Toros Yesja’s Reviews > Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies > Status Update
Toros Yesja
is on page 233 of 352
> It is moderately more relevant to consider the current human average hedonic experience during working hours. Worldwide studies asking respondents how happy they are find that most rate themselves as “quite happy” or “very happy” (averaging 3.1 on a scale from 1 to 4).
Am I in the minority here or was this just a shitty study? I find it unfathomable to be actually "happy" in the workplace beyond the 1st month.
— May 09, 2025 07:56PM
Am I in the minority here or was this just a shitty study? I find it unfathomable to be actually "happy" in the workplace beyond the 1st month.
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Toros Yesja
is on page 262 of 352
It occurs to me whenever the paperclip problem is mentioned (along with its many many variations): if you claim that you have built AGI or ASI but your agent is too stupid to realize that by telling it to maximize the production of paperclips, you don't mean that it should slaughter your family to get at the iron in their blood, have you actually built AGI/ASI in the first place?
— May 09, 2025 10:20PM
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Hendrik
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May 09, 2025 11:23PM
Probably a shitty study. Somewhere I heard that 25% of Americans think their job is totally meaningless for example. Does not exclude happiness ofc but could imagine it to be correlated. The term "studies" here is disconcerting , and ofc it is not good practice to try to make the evidence go away by reasoning rather than reading whatever has been put out there, but if it really is a scale from 1-4 with 3 being "quite happy", then it seems like "2 had to be smthng like quite unhappy and 1 as unhappy". My guess is that many would subscribe to "I don't know has its moments, sometimes boring or stressful but the coffee is good. Am I unhappy with it? It pays too little that's for sure...". But yeah, I just can't imagine this to be true, especially worldwide and with their being sooo many shitty, precarious, soul breaking jobs out there. Really has to be some picky evidence.
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Hendrik wrote: "Probably a shitty study. Somewhere I heard that 25% of Americans think their job is totally meaningless for example. Does not exclude happiness ofc but could imagine it to be correlated. The term "..."Great point about the scale. It also takes some courage to actually confess that one is unhappy so when one has to choose between "relatively unhappy" and "relatively happy", I imagine the bias is towards the latter. I suppose it also depends on the "context" of the question: am I happy with my job considering the general economic situation vs am I happy with my job considering what I actually want to do with my life, etc. It really looks like there are 2 answers. One is that those studies are really all bullshit since it's difficult to imagine the majority being happy with spending 8 hours a day behind a desk; the other is that it depends on the person's definition of happiness/value/whatever. I really veer more towards the 1st since I genuinely believe that by penetrating beneath the surface you would find that most people do hate their jobs.
Yeah, I am not sure I would like to say out loud that I am rather unhappy about a major part of my life either. Such a self description can develop a life of its own necker cube style. Ofc deep down I would feel that I am not in love with my job, and as you say, I prbly would be tempted as well to give it an overall, all things and possibilities considered, rather than a genuine focused appraisal - saying, yeah, I am glad I have this job and then bracketing (though I don't really like it that much).
