Context: AI can now program, draw, animate, create music, do math, write, and probably many more things, almost equally/equally/better than most/all humans, and at scale. Probably, soon it will close the last gaps.
Since I was young, I wanted to "leave my mark on the world". It didn't have to be a big mark - or maybe it did - but whatever. I wanted to create, or discover, something, that will be remembered or used long after I'm gone (e.g. Olympic athletes, social people, and murderers do leave some kind of impact on the world, but it wasn't what I wanted). I learned to program at around 10, I started doing my first degree (computer science) at 13, and now (early twenties) I'm doing my PhD, in... AI.
I do have some achievements I'm proud of. Around 14, I created some multiplayer video games that went somewhat popular in my school, and people literally played it quite often, around 5-10 people together (we had a lab in the school and it was forbidden to play games there, however they "only helped me debug my game"). I left this school at some point, however I continued to program games until about 18, and am still proud of each, even the ones no one besides me played.
I invited a stupid fake religion that went somewhat known/discussed in my (religious) school's year group too, that was also something.
Meanwhile, I become interested in AI (a bit before gpt2, I think). After finishing my first degree, and working a bit, I started doing my masters, and then continued to PhD. I published a few papers, some on game theory (somehow in the academy it's considered AI and is published in AI conferences), some on interpretability (not because I was concerned about AI safety, I just found it interesting). One paper got some tenth of citations and I'm also somewhat proud of it.
About half a year ago, I become a bit obsessed with playing guitar, as a hobby. Before about 2 month I created a YouTube channel where I publish music. I got some hundreds views and around 5 followers beyond people I know from real life. I'm also quite proud on that.
I'm okay with some of my knowledge becoming irrelevant; I'm ex-relogious so I'm used to it, and I'm still young enough to learn new things, even if it means the ceiling on my abilities will be lower. But AI is learning faster than me, and probably soon AI will be able to create anything I can.
I regret nothing: I'm happy that I learned to program, happy that I learned math, and I'm enjoying creating music sooo much. I did use all of these, and it was so fun. But I had so much more potential... I wanted to do so much more. I've always dreamed of taking a break for a year or two and create some really amazing PC game or something... or discovering a solution to a semi-famous math problem... or whatever. But now it's not a human thing anymore. I look at the few people I know who still program in the old style and it looks so naive, though I also envy them. But if this is my thinking, how long before I stop e.g. creating music "in the old style"? How long before I just give up on every talent I have, anything that require effort but will never give me any recognition, not anymore, and just... IDK, play video games, read books, hang out with friends... not that it's bad but I wanted so much more...
And well, I know all of these are first world problems. Except safety, which I didn't even discussed (and it's not what keeps me awake), if AI will do to medicine what it did to math, so it will probably kill us all but it could also cure cancer or whatever. But still.
So, I don't know if these personal venting fits lesswrong, and sorry that it's not very polished (not going to LLM this one...), but I figured there might be other here in similar situations, so... how do you stop yourself from going crazy, and, well, if you have any idea of something that humans alone can still create, and will probably continue to do it in the foreseeable future, I would like to hear about it.
Context: AI can now program, draw, animate, create music, do math, write, and probably many more things, almost equally/equally/better than most/all humans, and at scale. Probably, soon it will close the last gaps.
Since I was young, I wanted to "leave my mark on the world". It didn't have to be a big mark - or maybe it did - but whatever. I wanted to create, or discover, something, that will be remembered or used long after I'm gone (e.g. Olympic athletes, social people, and murderers do leave some kind of impact on the world, but it wasn't what I wanted). I learned to program at around 10, I started doing my first degree (computer science) at 13, and now (early twenties) I'm doing my PhD, in... AI.
I do have some achievements I'm proud of. Around 14, I created some multiplayer video games that went somewhat popular in my school, and people literally played it quite often, around 5-10 people together (we had a lab in the school and it was forbidden to play games there, however they "only helped me debug my game"). I left this school at some point, however I continued to program games until about 18, and am still proud of each, even the ones no one besides me played.
I invited a stupid fake religion that went somewhat known/discussed in my (religious) school's year group too, that was also something.
Meanwhile, I become interested in AI (a bit before gpt2, I think). After finishing my first degree, and working a bit, I started doing my masters, and then continued to PhD. I published a few papers, some on game theory (somehow in the academy it's considered AI and is published in AI conferences), some on interpretability (not because I was concerned about AI safety, I just found it interesting). One paper got some tenth of citations and I'm also somewhat proud of it.
About half a year ago, I become a bit obsessed with playing guitar, as a hobby. Before about 2 month I created a YouTube channel where I publish music. I got some hundreds views and around 5 followers beyond people I know from real life. I'm also quite proud on that.
I'm okay with some of my knowledge becoming irrelevant; I'm ex-relogious so I'm used to it, and I'm still young enough to learn new things, even if it means the ceiling on my abilities will be lower. But AI is learning faster than me, and probably soon AI will be able to create anything I can.
I regret nothing: I'm happy that I learned to program, happy that I learned math, and I'm enjoying creating music sooo much. I did use all of these, and it was so fun. But I had so much more potential... I wanted to do so much more. I've always dreamed of taking a break for a year or two and create some really amazing PC game or something... or discovering a solution to a semi-famous math problem... or whatever. But now it's not a human thing anymore. I look at the few people I know who still program in the old style and it looks so naive, though I also envy them. But if this is my thinking, how long before I stop e.g. creating music "in the old style"? How long before I just give up on every talent I have, anything that require effort but will never give me any recognition, not anymore, and just... IDK, play video games, read books, hang out with friends... not that it's bad but I wanted so much more...
And well, I know all of these are first world problems. Except safety, which I didn't even discussed (and it's not what keeps me awake), if AI will do to medicine what it did to math, so it will probably kill us all but it could also cure cancer or whatever. But still.
So, I don't know if these personal venting fits lesswrong, and sorry that it's not very polished (not going to LLM this one...), but I figured there might be other here in similar situations, so... how do you stop yourself from going crazy, and, well, if you have any idea of something that humans alone can still create, and will probably continue to do it in the foreseeable future, I would like to hear about it.