What's the most feasible way to exit modern society?
In short: the prospect of generative AI becoming increasingly prevalent has been gnawing away at me for a long time now. It's looking like there are no limits that will matter in the near future. But interfacing with generative AI in basically any capacity instills in me a kind of existential horror and revulsion that I don't think I can live with in my day-to-day life. Unfortunately, it seems that generative AI will soon become unavoidable in any white-collar career path, to say nothing of casual exposure in everyday life. I try as hard as possible to shield myself, but I doubt that will be realistically possible for much longer.
I'm in a graduate program, but I'm not confident that my field will still be relevant in five years. Even if it is, I'll almost certainly spend a lot of time interfacing with generative AI, the thought of which makes me nauseous.
Frankly, I'm so disgusted with what the world has become and what it is becoming that it's turning me into kind of a nasty person IRL.
So I'm musing on ways to get out. On finding a way to make enough money to stay alive while having as little contact with the digital world as possible.
Anyone have any experience/ideas?
Some thoughts from an older person working in a field I am constantly told will be taken over by AI any day.
Advice about anxiety:
The harm from the first arrow - the suffering caused by negative events and circumstances - is unavoidable. This is the actual pain from being bitten by the dog, the actual loss of the milk from the spilt cup, and so on.
The harm from the second arrow - the suffering we cause ourselves by fixating on the first type of suffering (or even just the possibility of it occurring) and wishing that things we cannot change are different - is optional. This type of suffering can be parried, if you like, but to do so requires constant mindfulness to remind yourself of that fact.
Advice about self sufficiency:
Be mindful of your consumption and try to only spend on those things which truly matter to you. Avoid buying for the sake of appearances / impulse purchases and the hedonistic adaptation treadmill.
To the extent you can, maximise your earning potential and invest early and regularly so that you can reduce the hold that any particular employer (and eventually, any particular problem arising from expenses) has over you. Money is far from the solution to all problems, but not having enough can be the root of a lot of them.
I would add to this by saying spending is not only connected to currency, but also to time. Your points about putting effort into financial stability are 100% valid, but as you suggested, that alone is not the only form of value.
Be mindful of how you spend your time. The first way to do this is to make the most of the hours you have available separate from your required work and commuting hours. Ideally, spend social time with people you care about and/or have mutual interest with, and also commit time to "recharging" alone, in whatever way is best for you.
The other side of time expenditure is weighing if spending money is more worthwhile than doing something yourself. A recent example in my life is repairing an air conditioner. I could have spent countless hours researching the potential issue, crawling around in the small attic, sourcing the necessary parts, buying additional tools, and extending how long we didn't have A/C for when the temperature was over 110° F. Ultimately, it was worth it to me to spend the money to have someone else do it. Theoretically, I could have figured it out myself, but it would have been uncomfortable, frustrating, and time spent developing a skill I would hope I never had to execute again.
I tried to escape. Moved to a small town. Lived locally. Picked up a lot of outdoor hobbies. Made a whole load of new, local friends.
But reality catches up anyway. I suspect you could outpace it for longer if you built an off-grid self-sufficient cabin or something... but you'd need to either be 100% introverted, or convince friends to come along. After a few months, it's easy to want to return to society if you start getting bored. And ultimately you can't cut yourself off completely; you'll always need to go to the doctor, dentist, barber, grocery store, and plenty more.
I also loathe genAI. I tried to give it a chance and have an open mind, but ultimately I just find it a lazy shortcut that generates garbage. I'd rather sit and think about my problems. But I also think we're close to the peak of a fad, so I have hope that we might limit genAI to more appropriate use cases in the next few years as the VC capital fades and the cost rises and enshittification ensues. What makes you loathe it so much more?
Actually, I find it is much more necessary to be mostly extroverted to live well in a small community. You need to be outside a lot and be sure to greet everyone and initiate all kinds of not just small talk but actually whole afternoon visits. With everyone. Most days good and bad. Everyone already knows everyone and grew up together; you need to exert a lot of effort to dig and then plug yourself in.
(Alternative for introverts: move rural with a small child who will force interactions, put up with the "they keep to themselves" negative impression, and be extra extra extravagant with gifts to neighbours)
I’ve found there’s truth in this. It’s why as an ambivert I find myself drawn to large cities, which allow me to choose when I’m putting on my extravert face and when I’m just a number, keeping to myself and blending in with the crowd. That’s not an option in small communities unless you want to be seen as a hermit/weirdo/etc.
