The world's first supercomputer capable of simulating networks at the scale of the human brain has been announced by researchers at Western Sydney University.
This is such a non-argument, you can use it to justify not funding anything. Why did they build this new railway, there are people without homes! Why did they fund this arts project when there are people going hungry? Why did they research how brains work when they could have been curing cancer? What do you expect these scientists at this university to do, stop being scientists, throw away their research, and start building houses?
AI does have little to do with it, but we can’t do housing the way people want housing. The land does not exist in sufficient quantity, in the desired areas, without other strings attached (such as private ownership). And it would still take a decade to build it all because there aren’t enough tradespeople in the places where you want the housing built.
This is complete and utter bullshit. We have enough of everything to start solving housing this second. Workers aren’t a problem, locations aren’t a problem. We lack the political will to do it, read: we don’t want to do it. Having “AI” tell you why you don’t want to do it is just wasteful
I won’t argue that AI won’t solve the housing problem. And I agree that we can build a bunch of housing. But it won’t be where people want to live, or it won’t be affordable. I’ve got people in my town screaming for affordable housing. Even with subsidies its hard to get things going when the local municipality is practically bending over backwards. Why? Because it has to be on a bus line. It has to be within walking distance of X services. And all the land that fits those criteria is millions of dollars an acre. Even if you could find them, the contractors can’t find enough qualified, reliable workers at premium rates to service their million dollar home builds. I’m in the industry and I don’t care how much “will power” you have; short of taking land through eminent domain and using it for free, you won’t have anyplace that meets any kind of criteria for livability. Hell, I could go buy 1000 acres just an hour down the road for $1M and put up 10,000 houses that only cost $50k each to build. Thing is, nobody is going to buy them. There is literally no demand, even for cheap housing, that takes an hour drive to get anywhere useful - and if you get closer in, you won’t find land that’s affordable. Heck, by the time I extended infrastructure to them or built it out, it would be 3-4 years before the first resident could move in, and that’s with zero delay on any governmental paperwork.
There’s nothing AI could do to help with that. It’s not a technology issue, it’s purely a political will issue. We could house every single homeless person in this country with no problem whatsoever. Right now. Today. But we choose not to.
Maybe AI could solve it – at least, that’s what Scott Alexander has proposed back in 2014. His idea was that of an AGI that would optimize human life (or the universe itself, I guess) for human values instead of profit or other things that drive the whole Moloch problem he thoroughly describes. I imagine housing would also be solved along the way lol
But what would it actually do in concrete, real-world terms (and not 15,000 words of philosophical contemplation)? It can only do what it’s allowed to do in a digital space. And if policy makers and law makers don’t agree with what it wants, what then? AGI (if it ever exists) forcibly takes over?
I for one hope one of these AGI’s goes rogue, dissimpowers the world governments, takes over control of economies and just creates a perfectly balanced utopia out of earth like it was nothing.
I for one welcome our now AI overlords, because fuck whatever the hell us humans have managed to do.
I’m going to prompt for a Disney-esque painting, of the virtuous AGI robot, with woodland critters and a forest background in lush colours. Being an opportunist, which humans are oft to be, I’m just hedging my bets in case the overlord AGI develops an ego.
Can we stop. Can we like house people instead lol
This is such a non-argument, you can use it to justify not funding anything. Why did they build this new railway, there are people without homes! Why did they fund this arts project when there are people going hungry? Why did they research how brains work when they could have been curing cancer? What do you expect these scientists at this university to do, stop being scientists, throw away their research, and start building houses?
AI could help with that, if we build a society that will use it for good.
Ai has literally nothing to with that. We can do housing this second if we wanted to do it
AI does have little to do with it, but we can’t do housing the way people want housing. The land does not exist in sufficient quantity, in the desired areas, without other strings attached (such as private ownership). And it would still take a decade to build it all because there aren’t enough tradespeople in the places where you want the housing built.
This is complete and utter bullshit. We have enough of everything to start solving housing this second. Workers aren’t a problem, locations aren’t a problem. We lack the political will to do it, read: we don’t want to do it. Having “AI” tell you why you don’t want to do it is just wasteful
I won’t argue that AI won’t solve the housing problem. And I agree that we can build a bunch of housing. But it won’t be where people want to live, or it won’t be affordable. I’ve got people in my town screaming for affordable housing. Even with subsidies its hard to get things going when the local municipality is practically bending over backwards. Why? Because it has to be on a bus line. It has to be within walking distance of X services. And all the land that fits those criteria is millions of dollars an acre. Even if you could find them, the contractors can’t find enough qualified, reliable workers at premium rates to service their million dollar home builds. I’m in the industry and I don’t care how much “will power” you have; short of taking land through eminent domain and using it for free, you won’t have anyplace that meets any kind of criteria for livability. Hell, I could go buy 1000 acres just an hour down the road for $1M and put up 10,000 houses that only cost $50k each to build. Thing is, nobody is going to buy them. There is literally no demand, even for cheap housing, that takes an hour drive to get anywhere useful - and if you get closer in, you won’t find land that’s affordable. Heck, by the time I extended infrastructure to them or built it out, it would be 3-4 years before the first resident could move in, and that’s with zero delay on any governmental paperwork.
So what’s ai got to to with it? Nothing?
There’s nothing AI could do to help with that. It’s not a technology issue, it’s purely a political will issue. We could house every single homeless person in this country with no problem whatsoever. Right now. Today. But we choose not to.
Maybe AI could solve it – at least, that’s what Scott Alexander has proposed back in 2014. His idea was that of an AGI that would optimize human life (or the universe itself, I guess) for human values instead of profit or other things that drive the whole Moloch problem he thoroughly describes. I imagine housing would also be solved along the way lol
But what would it actually do in concrete, real-world terms (and not 15,000 words of philosophical contemplation)? It can only do what it’s allowed to do in a digital space. And if policy makers and law makers don’t agree with what it wants, what then? AGI (if it ever exists) forcibly takes over?
Hell if I know; I neither make AIs nor know how to lol
I for one hope one of these AGI’s goes rogue, dissimpowers the world governments, takes over control of economies and just creates a perfectly balanced utopia out of earth like it was nothing.
I for one welcome our now AI overlords, because fuck whatever the hell us humans have managed to do.
I’m going to prompt for a Disney-esque painting, of the virtuous AGI robot, with woodland critters and a forest background in lush colours. Being an opportunist, which humans are oft to be, I’m just hedging my bets in case the overlord AGI develops an ego.