Working on something
When most people are working with something in their life, they are usually working with the idea that there is something that they will eventually find linked to or connected to their immediate or future goals. This idea of meaning gives them power and freedom. It allows them to focus their energy and release some of it in a controlled way. Recently, there have been times when I feel like my "something" has disappeared. Every time I try to connect my experience to some meaning, I end up ruining the idea of working for something. A constant question echoes: "Without having something to look forward to, what is it that I can do?"
I recall this kind of "meaning" assignment as a recent adult experience. One of my long-lasting memories is crafting items using wood. Creating my own wooden swords and bows as a child, sanding them and polishing them to imitate one of the cartoon characters, felt good. It was without any external utility, but it was something internally satisfying. I felt I was working toward something as I lost my sense of time and was connected to the present, the ongoing moment.
As I grew older, these meaningless actions felt irresponsible. There is a constant reminder inside my head that I should work on something that will generate some sort of revenue, no matter how big or small. With this pressure that is flowing through my head, I feel like there is something that I am missing out on in life. The small moments of joy and relaxation that working on something gave me are gone. The idea here is not to be skilled or to be the best; it is simply to enjoy something, even though it is meaningless.
As AI looms on the horizon, even the possibility of AGI makes this whole thought—or thinking, or whatever I am doing—more important than before. The reason is that it doesn't matter when AGI comes; the effective utility value of human labor and capital might go down. With that ending being so nigh, the only "good" left is to discard meaning in things and work through them.
It is not a doom post or a depressing post. It is a post of hope. It is something about human emotion that is fundamental, and most of us here can relate to it. The monologue that is going on inside my head says that there is no way I would be able to collect revenue without working on something that generates revenue.
Most people are occupied with a job as part of living. We need to generate income for continual survival in society. But how long is the job going to sustain us when there is a chance the job might be gone? With the looming harbinger near us, is it even sustainable to assign or evaluate one's worth from one's job? If it is not, what is the alternative for us?
Time will wait for no one. Even if you are capable today, what happens if something that is even better than us emerges out of the void? After all, no one intended for in-context learning nor chain-of-thought prompting. It was discovered as a side effect and emergent behavior. There is most likely more than one emergent behavior that will emerge as a result of training and conditional learning.
These days, Reinforcement Learning has been my wooden sword. It is theoretical; it might be something that has meaning or not. But it will definitely allow me to get the joyous experience of working on something.
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