I think there's a difference between this an what OP is saying. I also think genAI is pretty crap, but I don't loathe it, and I don't mind other people using it. As far as my job goes, I think anyone relying on AI will be worse than me. I've seen what it can do, what it can't do, and my job is pretty firmly in the 'things AI can't do' category. And even the things it can do, it doesn't seem to do very well. It can certainly speed up some processes and make them more efficient, but that's been true of nearly every technological advance going back to before the industrial revolution, and doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.
I think OP disagrees with us on all of this. They're not disliking AI because it is weak, but disliking it because it is powerful. You wouldn't get existential horror talking to genAI if you thought of it as a slightly fancier steam engine.
Would your opinion change if what you did was susceptible to AI being better cheaper and faster?
Well, obviously my opinion on whether it could do my job would change, but the big picture is still the same. A steam engine can do a lot of jobs that people used to do, and nobody gets an existential crisis when looking at a steam engine.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people watching the transition from muscle power to machine power absolutely did see it as an existential and terrifying change in a world that had, prior to that point, persisted on human and animal strength for millennia.
It was a fundamental shift from natural to artificial and a lot of the literature from the time expresses very similar anxieties to the ones we’re seeing reflected now, not just in this thread but across the zeitgeist as a whole.
Machines taking over the work of people, back when that work was overwhelmingly physical, is one of the things that pushed so much of our work into using the mind alone, rather than the mind and the hands. Now we’re starting to see machines take over some of that “mind” work in just the same way.
That's not really true. You had watermills, windmills, etc, invented long before. You had the use of stone, wooden, bronze, iron, and even steel tools to augment human strength, and these were obviously used in combination with the watermills/windmills as well. Even the use of animal strength to supplement human strength was a development, animals didn't domesticate themselves.
The steam engine was a larger step than some of the other improvements in technology, but it was still just a step.
I should also have said that 'nobody today gets an existential crisis when looking at a steam engine.' Luddites are not a new thing, but they generally accept some arbitrary level of technology as fine, and only want to stop the newer stuff.
What is the legend of John Henry if not an existential crisis about steam engines?
First reaction on reading this: I really feel for you. It's clear there's a lot weighing on you, pretty natural in the circumstances, especially if you have no confidence in the career you're just beginning. Just know that you're not alone in what you're feeling, far from it.
I recommend a book: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. It predates the AI boom but it has some really solid advice for unplugging in general, and how to establish healthy digital habits where necessary.
First thing to remember, all technology goes through a hype cycle. When the peak of the hype crests and breaks, it'll pull back to only the sane use cases. Will the the amount of AI use be at an intolerable level after that? Who knows. We went through this exact thing with the dotcom bubble, social media, the cloud, big data, IoT, VR/AR, blockchain, and now this. So whatever you plan to do, don't commit to a solution that's more long-term than the problem.
Second, if you're consuming any social media that's reinforcing your anxieties I would recommend that's the first thing you unplug from. I've been surprised in the past by how much my optimism improves after getting away from social media. AI in particular has a kind of "doomer salesman" that hypes the tech by predicting it's gonna kill us all. That kind of shit is deliberately trying to distort your mental image of the future.
Lastly, consider talking to a professional about your negative thoughts. If it's gotten to the point that you feel you're acting like a nasty person, that's a problem. Health-wise, career-wise and interpersonal-wise. Some coping skills can help. I don't say this to imply your feelings are the problem: they're not. It's just something that could improve your quality of life.
Friendly reminder that while hype cycles will crest, disinformation campaigns can continue for as long as the underlying political motivations exist. A lot of AI hype is motivated by businesses looking to
My point in that particular statement was that, though yes the rhetoric may continue, AI is highly unlikely to actually eliminate op's profession within the next five years.
But your reminder is a good one to keep in mind. AI will be a tool of wealth accumulation and we should all learn from the Hollywood strike of 2022 when our own bosses start squeezing us.
Yes, I know quite a few people who have done what you're dreaming of doing. They moved to the Puna region of Hawaii where I used to live for awhile.
