Ask HN: Is this the worst time to be human?

17 points by bg117 23 days ago | 49 comments

With AI doing much of the work, how do we humans keep life interesting? Ex:- 1.Generate much of the code and remove the joy of developers that they had over all these years. 2. Generate Animation videos/movies or Anime books. People who make a living by drawing because they like it will feel all the more miserable. 3. May be more scenarios can be listed

If you are into a particular profession because you like it and get paid in addition, you have every reason to be miserable/ depressed.

what are your thoughts? 1. Is this the beginning of golden age for people who does not have any good skill but just mediocre who will make a killing by using AI tools and drive away people who are into a certain profession because of passion? 2. Are creative people doomed? 3. What options are available ? 4. Looks like greed is causing miserable lives for everyone. 5. Perhaps passionate people will continue to do things the "old way" but cannot make a living or compete with AI folks. For ex:- drawing animation by hand will become less economical compared with AI generated unless you are faster than a speeding bullet?

Please share your thoughts. Thanks

bayareabadboy 22 days ago |

Im not trying to be rude, but you desperately need to read some history.

To answer your question being born in Eastern Europe (Poland/ukraine specifically) in the late 19th century might be the worst time/place to be human.

thehappypm 22 days ago | |

Perhaps during various east Asian famines as well..

mikewarot 22 days ago |

We're at the end of a supernaturally stable era, returning to the mean. The labor demand outstripped the supply in the US from it's founding until about 1970. This allowed the normal working man to support a family, house, car, kids, vacations, etc.

The Dollar was completely debased to it's current fiat status in 1971, and now buys about 2% of what it used to. Real wages have fallen as labor supply was almost doubled thanks to the influx of women into the work force, and reduction of demand due to automation starting in the 1960s.

However, this is the best time to be alive, on average. If you can get it, modern medicine performs at levels that would have seemed miraculous a century ago. Even if you're broke, antibiotics and other over-the counter drugs can save you from things that would have killed our ancestors. They routinely died from scratches that got infected, parasites in the water, and malnutrition.

If you live below your means, and associate with others who share that goal, you can have a quite happy life.

As far as college, it's not worth it unless you're going to be a Nurse or an Engineer. (Not a programmer with stolen valor, that's a different job, and you don't need a degree)

discordance 23 days ago |

Worth a watch:

Don't Take the Black Pill - Andrew Kelley | SSW 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZwpH5lCD4

quickthrowman 22 days ago |

Not even close. I’d rather be alive now than in the eastern Mediterranean circa 530-550 AD, to name but one awful period in human history.

Riots over chariot races burned or destroyed half of Constantinople in 532: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots

A volcanic winter started in 536: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

Plague of Justinian began in 541 AD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

I’d also rather live now than in China during the Taiping Rebellion.

dgllghr 22 days ago |

What I’m reading into what you are saying: this is the most uncertain time to be alive. And I think that is true. Societal change at this pace is a relatively new thing for humans, and it’s speeding up. Simultaneously, we are losing many anchors and touchstones at once. In the past, even in times of great uncertainty, there were always constants that humans could lean on. From family, to country, to religion, to occupation, even to art and media. That is less and less the case. Everything is uncertain, everywhere, all at once.

notahacker 22 days ago | |

For most of human history humans weren't really certain of anything other than their own poverty. Anchors like family and nationhood disappeared with a premature death in the family or the king's family and the most constant thing about religion was the punishment meted out to those who didn't keep up with changes, in doctrine if not in deity. And people lived in mortal fear of gods frowning upon them because at an individual level famine and pestilence were commonplace and at a tribal and civilizational level conflict seldom ceased and ordinary people were expected to be ready to contribute. With great regularity throughout history, people pointed to pace of social change as evidence that religious prophecies were coming true and the world was ending.

Now most people based in the West are relatively safe from infectious diseases and war, we have the luxury of being uncertain about what the chatbots are going to do with us.

