What will happen to humans? Well, nothing. We'll carry on just fine as before.
The world has changed many times already. The industrial revolution changes humanity away from agriculture (95% of people then, 2% today). The transport revolution (first ships, then planes) improves trade and makes countries interdependent.
Medicine has transformed life expectancy in less than 100 years. The human population has exploded since ww2. The dystopia imagined in the 50s was "4 billion people".
The arrival of the computer transformed offices within a couple decades. Secretary, Filing Clerk, Typist et al are all jobs considered good when my mom grew up. All gone forever.
Phones move the needle as well. Travel Agents become a tiny niche (to name just 1 profession.)
I get that when it's your job being threatened it feels existential. But many, many jobs have become obsolete in my lifetime, and in the lifetime before mine.
So to answer your question, humanity will do just fine. This is just another step on a long road, and it won't be the last.
Your real question of course is "what will happen to you?" And that depends on where you are.
If you are in the US its likely your standard of living will drop. The US is currently in late-stage-empire, and some correction is inevitable. But drop doesn't mean crater. You'll all be just fine.
The rest of the world will likely improve. Some places (like Europe) are post-empire and have reached a (mostly) stable equilibrium. Asia has seen enormous improvements, and will likely continue to do so.
South America and Africa have so much opportunity for growth and will like progress into powerhouses.
I'm not worried. We'll be just fine, and likely better than before.
I'm sorry you are in a depressed mood. Humanity faces extreme hunger and poverty and war outside the United states already. Do you more specifically mean the US? What really is sad is that we in the US don't humanize other people in other countries going through this or the people experieincing poverty in the US. It's not close enough to us so we don't have to worry about it. We as a people need to come together and that won't happen because we always have to have some kind of supreme leader out to conquer. Stay positive life has its ups and downs but dont try and focus on the fear the news is provoking.
Either AI is regulated to the point where model progress eventually halts entirely, or humans are outcompeted in every domain and eventually replaced.
Everything the human brain does can be replicated. Once you realize we aren't special, then everything else follows. Certainly AI could be more "moral" and just than humans, but it wouldn't need us around to do so.
I think AI gets commoditized, while also the costs and risks of just applying it to every situation become more clear with some pretty high profile failures and risks. I will not be surprised if the internet itself is effectively hobbled or goes down for days or weeks, leading to a huge wake-up call and an economic panic.
Most folks here have huge blind spots to the humanities, what brings actual value and improves peoples lives. Western society is based on empiricism and often fails to accurately describe the world. There's a broad understanding of how out of touch tech folks are, but the failure modes have not yet manifested. Do not underestimate how much our economy is based on outright fraud - this is the age of the grifter.
US and western society as a whole are currently in a feverish state, and that fever will someday break - our institutions and ability to project power are hobbled or shown to be paper tigers. The old age is over, but the next struggles to be born.
I think, and I'm a hypocrite for suggesting it, that the best thing to do is focus on yourself, your own values, your community and the people in your life who make it worth living.
I don't know man... by now we've had like 1 year of pretty much weekly improvement and new better models since Opus 4.5 and although I see a lot of AI everywhere and personally use AI a lot, around me in the real world with non-technical everyday people it's been mostly a shift from "just google it" to "just ask chatgpt".
I am (was?) a coder and also feel how you feel in one way or another. I love the productivity while still sort of trying to come to terms that typing lines of code as I've done for the past few decades is pretty much over forever.
Now, I'm still pretty sure that, as smart as AIs become, a lot (or most) of people just can't be bothered with this stuff and just want stuff done.
I don't think there will ever be a future, as I've seen prophesized around, where anybody that wants some sort of software or functionality, etc will just vibe code it or prompt for it, launch agents, etc instead of just asking somebody else to do it as always.
Sure, some percentage will adopt AI immediately and it will definitely open a lot of opportunities, but I just don't see it taking over everything everywhere in the grand scheme of things.
There's also a big gap into making things actually usable for everybody and their grandmother. Apps are cool and all, but the constant release of model after model, new feature tours every time we open an AI app, weird opaque product names, having to pick low, medium, high, xhigh, ultra, etc, mixed and complicated permissions, sandboxing stuff, connecting stuff, etc. These are all stuff we here on hn do on a daily basis and is second nature but that is not the norm.
Only now we're starting to see some new scientific and math proofs, so maybe that will be what makes AI actually universally revolutionary once it starts making actual new advances. But now we'd be mostly entering into AGI territory and that's a whole other rat's nest.
So, let's first see how we, as a society, accept the proposed future of robots everywhere (probably the big 2027 thing maybe?), then let's talk end of humanity. :)
TL;DR: Still not fully convinced all of this will live up to the hype. And if it does, it will take a few generations. We're a very complicated species living in complex societies and we're kind of being sold an impossible utopia by people that have very little experience living down in the real world.
