>Does anyone know how to handle the depression/doom one feels with these updates?
Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way. This feeling comes from a certain set of assumptions and learned responses.
Remember that people are bad at predicting the future. Look at the historical track record of people predicting the implications of technological advancement. You'll find that almost nobody gets it right. Granted, that sometimes means that things are worse than we expect, but there are also many cases where things turn out better than we expect. If you're prone to focusing on potential negatives, maybe you can consciously balance that out by forcing yourself to imagine potential positives as well.
Try to focus on things you personally have control over. Why worry about something that you can't change? Focus on problems that you can contribute to solving.
I've been personally affected by technology advancements, and had to spend lots of time and effort recovering professionally from it. Mind you, I'm not saying it cannot be done, but those that do get affected have to work harder than those that don't.
It's easy to say "don't worry" if you haven't been affected by events like this. I feel it's stronger for society to say "I don't know what will happen, but we'll work through it together."
It is easy wax philosophical when it doesn't affect you directly. There are folks honing on their VFX skills for close to a decade and they will be impacted in a significant way.
It's not waxing philosophical, it's concrete advice for how to handle negative emotions associated with uncertainty and instability. The way things are going, it's very likely I'll be affected directly by these developments at some point. When that time comes, I'm not sure what will be better advice than focusing on the problems that I'm personally able to solve and looking at the potential upsides of the situation.
I think the issue with “don’t worry about things you can’t control” is, in this tech forum, not as valid as you might think.
We are building technology, to suggest no agency is helpful in avoiding any feeling of responsibility or guilt — perhaps rendering your comment within the realms of waxing philosophical.
Who better to worry about this than the people of hacker news?
From a pure mental health standpoint, sure, it’s solid advice but I think it’s narrowed the context of the broader concern too much.
An alternative to learned helplessness of “nothing you can do” is to encourage technologists to do the opposite.
Instead of forgetting about it, trying to put it out of your mind, fight for the future you want. Join others in that effort. That’s the reason society has hope — not the people shrugging as people fall by the wayside.
Depression mediation by agency feels more positive, but I don’t have a lot of experience tbh. Just a view that we, technologists, shouldn’t abdicate responsibility nor encourage others to do so.
That culture, imo, is why a large section of tech workers, consumers and commentators see the industry in a bad light. They’re not wrong.
EDIT: to add, “what problems can I personally solve” also individualises society’s ability to shape itself for the better. “What problems can I personally get involved in solving”, “what communities are trying to solve problems I care about” is perhaps the message I’d advocate for.
I think the point is to start considering a back up plan and then...hakuna matata.
Cat's out of the bag. There is no legislation that will stop this. Not unless/until it has some obscene cost and AI gets locked down like nuclear weapons. But even then, it's just too simple to make these things now that the tech is known.
I sure don't know the answer but we just don't know what's coming next. Gonna have to wait and see.
Sure, I would include a broad set of things under "what you can control", including joining an organization, donating, voting, etc. The OP is excessively worrying about things they truly can't control, like the long-term political implications of emerging technologies.
HN is in the perfect position to wax philosophical; this behemoth is coming for tech too. I've started plotting out what will happen if I have to use my hands to make a living and I'd really rather not be doing that.
But reality is as reality is and nobody is owed a desk job. These are very exciting times with what type of society could be built with this tech, human inefficiencies are responsible for a lot of suffering that we can might be ab;e to stamp out soon.
As someone who has suffered immensely from anxiety disorders and worrying / anger my whole life, this comment is wisdom right here.
Not in my thirties and almost nothing I worried about has come true. I mean, tomorrow we might get wiped out by a runaway technological singularity, but I could've spent the last 30 years of my life worrying a lot less too..
I know that I should stop worrying as I have no control over what might happen but I can't stop worrying. What was the key for you that helped you let things go?
I went to cognitive behavior therapy, for me it was like someone opened up my mind and showed it to me on a screen, it was a mirror into my head. It was amazing how it felt like I could rewire my thought patterns over the course of a few months.
The main takeaway from it all however, was the mantra: _thoughts are not facts_.
If you can realize that your thoughts are not objective truths, you will be much better off in almost every aspect of your life, because after living this mantra for many years, putting it to the test constantly, I know it's solid.
Later on I read a lot of Buddhist philosophy which matched incredibly well with the therapy because a lot of Buddhist thinking and meditation practice is quite similar in it's approach. This sort of reinforced the validity of the CBT because I realized wise people have known about seeing things in an objective light for millennia, which was validating for me and helped me continue on the introspective path.
