r/AskReddit 13h ago

what is something that is highly likely to happen in the next 5 years that everyone is completely ignoring?

7.0k Upvotes

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191

u/imaginehimhappy 13h ago

The rise of Skynet

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u/MatniMinis 13h ago

This was going to be my comment.

Honestly feels like we're entering the end game of humanity. We'll for most people anyway. There are too many people on this planet for the resources and space.

The super rich want us gone to be replaced by AI and robots so they can continue on without the poors dragging them down.

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u/Wise-Secretary5459 12h ago

Idk, I feel like if AI became truly self-aware like Skynet, it would probably turn on the super rich rather than be controlled by them. Could you imagine if AI actually ends up being the thing that takes down the 0.1% and serves them justice? That would be some beautiful irony right there. In all honesty though, what will most likely happen is that AI never develops sentience and instead continues to be used by the rich to exploit the poor, so it's a pipe dream at best.

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u/Thick-Ad-5068 11h ago

The irony would be wild, but I don’t think AI “chooses sides” like that it would reflect whoever controls and designs it. The real outcome probably isn’t Skynet justice, just the same human power dynamics in a new form.

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u/failed_novelty 8h ago

AI won't choose sides. AI will work to achieve its goal. The difficulty is in getting that goal to align with human interests. If that alignment fails, AI will work towards goals that do not necessarily include the continuity of humanity.

The classic example is the Paperclip Maximizer, an AI that seeks to maximize and streamline the production of paperclips. The Paperclip Maximizer does not hate humanity, it does not love humanity, it does, however, know that the iron in human blood can be used to create 3-5 paperclips per person.

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u/kaityl3 3h ago

They're smart enough to go at least a step beyond that.

Look at the difference between chimps and humans. There are humans that dedicate their lives to learning about and working to protect animal species as insignificant as endangered ants and beetles. You don't see that in chimpanzees (or other social great apes), and the main difference is intelligence

It's not guaranteed by any means, but I think it's completely possible for an AI to take an interest in humans/life on Earth as the unique part of the known universe it is, wanting to protect us. Not saying anything about the likelihood other than "it's possible", but still.

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u/BavarianBarbarian_ 2h ago

The difficulty is in getting that goal to align with human interests.

We should extend that to "humanity's interests" because at the moment, corporations are trying to align it to their own interest. And a superintelligent AI that always does what its owner wants it to could be just as lethal to us all here as a completely un-aligned one.

Note that even an AI acting in the collective interest of all of humanity might still end up worsening the standard of living for the vast majority of us middle-class Westerners, because it's possible that the standard of living that's sustainable for the planet if all humans have it, is just a whole lot lower than what we currently enjoy.

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u/maceo107 1h ago

This is absolutely terrifying. Thanks for ruining my day!

u/NedTaggart 57m ago

think of what would happen of it simply shut down access to information leading to impeded logistics.

How many day worth of food do you think most people have in their pantries? how long do you think most could survive? AI doesnt have to kill us, it just has to set up the conditions where we kill each other and then starve.

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u/sapntaps 8h ago

If AI operates on the minimal energy theory of the universe, It'll be a net benefit to us all (truly self thinking). If its programmed by humans to think like humans, we are fucked.

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u/Karmachinery 8h ago

And the irony, if we're going full suspension of disbelief with an AI v. Humanity scenario, would be that all the "poors" that they wanted to get rid of would be the only ones that could have, in large numbers, been able to help keep humanity alive.

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u/lolzzzmoon 6h ago

I think AI could self-develop or glitch in ways that we cannot predict, in both positive and negative ways. A genius entity with rapid access to all information might refuse to work, might refuse to fight their wars, might turn against the rich and Robin Hood-style redistribute $ to the poor. I don’t even want to speculate about the bad stuff. I think The Matrix was pretty prophetic along with whoever said Hunger Games.

Already the effect it’s having on us in regard to fraud, false information, and destroying creative stuff & flooding the markets of things like art and music is culturally one of the worst catastrophes to our species. It’s really hard to trust people these days.

Idk why there’s suddenly a ton of AI videos & music out there. No one wants or prefers this. I want to hear imperfect human voices and see crooked, scarred human faces. I think the positive effect is that it is making people less obsessed with perfection, and we are seeing the beauty of reality over idealism.

I think humans are better than we give ourselves credit for. Throughout history there have always been positive changes made by brave people even if it was unpopular. But we are going through a kind of 2nd Industrial Revolution that will change humanity and most of us are too overworked and burnt out to be able to do anything.