Puna is on the least developed east side of the Big Island. Its mostly rural with a smattering of occasional AirBnb's but largely its people living quite separated from the rest of American culture and definitely not connected to the online world unless they work hard to stay connected. The biggest town is Hilo but Pahoa village is even smaller and 'backwoodsy' with just enough services to keep you alive (grocery store, gas station, couple of bars and restaurants, community centre)
There are quite a few off grid homes. Ours had solar power and catchment (rain) water so we were not connected to any utilities. The only internet was by phone which was spotty at the time, much better now.
There are also several 'intentional communities'. This can be anything from people living together committed to a self sustaining lifestyle, growing their own food and working together to maintain the land and their shelters to some very well developed yoga retreat centres that concentrate more on spiritual development. Or you can just live quietly and peacefully on your own. Puna has very much a 'live and let live' philosophy and you will meet people of all stripes there, some deeply philosophical earth lovers and some batshit crazy lazy people included.
Some of the residents are there because they are poor and Puna is kind of the last reasonably priced part of Hawaii (you can still buy lots under 10k on the lava) but I also met some who were 'trust fund babies' who just got fed up with the way the US was going and decided to drop out as far as they could from corporate and consumer culture. If you like sitting on a beach, watching the stars and meditating or listening to local musicians or surfing and fishing, then Puna is your haven. There's a pretty strong arts community too - from visual to performing arts. Many don't want to "do" they just want to "be". Its quite 'neo-hippy'.
Had some fascinating conversations with 20 to 40 yr olds who were there to just "find themselves" before eventually moving on to something new. I learned to love and respect the native Hawaiians and their culture too, there really is a totally different vibe than anywhere else Ive ever been in north America.
If you really want to 'get away from it all' there are work trade options and relatively cheap rental options in Puna. If youre serious about it, I can put you in touch with a local person who knows just about everyone on that side of the island or you can post on r/bigisland on the site that shan't be mentioned. Note that the people on there are FAR less friendly than the actual islanders, as per that site's general grouchiness.
Just to give you an idea this is very similar to what our tiny house looked like, but we only charged $400/month for the place. Can still find similar places but not that cheap anymore.
Aloha.
That sounds idyllic! If you don't mind my asking, what was it that spurred you to move on from there?
A volcano. lol
In 2018 Kilauea started a massive eruption that very slowly made its way down the mountain. On July 1st after three weeks of watching it creep forward it took over and inundated our property. I now own a plot of land that is 75' taller than before and virtually worthless without sinking tens of thousands into bulldozer work to level it and build a new half mile driveway. Im not bitter, I knew it was a risk and we LOVED the place for 9 years, but not sure what the future holds. The great grandchildren may love it?
Oh wow, I don't know what answer I expected but it wasn't that! I'm sorry that you were pushed out in such a dramatic way, but I'm glad to hear it lived up to the ideal when you were there, and it sounds like you've got an extremely well balanced view on the situation as a whole - more so than I tend to manage when things go wrong, that's for sure.
Well I kinda adopted the Hawaiian mindset when I lived there. They believe the goddess Pele is behind every eruption and she decides where the lava goes and where it doesn't. And if she chooses to send you off the island then you go. I dont think I offended her, but I guess it was our time to go. We may go back some day, who knows, but the bare land costs us nothing to keep, not even property taxes, so there's no rush.
I think @Well_known_bear has said a lot of what I would have said very well. In particular I think you should focus on the second bullet under the first item, the "harm from the second arrow." By fixating on harms that have not yet materialized and may not ever happen in the way that you fear, you are experiencing distress that is not necessary for you to experience in the moment.
I would encourage you to remove your focus from AI, inasmuch as it is possible, and consider the general questions of:
To the extent that you must experience stress related to harms that may appear but are not yet present (which I'm sure has its own word in German to describe such a phenomenon) you should focus on the practical consideration of what an alternate career path might look like if you are unhappy in your field. This might be for a variety of reasons, only some of which relate to AI, and is something that anyone should consider while still working towards their degree. If you were to shed all your current expectations and plans for yourself, what could you see yourself doing that would let you support yourself sustainably in both a financial and mental sense? Focus on specific, positive things that would define a fulfilling career for you and try to keep an eye out for opportunities that match. We often build an image of our future in our head that we are unwilling to discard, and you are at a perfect point in your life to make changes.