I mean, if I had a choice of people to rule superpowers or dish out the AI investment I'd probably pick different options, but in most respects life is pretty cushy and its basics pretty certain compared with most of history. I'd certainly pick uncertainty about next year's employment than certainty I'd be a subsistence farmer but uncertainty about whether my farm would produce enough to subsist....

marginalia_nu 22 days ago |

So you're a peasant in England in the 1300s.

You caught the end of the medieval warm period, a period of unusually warm climate in Europe. It's been really easy to grow food, and the population of Europe has boomed. That ends in a fucking hurry though in the late 1200s and early 1300s, the climate rapidly cools (you're now in the "little ice age"), coming to a culmination in the great famine of 1315. Recovery took longer, but basically two years of starvation, disease, rampant crime, cannibalism. 10% of the population succumbs to disease and starvation.

Because this period of repeated crop failures and famines of varying magnitudes lead to increased imports of food to relieve the starving population, the black death arrives in 1348 as a cherry on top, claiming about half the population. That's a lot of dead people. Like think of the logistics of somehow burying or ... dealing with the bodies of half the population for a bit.

But yeah, we in 2026 have it pretty rough too I guess. RAM is too expensive now.

underdeserver 23 days ago |

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285770

It's the best time.

watwut 22 days ago | |

It is not the worst time, but also not the best time at all. Things can get and actually get both better and worst over time.

Dont use hedonistic treadmill theory to devalue what people actually say. Having crap we dont care loosing available does not mean everything is consistently better.

aidenn0 22 days ago | |

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

spottedmarley 23 days ago |

No matter the time or place, being human is pretty much as good as it gets. Would you rather be a horse? or an ostrich?

buffalobuffalo 22 days ago | |

Or a factory chicken. Do you have any idea how many more factory chicken lives have come and gone as opposed to human lives?

rglover 22 days ago | | |

Sure, but at least the chicken isn't subjected to a never-ending stream of psyops disguised as 'public benefit.'

acheron 22 days ago | | |

Not to mention shrimp!

Supermancho 22 days ago |

536 AD was the absolute worst time to be alive.

This is a revisiting of a question that has been asked many times.

johnbarron 22 days ago | |

This year is not over yet....

bg117 22 days ago |

I think its certainly a great time to be alive now compared to olden days in certain regions/countries/time. But with AI, I see similar scenarios popping up in the future across the world leading to money being concentrated in a few individuals/companies/groups/ or so more than ever. Even passionate individuals will begin to feel miserable eventually losing interest leading to a dumb, mediocre and slave society. The differentiation between intelligent humans and "morons" will narrow. Eventually the majority will all be same.

svieira 22 days ago |

  For the end of the world was long ago,
  And all we dwell to-day
  As children of some second birth,
  Like a strange people left on earth
  After a judgment day.

  For the end of the world was long ago,
  When the ends of the world waxed free,
  When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,
  And the sun drowned in the sea.

  When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky
  And whoso hearkened right
  Could only hear the plunging
  Of the nations in the night.

  When the ends of the earth came marching in
  To torch and cresset gleam.
  And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
  Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
  Like faces in a dream.

  And men rode out of the eastern lands,
  Broad river and burning plain;
  Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
  And tiger skies, striped horribly,
  With tints of tropic rain.

  Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise
  Around that inmost one,
  Where ancient eagles on its brink,
  Vast as archangels, gather and drink
  The sacrament of the sun.

  And men brake out of the northern lands,
  Enormous lands alone,
  Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
  And the rain is changed to a silver dust
  And the sea to a great green stone.

  And a Shape that moveth murkily
  In mirrors of ice and night,
  Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
  As death and a shock of evil words
  Blast a man's hair with white.

  And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
  Or the cry of the frost and foam,
  Swept ever around an inmost place,
  And the din of distant race on race
  Cried and replied round Rome.

  And there was death on the Emperor
  And night upon the Pope:
  And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
  Hardened his heart with hope.