Two sides : one side defending that cognitive decay is inevitable, we will all be jobless in 5 years, starting with white collar jobs, and then blue collar ones. Detroit become human scenario
Other scenario : I believe the notion of the "difficulty" of a problem just rised really fucking higher then 6 months ago, humanity will be able to tackle problems of a whole different scale. The bottleneck : financing this revolution is going to be really difficult, you cannot borrow and lend money indefinitely, someone has to pay for R&D expenses. Moreover, the real question is whether this can transform the global economy in a durable and robust way, for now if datacenters decide to shut down, or 20% of all gpus stop working, we are in deep trouble :)
we're all fucking idiots morons we don't know shit bro don't listen to anyone, your intuition is by far the best ai with the best possible inputs
nobody can tell you what will happen for sure, those who do won't tell you, those who think they do usually don't and you simply cannot tell because of how little badnwidth text has as a way of communicating about things that are in fact very complex
we're probably gonna be okay but at the same time i bet it's gonna look nothing like any of us can imagine.
It's going to be great. Ai will take over the tedious tasks that we have to do every day at work, opening us up to the ability to pursue interests that are meaningful for us as we progress into a post-scarcity society.
Just kidding, we get trillionaires instead because people who are just scraping by can't seem to let go of Capitalism.
> you are well educated, well informed builders. you know best.
Hahahahahahahahahaha gasps for air hahahahahahahaha.
> im in a pretty depressed mood lately
You have a fantastic sense of humour, though.
Don’t fall into the trap of deifying HN. This community is full of bigots with no empathy who openly cheer for fucking over others in the name of personal profit. Not everyone, of course, there are also kind, interesting people here, but there’s good reason HN (a.k.a. “the orange site”) is endlessly mocked and avoided in other communities. There are some truly vile takes over here.
This community has too many people who are very smart in one particular axis and arrogantly believe that translates to every other. It is one of the last places where you should be asking for advice on your mood or the future of humanity. If this community had its say on the future of humanity, it would look a lot like what we are already seeing: A few narcissists with too much power controlling the lives of everyone with zero regard for their humanity, while bleeding the planet dry.
If you want to feel better, step away from the computer.
Go engage with your friends and your community, in person. Form strong bonds and learn to depend on others and have others depend on you. Organise. Fight for your beliefs. Be kind.
Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that (and this is opinion, of course) this isn’t a good community to answer the question. And if you don’t want the question answered, what’s the point of getting the attention?
> this is the kind a post that immediately makes me think there is a mini-project underneath it.
What will happen to humans? Well, nothing. We'll carry on just fine as before.
The world has changed many times already. The industrial revolution changes humanity away from agriculture (95% of people then, 2% today). The transport revolution (first ships, then planes) improves trade and makes countries interdependent.
Medicine has transformed life expectancy in less than 100 years. The human population has exploded since ww2. The dystopia imagined in the 50s was "4 billion people".
The arrival of the computer transformed offices within a couple decades. Secretary, Filing Clerk, Typist et al are all jobs considered good when my mom grew up. All gone forever.
Phones move the needle as well. Travel Agents become a tiny niche (to name just 1 profession.)
I get that when it's your job being threatened it feels existential. But many, many jobs have become obsolete in my lifetime, and in the lifetime before mine.
So to answer your question, humanity will do just fine. This is just another step on a long road, and it won't be the last.
Your real question of course is "what will happen to you?" And that depends on where you are.
If you are in the US its likely your standard of living will drop. The US is currently in late-stage-empire, and some correction is inevitable. But drop doesn't mean crater. You'll all be just fine.
The rest of the world will likely improve. Some places (like Europe) are post-empire and have reached a (mostly) stable equilibrium. Asia has seen enormous improvements, and will likely continue to do so.
South America and Africa have so much opportunity for growth and will like progress into powerhouses.
I'm not worried. We'll be just fine, and likely better than before.
I'm sorry you are in a depressed mood. Humanity faces extreme hunger and poverty and war outside the United states already. Do you more specifically mean the US? What really is sad is that we in the US don't humanize other people in other countries going through this or the people experieincing poverty in the US. It's not close enough to us so we don't have to worry about it. We as a people need to come together and that won't happen because we always have to have some kind of supreme leader out to conquer. Stay positive life has its ups and downs but dont try and focus on the fear the news is provoking.
Either AI is regulated to the point where model progress eventually halts entirely, or humans are outcompeted in every domain and eventually replaced.
Everything the human brain does can be replicated. Once you realize we aren't special, then everything else follows. Certainly AI could be more "moral" and just than humans, but it wouldn't need us around to do so.
I think AI gets commoditized, while also the costs and risks of just applying it to every situation become more clear with some pretty high profile failures and risks. I will not be surprised if the internet itself is effectively hobbled or goes down for days or weeks, leading to a huge wake-up call and an economic panic.
Most folks here have huge blind spots to the humanities, what brings actual value and improves peoples lives. Western society is based on empiricism and often fails to accurately describe the world. There's a broad understanding of how out of touch tech folks are, but the failure modes have not yet manifested. Do not underestimate how much our economy is based on outright fraud - this is the age of the grifter.
US and western society as a whole are currently in a feverish state, and that fever will someday break - our institutions and ability to project power are hobbled or shown to be paper tigers. The old age is over, but the next struggles to be born.