And, in a parallel track, consider the sorts of things that make you happy. It is easy to identify stressors because they tend to make themselves prominent in our lives, but we often fail to give due consideration to things that give us enjoyment. This may be art, socialization, reading, physical activity, etc. As a graduate student you may be forced to neglect some of this as a matter of time management, but it's worth identifying the things that give you peace and enjoyment so that you can maximize their presence in your life. Having a positive focus on including happiness in your life is a much more sustainable mindset than a negative focus on excluding stress; if you fill enough of your day with positive activities and situations then there will simply be less time for the remainder to trouble you.
GenAI mostly affects so-called “knowledge workers”. Trades are largely unaffected for now, or to a much lesser extent. It’ll probably be impossible to avoid completely, but learning a trade can reduce how much you rely on digital tech in your daily work, and with a bit of luck, you might go days or even weeks without having to deal with GenAI or to think about it. I recommend the book “Shop Class as Soulcraft” by Matthew B. Crawford.
Hi, I live in rural Canada where we can fish and forage and grow our own mushrooms in the forest, and where our neighbours exchange a lot of material goods. Just this week I found out how I can exchange free ranged chicken and geese eggs for books, score!
What everyone else said, but I'd like to offer an additional buffer: get in touch with good people, such as your local volunteering community. If modern AI life is making you want to throw up, take in regular dosages of good helpful humanity to settle your stomach.
I saw a posting for a job in Whitehorse, Yukon and found myself day-dreaming about what it would be like to live all the way out there (I'm very much not from Whitehorse, Yukon, or even that continent, so perhaps I'm romanticising its isolation). Enjoy your varied fresh eggs!
One small perspective I'd like to add:
Change your plan wrt having an income: go into physical work with strong unions, the trades have been mentioned but also nursing, teaching (the younger the better) and different kinds of social work could be feasible.
Working with your body and dealing with real people will force you away from LLMs (and their hype) while still having access to living in a city (massive, big or smal) if this is your thing.
The professions I listed will "always" be needed, so while you won't get rich you will not be poor either.
Consider avoiding the extremes you've set up here. Yes, I'm sure you could actually totally depart from society in a Dick Proenneke-esque way, as someone else mentioned. That's always appealed to me, too.
But you could also just have two sides to your life: one, that's connected to the BS of modern life; and another, where you live in a nice place out in the woods, gradually become more reliant on the land, and simply put that other modern stuff aside. That's sort of how I've built my life. Yes, I spend time sitting at my computer doing nothing but basically exchanging my time for money. But when that's done, I'm raising chickens, weeding the garden, finding seeds to grow into trees, working on the compost, etc. When I'm outside doing this work--that to me feels like real work in ways that my job does not--I'm really not thinking about the other side to things. I'm just enjoying my connection with nature.
Something to think about. It'd be pretty hard to actually leave modern society. But you can still earn money from it even if your heart isn't in it.
For me, the current genAI hysteria is just the latest round of societal collapse, so I'm not the "talk you down off the ledge" type.
This is not a spur-of-the-moment change. Not to be fully addressed in one thread.
I will say, I worked for 3+ years as a roofer, then awhile as a landscaper, thinking how nice it'll be to work indoors in an office. Then I spent 20+ years as a programmer, dreaming of the good-old days, roofing and digging in the dirt.
Broadly speaking, as things continue to go to shit, light construction (that is to say, residential ... homes), and horticultural-like work (esp gardening, farming, homesteading) are not gonna go away, and should serve you well, no matter how "Mad-Max-ian" the future becomes. Don't have to deal with an overly-large group of people, either.
It’s a little distressing how most comments are pooh-poohing your words as simple anxiety, as if the existential threat AI has already proven to meaning, truth, humanity, art, politics, etc is all just something that can possibly fall under the concept of Generalised Anxiety Disorder. “Talk to your doctor.” Sure. The last doctor I went to, had to god, had ChatGPT open while talking to me about symptoms.
For myself, who asks myself the exact same questions, who feels very much as you do, @heraplem, there is no answer. I work in a field made precarious by other means (hospitality) but fancy myself a novelist: that’s not going to survive this time period in the slightest. I try to fixate on physical experiences—being out in the city, in nature, amongst other human beings—but all this is not going to change the fact that the world as we know it is not going to survive the death of truth and human meaning in any recognizable form.
I wish it was different. But look at the other comments and see how little credence anyone is giving to what is actually going on.
This comment will piss you off, so, sorry in advance - but there's someone I wish I had told something similar, I didn't, and now it's too late. Trying to avoid making that mistake again.
