Since coming to Lemmy, I have had more conversations with people unreasonably doubting anything will change, that’s true. Those people are guessing at best.
There’s other data we have on this one. GPT5 is coming, so near-term extrapolation is reasonable. After that, exponential increase in compute has only linearly increased performance, and running out of internet to train on is increasingly a threat, so just adding more params can only be unsustainable. The following period would be about using neural nets cleverly together with conventional algorithms, but it’s hard to know how far that can go. Anything from a spooky near-term hyperintellegence to another decades-long AI winter is possible.
Physical jobs, at least, are looking fairly safe, so if you want job security become an electrician. Millions of years of evolving to scurry through chaotic, tangled environments is apparently hard to replicate. Even regulated public roadways have proven tricky.
It is almost like instead of considering this, they are just clinging to some idea that the 100-meter wave hanging above us couldn’t possibly crash down.
Honestly, the fact that serious, important people are talking about it at all is a pleasant surprise. I still have conversations where people complain about the freakish weather, and then clam up suddenly the after a while because they remember climate change is supposed to be a hoax. I don’t even try to rub it in, it just happens.