Basically, we're all hallucinating in one way or another, almost all of the time, and that is ok, just be aware of that. When we're worried about the future, we're worried about something which doesn't yet exist, which is actually crazy.
Of course it doesn't mean we should just ignore long term problems, no one advocates for that. But we shouldn't assume we know the outcome in advance because that often causes stress.
Warning: I think that for most westerners, it's "safer" to get into something like CBT, Buddhism comes with some IMO very confronting ideas for a lot of people where as CBT is much more user friendly for westerners.
The implications of technological advancement are always the same- if it can be used to replace people at a satisfactory level, it will. Appealing to stoicism is nice, but it's a bittersweet salve in this situation.
Honestly though, as if technological advancement has been overall worse for humans. Without it, we'd be fighting lions for food in the Savannah forever, that might be appealing to some, but I'd have prefer to have spears, fire, shelter, medcine etc.
Industrial scale technology might ruin us though, so you might have some point, mostly I'm referring to climate change which is for sure the greatest existential threat imaginable right now. However it seems technology might bail us out here too, nuclear and renewables.
I have no issue with technological advancement, it's obviously one of the pinnacles of human achievement- I have an issue with how those advancements are spread about and shared, especially shortly after large technological advancements happen.
We undoubtedly have reaped immense benefits from the industrial revolution for example- that doesn't mean I'd have any interest in living through it or that it was executed in a way that prioritized the people who lived during those times.
Open source stuff is great, and I support it and have contributed to projects myself, but people bandy it out as if it's a silver bullet and I have my reservations there. The issue goes way beyond technology itself, it's structural/sociological/cultural and that's not going to be fixed just because there are open source alternatives.
It doesn't stop that, but would you prefer a world where you're unemployed and locked out of the technology, or unemployed, and have access to the technology so you can learn and use it for free to maybe get back in the game?
there must be a fallacy name for 'more of a good thing is always a good thing' line of reasoning. almost every good out there is good in a certain range. outside of that range it becomes detrimental, possibly deadly. there is even a Swedish word for it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom. a few examples.
material:
- water: too little => thirst, too much => drown
- heat: too little => freeze, too much => burn
- food: too little => starvation, too much => obesity
spiritual:
- courage: too little => cowardice, too much => foolhardiness
- diligence: too little => slothfulness, too much => workaholism
- respect: too little => disregard, too much => idolatry
I understand your sentiment entirely, but it's not what I said, I didn't say an abundance is everything we should strive for , I said that having more efficient systems is good.
> Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way.
Why do people always say this / think that saying this is helpful? Try saying to someone with ADHD, "realize that you are choosing not to get your chores done today. You're choosing not to get out of bed on time. You're choosing to show behavior that your peers describe as 'lazy'. This will keep happening as long as you let it!"
So what if you have the ability to choose whether you are depressed or not? Not everyone got the same choice. Not everyone still has that choice.
I don't really expect another solution, but this always kind of bothers me when I see people saying everything is a choice.
With neurodivergence and mental disorders, what you see as "choice" can end up not being a choice at all.
At a physical level, we don't have control over anything, it's all just subatomic particles bumping into each other. That doesn't mean all perspectives are equally helpful for solving problems and functioning in the world. I mostly agree with your points, but where we might disagree is whether it's useful to have certain psychological categories or disorders become part of one's identity.
> where we might disagree is whether it's useful to have certain psychological categories or disorders become part of one's identity.
You might read my comment as trying to claim that my disorders define me and that because I have these disorders I can afford to give up on this stuff because 'it's hopeless'. Truth is I've been trying to get past this for damn near a decade at this point and it's not nearly as easy as you make it out to be, and that's why I say that I don't have the same choice you think I do.
I didn't even know I had ADHD until a year or so ago, I'd just routinely lose the ability to do the stuff I love and I'd have to go find something else to do instead. Depression would stem from all the things I knew I loved but that I could no longer motivate myself to do. In fact I was probably even worse off before I knew about this because I thought that I was just doing something wrong, not being controlled by an invisible menace that most other people don't even know exists
I don't mean to be hostile or to impose that it can't be as easy as you're describing. I just don't think that it's right to say it's always just a choice how you react.
