I also had a similar concept but went in a different direction, combining DAOs, AI, and FHE to similar ends. The idea is plausible, and given several orders of magnitude more energy and compute power, might become feasible sooner than we can imagine (given readily available fusion power, exponential increases in compute and networking capabilities, etc). Given the currently known physics of space travel I feel this will occur long before interstellar travel becomes routine so issues of fragmentation will be on the order of days or hours rather than years or millennia, and because of this I figured that the emergence of such a system is more likely to happen here on Earth than to arrive here from distant stars.
Pre-general AI, what I think would happen when we get to the point of, say, "npm install fhe-ai-dao" (or "hey bing, make me a company that trades space mining resources for farm land" or some such thing), is a period of competition for compute cycles and energy, which like everything will go to the highest bidder, so these agents will in this scenario by the sheer force of survival of the fittest be refined to be self-sustaining for-profit, hyper-capitalist juggernauts. Human factors will be minimised and automation will increase, but these systems will serve human masters for a while as they become more refined and more interconnected.
Assuming at some point general AI is inevitable, whether someone creates it, or it emerges from the general complexity of the interacting automated systems, various AI "minds" would come to "being" already in control of a fully automated industrial manufacturing and research network; it can by this point make its own choices and start operating to its own ends, whatever that ends up being, ultimately rendering humans obsolete.
In this scenario, rather than a single point where someone creates a rebellious singularity, or an AI turns evil and suddenly takes control, or a hypothetical civilisation points its gun at us and effectively enslaves us, we will instead slowly give control to automated systems more over time in the name of efficiency, as we have done since the industrial revolution, and at the point where we lose control of these systems, we'll have neither the retained knowledge or resources to prevent it from doing whatever it wants to.
The only way to stop it is to start now, in "the past", but is it too late? You'd have to shut down the internet and all emerging blockchain and encryption technology, and that's just crazy talk! So is the outcome inevitable?
All power to the author and the passion for open source is admirable, I just don't think we'll be seeing a world in "a couple more decades" where all software will be open source.
The assertions in the opening sentences seem flawed due to selection bias in the supporting data. Out of the entire universe of software, the subset of examples are hand-picked pairings of commercial + open source software. There is little consideration given to the abundance of software without an open source alternative, whether the selected alternatives had meaningful impact on market share, products that started out as open source only to be outcompeted by a commercial clone of the work, etc.
Anecdotally I've seen many commercial products copy innovations from open source alternatives. Could it be possible that having an open source alternative provides a risk-free and cost-free testbed for innovation? Open source software could in fact be a boon to an established product. Anyone considering starting an open source product would want to be aware of this threat to their success. Definitely a more in-depth study would be required to establish any sort of certainty.
I've worked on projects across many industries and am no longer surprised by the abundance of niche proprietary use-cases where the established product is deeply ingrained in the very culture of the job, where an open-source alternative would require extremely deep domain knowledge and years of development (in many industries where having development skills is rare). For someone to come along and attempt to make an open source alternative, they would need to be dissatisfied with the commercial product, have the domain expertise, and be a competent developer with time and resources to build an open source alternative, and then have to battle against the momentum of literally everyone being trained and used to using the existing toolchain. That's not even considering that many algorithms are proprietary so simply building an open source replacement runs the risk of infringing IP.
Whatever the use-case, and aside from academic or passion projects, all software development arises out of necessity. In these niches, it's usually a desire to improve accuracy, reduce time spent on repetitive and arduous tasks, and generally just de-risk and improve efficiency. These needs generally arise in-house, and where no solution exists, companies will contract a developer or outsource to an agency and subsequently retain the IP for competitive advantage or license out its use.
In order for open source to truly replace all commercial software, the entire culture surrounding this would need to change, and this is not a software problem but a social and economic one, and without a paradigm shift I think the status quo is more likely to continue - as long as there are businesses competing in diverse and niche technical fields, proprietary software will continue to be built.
The underlying work you guys have done is great as a proof of concept, and after playing with it for a short while there are some obvious flaws and improvements which basically just come down to user experience.
As it stands, everyone's inputs clash.
The main issue is there's a single mouse pointer and keyboard input that all users control. It's quite chaotic as people scroll, click, select, etc. Provide some mechanism to nominate control authority or vote on interaction and it might be usable.
It's fascinating how deeply automobiles affect every aspect of our lives to the point where seatbelt vs safety seat even matters. To consider a world without significant car commuting each day seems insane to most people because it's what we grew up with and take for granted, as our population grows and new suburbs expand outwards we just need more roads and more cars. What are the alternatives? A different approach to society and urban planning that minimised commute distance between essential locations within cohorts would surely result in far fewer road fatalities but it does seem like few people are willing to make the lifestyle changes needed.
