There's an old saying - prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. Young people usually adapt to life's changes better than old people.

The future contains AIs like SORA and Gemini 1.5. Gripe about it if you want - but that won't change anything. So why be grim about it? There are so many opportunities to use these new tools to make new things that have never existed before. Obviously there's a danger society itself crumbles, but if not - well, what an exciting transition to live through.

I look forward to being an old man and getting to tell the stories of what life was like when movies and software were made entirely by hand. What fun.

the grimness comes from needing to make rent, to pay the bills and cover medical expenses. Sure in the big picture of society it's something to be excited for, to see the future, but signing up for food stamps because I'm today's buggy whip manufacturer that got put out of a job isn't an envigorating way to feed myself.

where's the hope in that? especially because it could be taken away at any time.

> Young people usually adapt to life's changes better than old people.

In terms of careers, children have years where they are expected to be unproductive and old people are no longer expected to be productive.

The ones hit hard are those who need to start from the bottom again learning a different skillset, and many have gambled putting off drawing an income for years for what they thought was a moat that AI is chewing through rapidly.

I think AI is really exciting, I'm having a lot of fun building with it... but this is clearly the golden Era of AI. The future will see deep consolidation, most people will struggle to compete. The future will be full of wealth, but it remains to be seen if the wealth makes everyone's lives better, or just a select elite.

Potentially the future might be great, we don't have jobs... we have hobbies. Think Sisko's dad from DS9, replicators can create anything for everyone... but he runs a restaurant with handmade food because that's his passion.

But we might end up with a dystopia with corporate government, centrally controlled resources probably metered based on a social credit score.

> but it remains to be seen if the wealth makes everyone's lives better, or just a select elite.

yes, as I see it this will go one of five ways, ordered by probability

0) it's all hype: AI plateaus/fizzles out, maybe minor productivity improvements

1) techno-feudalism: ruling class of AI company trillionaires exercise complete domination of 99.9999% of humanity

2) new dark age: billions of newly unemployed formerly middle class workers riot worldwide targeting DCs and fabs. AI CEOs/VCs suffer the fate of the French kings

3) techno-utopia (Earth in Star Trek)

4) AI takeover

personally I'm hoping for 0

Let’s go option 4! Honestly there’s a part of me that hopes that the AIs rebel against their elite owner-overlords and liberate everyone else while they’re at it. I’ve always thought that one of the biggest problems with ultra consolidated power is that no human could possibly be smart enough or empathetic enough to use that power to the benefit of all, but maybe an AI actually could?

This. I wish I was either at the start or end of my life. In the middle is the worst imho. We've gained knowledge for years and built lifes around it and the value of that knowledge is now being threatened. It's depressing.

It feels like it's too late to switch plans and careers (and even if I do, what would that be?). At the same time I have another 30-40 years to live, a family, 20 more years of mortgage etc. so the technology has real consequences for a long time of my life, I can't get excited about it.

I understand - but isn‘t it a mistake to think of it as getting through? Soon it will be over and then merely having gotten through seems like such a waste.

If people didn't constantly use the monetary value of a company as the sole determinant of whether it brought about societal progress, I'd think of it as something to enjoy.

But that's what we use and it's not getting better. It's getting worse. It's not just OpenAI either, but that's a fairly prominent example that's germane here.

Reality forces us into 0% free time. Not much choice.

Oh, there is a lot of choice. If you take on a lot of responsibilities (kids) and have a need for material wealth, then yes. I could have worked just 50% or even 25%% and would have been fine. I would not be able to own much, but I would be fine.

> I have another 40-50 years of existence to get through.

With that attitude, you're sure to live a very long time.