  A sea-folk blinder than the sea
  Broke all about his land,
  But Alfred up against them bare
  And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
  Staggered, and strove to stand.

  He bent them back with spear and spade,
  With desperate dyke and wall,
  With foemen leaning on his shield
  And roaring on him when he reeled;
  And no help came at all.

  He broke them with a broken sword
  A little towards the sea,
  And for one hour of panting peace,
  Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
  With golden crown and girded fleece
  Made laws under a tree.

-----

G. K. Chesterton - The Ballad of the White Horse - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm

maurelius2 21 days ago |

You are on the very top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Most people never had that luxury. People dying from plague with a life expectancy of 30 were happy for a meal. I'm not trying to invalidate your struggle (sorry if that is how it come across), just offer some perspective. Life is good.

ferguess_k 22 days ago |

Definitely not judging from human history.

But probably the worst time since the 80s for Western world tech normies.

everyday7732 22 days ago |

It's not the worst time, but it is incredibly unstable. We peaked 10-15 years ago.

jjgreen 23 days ago |

Looks like greed is causing miserable lives for everyone

True, but not exactly a new thing

codingdave 22 days ago |

> With AI doing much of the work, how do we humans keep life interesting?

If you think work was the only interesting thing in life, I don't think you have fully explored everything this world has to offer.

raver1975 22 days ago |

I get a lot of joy from building whatever I can dream up with AI.

kazinator 22 days ago | |

I played with AI a bit on and off 2022 to 2025 or so.

It's just passive (or mildly active) entertainment, nothing more.

Stuff is being "created", but it's not coming from me, and so I don't feel I'm making anything.

It is undeniably entertaining. Small children absolutely love it. "Make a happy face with a poo stuck to it" ... seconds later, bursts of laughter.

I think people get addicted to the stuff because of the inconsistent feedback. You never know how the next thing will turn out and it can take iterations to get to something "good".

If every time you threw a basketball at a hoop, it went through, few people would go on to play basketball; they would get bored in 15 minutes and forget about it.

People throw basketballs at hoops because they have just enough control to think they can do it, in spite of it mostly not going well.

aidenn0 22 days ago |

The time from after the agricultural revolution to before the modern era was arguably much worse, with the overwhelming majority of the population being subsistence farmers.

toomuchtodo 23 days ago |

Everyone's experience will be different, make the best of it. Life is mostly luck, but you have some choices sometimes, control what you can to the best of your ability.

sjoedev 22 days ago |

I likely align with you on most political and social issues since you seem to be in despair. However, this question is seriously misguided. This is by far the best time to have been a human in all of history.

You say AI is making our creative pursuits feel meaningless?

How many creative pursuits do you think the average person had throughout history when close to 50% of people died before age 5, fewer than 10% of people could read, women and minorities had close to zero rights, the average worker was impoverished and farmed sunup to sundown to barely eat and avoid famine, there was little treatment for diseases (infectious or otherwise), common people could be conscripted for war at a moment’s notice…I could go on.

You think the average person in history spent their time painting and writing? These are luxuries 99% of people who ever lived could have never dreamed of.

marginalia_nu 22 days ago | |

> How many creative pursuits do you think the average person had throughout history when close to 50% of people died before age 5, fewer than 10% of people could read, women and minorities had close to zero rights, the average worker was impoverished and farmed sunup to sundown to barely eat and avoid famine, there was little treatment for diseases (infectious or otherwise), common people could be conscripted for war at a moment’s notice…I could go on.

That's an industrial age work ethic. Before industrialization made everything cheap, you couldn't just go to the big store and buy stuff, and as a peasant you definitely didn't have enough income to hire a craftsman to make everything you needed.

People have historically spent a lot more time than we do now making things they need themselves, or things for other people to trade for their craft. Shoes, clothes, basic tools, food, and so on.