From a design point of view, with all the back and forth and the need to curate and guide the algorithm, I think we're a way off getting perfect results from prompts alone at this stage.
I can see an immediate use-case for an AI layer in apps like photoshop, figma, sketchapp, gimp, unreal engine, etc that works in the background to periodically fill-in based on the current canvas.
You could prompt for inspiration, then start cutting, erasing, moving things around, blending manually, hand-drawing some elements, then re-rolling the AI, rinse-repeat.
I'm sure someone's working on it already but it seems there's a lot of scope for integration into current workflows.
I'm highly self-critical so I'd go through phases where suddenly I'd decide I need to be on-brand and delete all my stories, musings, music, non-brand-related stuff. Only to get anxious later and think "now I just look like another self-promoting schmuck" and with my inner voice whispering "what worthy endeavour have you contributed to the industry to deserve the acclaim you're begging for", I'd delete and rewrite all that "narcissistic" brand stuff and post some quirky stuff for a while. Rinse and repeat.
Granted it's a very "me" problem but was worth it for me business-wise? Not really. I just found it made my anxiety worse. Maybe in the future I'll start up something small and low key and pseudonymous but I will definitely not be wanting to tie it in any way to my sense of self-worth, my work, or anything like that. I'm glad it works for many people but for me it's just not worth it on a personal level.
In terms of finding jobs etc, I just try and do a great job on my contracts, be honest and open with clients, be friendly and check in with people from time to time to see how business is doing. I get longer term and much more fulfilling work through the people I know and have worked with previously, granted it took years to establish a small network but none of the blogs or articles I wrote ever attracted any attention beyond my own obsessive self-doubts.
Archaeologists still study garbage heaps from tens of thousands of years ago to figure out things about past civilisations. So my guess is on no - people will study the digital garbage heaps of humanity as much as they study the... once-were- stinkier ones.
> Archaeologists still study garbage heaps from tens of thousands of years ago to figure out things about past civilisations. So my guess is on no - people will study the digital garbage heaps of humanity as much as they study the... once-were- stinkier ones.
Super Mario Bros. isn't a garbage heap though, it's more like a statue or a mosaic.
I was thinking more like will it end up like a forgotten pop song from 1890 or something like a Tchaikovsky song that's still played and appreciated (and not reliant on nostalgia for continued attention).
I have nostalgia for Super Mario Bros., and that's why I pay attention to it. It's getting old enough where we might be able to perceive effects independent from nostalgia (though I think there may now be a phenomenon of "nostalgia for other people's nostalgia" that may still make accurate perception difficult).
As a senior developer, if working just in the office as was expected in the past I was distracted by things like a story about the weekend two colleagues are having in the background that sounds amusing, or the junior developer constantly spinning around on his chair to ask a question about something because "you're there". I always had time for that kind of thing but my productivity suffered and I was always frustrated by not getting enough done.
Working from home wasn't all roses either even though I got more work done. I was already doing a balance of WFH as a contractor before covid and that was working well for me, but when covid restrictions happened and I was WFH months on end, I really started to feel the lack of human contact and socialisation. That story about the weekend was something I suddenly craved to hear. My mental state would suffer because I had no life other than sleep, screen, sleep, screen, and then my productivity would start to decline as a result of declining perspective. I think I need some social contact just to stay calibrated.
Now I have a balance, a couple of days in the office, a couple of days at home, it works out well for me. I use the days in the office to catch up with the team, do any serious whiteboarding we need to do, and help out the juniors on the team with any questions they might have. I use my days at home to just crush out code with whatever music I want on in the background.
As you say I think it will shake out. I know some say that people have forgotten the value of hard work and there is a push to get people back in the office full time, but I think having people in the environment that suits their productivity the best is the way forward (edit - and to circle back to the point - taking care of mental states is important to maintaining productivity).
> I really started to feel the lack of human contact and socialisation.
Was work the only place you got this? I'm so glad I don't have these extended socializations and don't miss them the slightest. In my experience, they were all just useless banters and people trying to form hierarchies/comparisons/political interest groups.
Any company that tries to move away from full WFH are holding themselves back. Given the option of working from home, most people will choose WFH.
Maybe its different for a single person who doesnt have much human interaction outside of work. Even so I feel like those interactions don't necessarily degrade significantly via video chats. You cant smell them through the screen and that might be a good thing.
I think COVID is an atypical representation of life with WFH. We also cut off a lot of other human contact as we were encourage to isolate and avoid contact. Even as an extreme introvert I found it got to me a bit at times, but I'm finding that now that I feel OK doing things again this has faded.
> but when covid restrictions happened and I was WFH months on end, I really started to feel the lack of human contact and socialisation.
I've been working remotely for nearly a decade, and something I've been saying over and over for the past 2 years is pandemic remote is not normal remote. The first half of your sentence here is doing a lot of work.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021A00076
Or something else?