I have tons of completely involuntary reactions caused by primarily trauma, but I can't control them. They do things like force me literally out of consciousness with overwhelming guilt and/or sadness. That's not a choice. I didn't choose that. That's completely autonomous!`
It is objectively a better survival strategy in a complex enough society, to focus on unfair advantages and let the society burn to the ground. The suckers are going to take care of it and eliminate themselves too, and in a sense there's nothing more important than improving your own short term self preservation. This is actually psychopathic, and also kind of psychopathic too.
>> What I posted is what I have personally found to be the most useful advice in overcoming self-destructive mental habits
I'm glad a one-time, one-line quip worked for you, but in my experience, positive mental habits are built over time, through support and continuous practice.
I apologize for over-responding, but let me attempt to be more clear:
If you are responding to people's problems with common one-liners, it can be interpreted as belittling someone. It could be interpreted as an attempt to over-simplify or attempt to make them feel they are "inferior" to see and solve their issues, when their issues are to them, much larger than a random one-line quip.
The OP was asking for advice dealing with negative emotions. I gave what I consider to be the best advice for dealing with negative emotions. Just because something is a "one-liner" doesn't mean it isn't also a deep truth about human psychology. If you interpret what I wrote as belittling them or trying to make them feel inferior, all I can say is I disagree with you, because I know what my motives were in responding.
This is excellent advice. I will also add that with change and uncertainty, it’s difficult for us to imagine how banal things can ultimately turn out to be.
For example, I’m getting text messages all day long from random politicians asking for money. If you told people 50 years ago that one day we’d be carrying devices where we could be pinged with unwanted solicitations all day and night, they might have imagined an asphyxiating nightmare. But in reality, it’s mainly a nuisance.
The point is that your brain makes all kinds of emotional predictions about the future, but they aren’t really very useful and if you’re experiencing depression or anxiety, I can guarantee they are biased predictions.
The tens of thousands of people working in entertainment building other people's visions can now be their own writers, actors, and directors. And they'll find their own fans.
Studios will go away. Disney will no longer control Star Wars, because your kids will make it instead. In fact, the very notion of IP is about to drive to zero.
And OpenAI won't own this. They won't even let you do "off book" things, and that's a no-go for art. Open source is going to own this space.
There are other companies with results just as mature. They just didn't time a press release to go head to head with Gemini.
Sorry, but this is a 5th-grade take everyone on tech-heavy forums loves.
Only some people can make Star Wars (the pinnacle of independent filmmaking if you read Lucas's biography). It has nothing to do with the tools.
IP in the arts is how artists get paid.
I can assure you that no one in the creative industry feels liberated by these tools. Do you realise that just because you are good at lighting, you don't want to be an actor and make a movie? No, you like to be good at lightning, work with others who are good at what you do, and create a great work of art together.
AI imagery only knows what exists. It's tough to make it do innovative technical effects and great new lightning. "oh my god, stock video sites are dead" Yes, exactly; stock, by definition, is commoditised.
What I see is the tens of thousands of people in troll factories producing content for 3/4 of the world population ready to believe whatever they see in the TV.
I think a more likely scenario is that people will be so used to it that a lot of people are going to have trouble believing that real things are real. Conspiracy theorists already suffer from this and it's going to get so much worse.
I think in the initial years there'll be some major incidents where a fake thing gets major attention for a few days until it's debunked, but the much larger issue will be the inverse.
> Be excited! The tens of thousands of people working in entertainment building other people's visions can now be their own writers, actors, and directors. And they'll find their own fans.
It's terrible news for the people being replaced. Their training and decades of experience is their competitive advantage and livelihood. When that experience becomes irrelevant because anyone can create similar quality work at the push of a button, they're suddenly left with nothing of value in a world flooded with competition.
Fully agree. I got a bit depressed Nov 22 when chatgpt and midjourney dropped… and then realized midjourney would let me create images I’ve had in my head for years but could never get out. (At least, MJ gave a reasonable approximation)
People should already be skeptical of everything they see/read on the internet. I don't think this is going to change my media consumption habits dramatically.
Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way. This feeling comes from a certain set of assumptions and learned responses.
Remember that people are bad at predicting the future. Look at the historical track record of people predicting the implications of technological advancement. You'll find that almost nobody gets it right. Granted, that sometimes means that things are worse than we expect, but there are also many cases where things turn out better than we expect. If you're prone to focusing on potential negatives, maybe you can consciously balance that out by forcing yourself to imagine potential positives as well.
Try to focus on things you personally have control over. Why worry about something that you can't change? Focus on problems that you can contribute to solving.