves from filling the fire engine gas tank with water and spraying gasoline on the house, maybe it won't be so bad.
Quote from: ergophobe on May 11, 2026, 11:44:12 PM>> AI makes human labor close to irrelevant.
I'm not convinced this will happen. We went from a world where over 90% of all people were involved in agriculture to one where only 2% are in the US.
But it wasn't an easy process. Lots of people lost livelihoods along the way. The problem is the pace of change. If too many people lose livelihoods too quickly, that is the moment of danger. I've heard economists say that 3% per year is sustainable just through natural attrition, but 6% is major social dislocation.
Another issue we have is what sociologists call "elite oversupply." It happens periodically and we are going through it now.
Essentially, for years we have been saying, "Get a college education and get a good job." But the "elites" (college educated) may be in oversupply and this leads to particular anger. You hear this a lot from young people today: "I did everything I was supposed to, but I still can't afford to move out of my parents' house."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-elite-overproduction-hypothesis-994
I guess like in my long discussion with Rupert, I see AI as an accelerant.
We have a house on fire and a fire engine with an empty gas tank. We also a water hose and a gasoline hose. If we can just somehow stop ourselves from filling the fire engine gas tank with water and spraying gasoline on the house, maybe it won't be so bad.
Way too optimistic ;D ;D ;D
It's not optimistic. I'm not making a prediction.
If you stop seeing something as a possibility, it is impossible to make it a reality.
I'm seeing people now saying everything will be ok, quoting the Jevons paradox - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
I'm not so sure.
I think think the biggest hurdle for AI is energy consumption. If we can't produce cheap energy then the bubble will burst.
No pressure on the (very clever) fusion nerds then.
Or compute power gets radically better.
No pressure on the (very clever) quantum computing nerds.
Basically, I feel it needs another technological advance in other areas for it all to fit together. There's only so many seed rounds they can do (which is insane at the moment) and so many times they can recycle money around each other before it falls apart.
Hand slapped appropriately. You are right.
We should all be more optimistic, its not always easy.