These are hard times. I completely understand being worried about the state of the world, the state of humanity. I even think it's reasonable to believe and to argue that the world as we know it is over. What concerns me in your post, though, is the assertion that anyone who disagrees that the world is over is burying their head in the sand. The reason I say this is because that's a one-way trip. As soon we start to believe that we're not just correct but the only ones seeing the truth, there's no more room for any compromise - or hope. Because if we think that we're the only ones who understand that the world is over, that truth is dead, that the apocalypse is inevitable... I think that leads you down a very dark road very quickly.
I'm not trying to change your mind. All I ask is that you keep a sliver of possibility alive that others see the exact same facts that you do - that they're not uninformed, just different - and can come to different conclusions. All I ask is that you leave room for a sliver of hope.
If I try to maintain hope, there are a few things that come to mind. Certain fields don’t seem like they can become utterly meaningless, all of which require human interaction: luxuries of hospitality and service; performing arts such as theater, dance, live music… I legitimately struggle to think of other things over which genAI won’t run roughshod.
The fundamental issue here is that the things I value most are the things that are explicitly at threat. This isn’t about some people “see the same things” and “come to a different conclusion”: there are ideals and morals that I hold that are incompatible with the proliferation of genAI. With full confidence, there is absolutely zero way for someone who holds the same ideals or morality that I do to think this isn’t an obliteration, and I realize many who read my words now will have a smug little chuff at the idea of me proving your point.
In a poorly suited analogy, think of this as a cultural shift in which all foods must now contain animal products—meat, cheese, etc—and everyone is gleeful at the prospects of new kinds of foods and new recipes and new restaurants, meanwhile myself and the few other vegans are finding ourselves decrying something that seemingly everyone else has no issue with. (It’s a terrible analogy, but in something as unprecedented as the proliferation of genAI, I find myself unable to find a better one.)
Without wanting to be argumentative, because I absolutely see the strength of your conviction here, it does sound to me like you’re tying together moral and ethical meaning with economic viability under our current system?
Art as a form of human to human communication and expression isn’t going anywhere, and by definition isn’t replaceable by AI even if those systems become “better” than human by whatever metric, because it’s inherently about the people involved and the connections between them via the work.
At the same time, yeah, the ability to make a living from that art under 20th-21st century mechanisms of wealth distribution may well be threatened. I’m by no means minimising how impactful, and how legitimately worrying that can be.
This isn’t a hopeful reply per se - wide ranging economic shifts have rarely happened peacefully, after all - but it might perhaps be helpful to separate the tool from the consequences, and the moral from the practical? Not necessarily because you’ll feel much better for it, but because it at least presents a path forward for the world that doesn’t inherently conflict with your worldview.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you. As confirmed by a couple therapists, my anxiety is unfounded because I have enough in the bank to make a leap to another job, so I guess my feelings on the matter are moot. But you aren’t alone, for as much as that’s worth.
(deleted an essay that you shouldn’t need to deal with, but suffice it to say that I think you have a point)
First of all, I get it - I recently also came across an article on the potential impact of thinking patterns due to LLMs and it was not encouraging for the future.
How do you imagine being 'exit' from society? I think it'll be difficult to truly exit, though I do want to help you navigate your needs if possible.
Which article? It would be interesting to read as it’s a concern of mine some of my colleagues don’t share.
This is a media report on it. But while I personally prefer to check out the publication if I have time as well(only had the time to briefly scan for now but hopefully will read it in full later), here is the pdf of the research itself
Of course more research is always needed but unfortunately I'm not surprised. This is why I only use LLMs when programming when I don't need it.
Dick Proenneke comes to mind. I'm not sure how practical or possible this is today, or if you're into being isolated in the wilderness for long periods of time, but he did it for something like 30 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
And he did it when he was like 50!
Just noped out to the Alaskan bush and lived an entirely different life trajectory. That dude was a badass. I remember watching the videos of him building his cabin and just think "Man, this old man is more yolked than I'll ever be !"
Have you considered acquiring a religion?
Many faiths have traditions of asceticism and monasticism that involve anywhere from one person to a whole religious order living separately from the modern world.
There are also whole religions that think very carefully about what technologies or practices to adopt in their community, but they I think also tend to be equally picky about their membership.
To answer the title: https://www.ic.org/
To answer the post: read what the top comment said