I think, and I'm a hypocrite for suggesting it, that the best thing to do is focus on yourself, your own values, your community and the people in your life who make it worth living.
I don't know man... by now we've had like 1 year of pretty much weekly improvement and new better models since Opus 4.5 and although I see a lot of AI everywhere and personally use AI a lot, around me in the real world with non-technical everyday people it's been mostly a shift from "just google it" to "just ask chatgpt".
I am (was?) a coder and also feel how you feel in one way or another. I love the productivity while still sort of trying to come to terms that typing lines of code as I've done for the past few decades is pretty much over forever.
Now, I'm still pretty sure that, as smart as AIs become, a lot (or most) of people just can't be bothered with this stuff and just want stuff done. I don't think there will ever be a future, as I've seen prophesized around, where anybody that wants some sort of software or functionality, etc will just vibe code it or prompt for it, launch agents, etc instead of just asking somebody else to do it as always. Sure, some percentage will adopt AI immediately and it will definitely open a lot of opportunities, but I just don't see it taking over everything everywhere in the grand scheme of things.
There's also a big gap into making things actually usable for everybody and their grandmother. Apps are cool and all, but the constant release of model after model, new feature tours every time we open an AI app, weird opaque product names, having to pick low, medium, high, xhigh, ultra, etc, mixed and complicated permissions, sandboxing stuff, connecting stuff, etc. These are all stuff we here on hn do on a daily basis and is second nature but that is not the norm.
Only now we're starting to see some new scientific and math proofs, so maybe that will be what makes AI actually universally revolutionary once it starts making actual new advances. But now we'd be mostly entering into AGI territory and that's a whole other rat's nest.
So, let's first see how we, as a society, accept the proposed future of robots everywhere (probably the big 2027 thing maybe?), then let's talk end of humanity. :)
TL;DR: Still not fully convinced all of this will live up to the hype. And if it does, it will take a few generations. We're a very complicated species living in complex societies and we're kind of being sold an impossible utopia by people that have very little experience living down in the real world.
Two sides : one side defending that cognitive decay is inevitable, we will all be jobless in 5 years, starting with white collar jobs, and then blue collar ones. Detroit become human scenario Other scenario : I believe the notion of the "difficulty" of a problem just rised really fucking higher then 6 months ago, humanity will be able to tackle problems of a whole different scale. The bottleneck : financing this revolution is going to be really difficult, you cannot borrow and lend money indefinitely, someone has to pay for R&D expenses. Moreover, the real question is whether this can transform the global economy in a durable and robust way, for now if datacenters decide to shut down, or 20% of all gpus stop working, we are in deep trouble :)
we're all fucking idiots morons we don't know shit bro don't listen to anyone, your intuition is by far the best ai with the best possible inputs
nobody can tell you what will happen for sure, those who do won't tell you, those who think they do usually don't and you simply cannot tell because of how little badnwidth text has as a way of communicating about things that are in fact very complex
we're probably gonna be okay but at the same time i bet it's gonna look nothing like any of us can imagine.
extinctmaxxed
It's going to be great. Ai will take over the tedious tasks that we have to do every day at work, opening us up to the ability to pursue interests that are meaningful for us as we progress into a post-scarcity society.
Just kidding, we get trillionaires instead because people who are just scraping by can't seem to let go of Capitalism.
What humans?
> you are well educated, well informed builders. you know best.
Hahahahahahahahahaha gasps for air hahahahahahahaha.
> im in a pretty depressed mood lately
You have a fantastic sense of humour, though.
Don’t fall into the trap of deifying HN. This community is full of bigots with no empathy who openly cheer for fucking over others in the name of personal profit. Not everyone, of course, there are also kind, interesting people here, but there’s good reason HN (a.k.a. “the orange site”) is endlessly mocked and avoided in other communities. There are some truly vile takes over here.
This community has too many people who are very smart in one particular axis and arrogantly believe that translates to every other. It is one of the last places where you should be asking for advice on your mood or the future of humanity. If this community had its say on the future of humanity, it would look a lot like what we are already seeing: A few narcissists with too much power controlling the lives of everyone with zero regard for their humanity, while bleeding the planet dry.
If you want to feel better, step away from the computer. Go engage with your friends and your community, in person. Form strong bonds and learn to depend on others and have others depend on you. Organise. Fight for your beliefs. Be kind.
<< Don’t fall into the trap of deifying HN.
I think it was just a way to get attention. I mean.. it worked for me, because immediately I clicked to disagree out of sheer contrarian pull.
<< This community is full of bigots with no empathy who openly cheer for fucking over others in the name of personal profit.
I swear.. this is the kind a post that immediately makes me think there is a mini-project underneath it.
> I think it was just a way to get attention.
Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that (and this is opinion, of course) this isn’t a good community to answer the question. And if you don’t want the question answered, what’s the point of getting the attention?
> this is the kind a post that immediately makes me think there is a mini-project underneath it.
I don’t understand what point you’re making.
[flagged]
>If you want to feel better, step away from the computer.
Best advice you'll get here.