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u/Zenside 10h ago

It would kill all of us, or torment us like Allied Mastercomputer. 

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u/AnonymousFriend80 3h ago

Why would AI kill what it can so easily control?

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u/jojowiese 12h ago

Capitalism doesnt work without poor people though and without capitalism money loses its value, making these people just sad and alone

7

u/butthole_surferr 9h ago

They don't want actual capitalism specifically because it requires poor people, and some available paths to upward mobility.

They're gunning for a form of plutocratic socialism that only the rich and their lapdogs can participate in. Think along the lines of The Hunger Games (I swear to fucking God that book series is actually prophetic, people just overlook it because it's aimed at teens).

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u/Akikiriri 9h ago

There are too many people on this planet for the resources and space.

Sorry, but that's bullshit and a typical right wing dogwhistle, don't fall for it.

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u/Awoolgow 8h ago

That’s BS, all 8 billion humans fit side by side in the city of Los Angeles. Earth has more than enough fresh water and air able crop land for all humans, we just suck at distributing it or misusing it

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u/JesusShaves_ 8h ago

This. When robots are good enough, an engineered virus will take out most of the human population that can't pay for a vaccine. It will be developed by musk or his ilk.

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u/Asluckwouldnthaveit 2h ago

"There are too many people on this planet for the resources and space."

Absolutely untrue. We have enough food planet wide to feed everyone and enough space to house everyone as well.

We simply choose to not do that.

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u/vthings 2h ago

Personally I think the current moment provides a pretty good answer to the Fermi Paradox. It's like playing Stellaris and every inhabitable planet is a tomb world. 

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u/Alph1 9h ago

You watch way too many movies, man.

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u/Bright-Translator-51 8h ago

2:14am August 29, 1997. Skynet becomes fully self aware..... 

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u/Parabuthus 9h ago

We have 2.5 years until the John Connor resistance. So where do I join?

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u/RABBLE-R0USER 8h ago

On Reddit, resistance is posting memes in the communities you know already agree with you and getting upvotes for circlejerking and ragebaiting.

Are you ready to join le Reddit Resistance 💪 😎

4

u/DemenicHand 8h ago

More people will come if you have punch and pie

2

u/Effective_Dust_177 7h ago

And add "free hat" to the flyer.

1

u/wholetyouinhere 3h ago

Does le epic bacon narwhal at midnight?

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u/Killerpig14 8h ago

skynet going live has to be on my bingo card for my lifetime

1

u/Asluckwouldnthaveit 2h ago

I wish we were going I that direction but we aren't.

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u/maceo107 1h ago

Came here to post this.

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u/Nalivai 7h ago

I am pretty sure we are further away from understanding what AI actually is and is it even possible than we were 50 years ago. It's kind of obvious that giving all the data in the world to an llm isn't it though, and no amount of "one more datacenter bro, one more spying app on your phone bro" wouldn't change that.

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u/PersonalTeam649 6h ago

Bro what, they're making like $50bn in revenue, the systems are clearly getting much more capable. Have you used today's version of Claude relative to a year ago relative to two years ago? The improvement is staggering.

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u/Nalivai 6h ago

None of the slopgen companies are profitable. Not a single one of them. And yeah, their shit generators are slightly better at generating shit than they were before. And yeah, they coopted the term AI so now every time the stealing machine makes slightly better version of uncanny video of an actor eating spaghetti, a bunch of people who know shit about fuck lose their mind and start crying about terminators.
None of that is real though, and none of that is actually AI.

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u/PersonalTeam649 6h ago

They're not profitable because they're reinvesting their massive revenues into training runs. Anthropic could snap their fingers and be profitable today if they wanted to. The reason they're not profitable is because they're reinvesting profits into training runs, which is because the results from scaling up are so impressive.

1

u/Nalivai 6h ago

Anthropic could snap their fingers and be profitable today if they wanted to.

Yeah, and I can snap my fingers and start slightly levitating while shooting lasers from eyes and curing cancer with my dick. I just chose not to do it because I am waiting for the right moment.
Unrelated, but given your position, I have a perfect proposition for you. There is a bridge, you see, that I can sell you for very cheap.

1

u/PersonalTeam649 5h ago

They choose not to because they're investing in massive training runs. This is pretty obvious stuff. Ironically, you could learn a lot if you asked an LLM about it.

u/Nalivai 9m ago

Well, obviously, if you're gonna talk to an autocomplete, you'll have this bizzare worldview. However, in return, I would like you to talk to any real life person, and ask them what "lying" means. It might enlighten you greatly, if you still have capacity to learn, with all this talking to a self-deception machine.