So yeah, quite a lot it turns out.

sejje 23 days ago |

This is easily the best time there's ever been to be a human. And while I think many creatures' existence is pleasant, I would never trade the human experience for another.

I think the world is what you make it, in Western countries (standard caveats like disabilities). I empathize with misery experienced in other places, but it has nothing to do with AI. It has to do with humans, bad decisions, power monopolies.

Anyone miserable in America is choosing it, or very unlucky.

garciasn 23 days ago | |

Yeah; /this/ is the worst time to be a human. Right.

We have the ability not to die of previously common disease.

We are the most educated and wealthy population ever.

We have arguably one of the longest collective lifespans.

We don’t necessarily have to commit labor for the wealthy without any pay at all.

But we have the threat of climate change; something no generation before 100y ago considered at all.

We have the supposed, but possible, threat of AI changing things for us, something no one could have possibly concerned themselves with previously.

We have instant access to all of the worlds knowledge in the palms of our hands and we can travel to any point on Earth within 24h or less for relatively little money.

Most of us have access to shelter, power, food and water.

Yeah; it’s definitely not the worst time to be alive. But we have to worry about things that might not come to pass instead of worrying about what definitely will come to be like prior generations.

Absurd.

HeyLaughingBoy 23 days ago | | |

Generating "engagement" by making ridiculously outlandish statements has gotten so common that it's impossible to distinguish them from people who are just hopelessly naive.

hersko 22 days ago | |

This is obviously correct. It's wild to me that you are getting downvoted.

carlosjobim 22 days ago |

Step away from the computer for a while. There's a whole world which isn't digital.

rayiner 22 days ago |

Have babies and enjoy doing inherently human things that don't involve generating bits.

ravenstine 22 days ago |

I'd rather be alive now than during the Ice Age.

However, I think we may live in the worst time in terms of predicting one's own future, as well as the future of our children. I haven't managed to have kids, but if I had any right now, I'd have no idea on how to guide them into adulthood without effectively bullshitting them in some way. My advice would probably end up being 10x worse than Boomer advice, even if I tried my very best to be in touch with the times. For instance, if my hypothetical son told me that some day he wanted to be a programmer like I am, how am I supposed to encourage him without straight up lying? My role already is very different than it was a couple years ago, and it may have little resemblance (or not even exist at all) in another decade. The same goes for my first career as an animator; the need for those skills is rapidly going extinct. Animated 99.999% of animated content will undoubtedly be created by people who know absolutely nothing about what we understood to be animation fundamentals up to now. I really have to wonder how any young people today can be motivated knowing that their career might as well be over before they even attend their first university class.

Havoc 22 days ago |

I'd say it's closer to a high anxiety time than a bad time per se.

There is a lot of sht coming at us that our monkey brains are just not equipped to deal with. Doomscrolling dopamine loops, big tech & their algos, AI misinformation (and job fears)

If a major war kicks off or the financial system collapses...then yeah worst.

MotoriX 23 days ago |

I don’t know, I think it’s not that black and white. People who genuinely live for their work will probably keep coding because they enjoy it, but if they need to use AI to be more productive, they’ll have to adopt it. After all, people invented the wheel because they were lazy and wanted to make things easier and more profitable. I think AI is just another wheel...

AnimalMuppet 23 days ago |

No. No, no, no. This isn't just after a volcanic eruption, where we're facing starvation because crops won't grow, and there's plague that we're too weak from hunger to fight off. This isn't the bubonic plague, where one-third of people in Europe died. This isn't 1913, where we were about to go through WWI, and then the Great Depression, and then WWII. This is "we don't know what jobs are going to look like in five years, and we're experiencing high levels of job dissatisfaction". This is nothing like real hard times.

How is it all going to play out? I have no idea. Career advice? Stay flexible and willing to learn, but I can't give any concrete advice.

kypro 22 days ago |

Everyone is taking a very bad faith view of what you're saying.

I don't think you're arguing this is the worse time in all of human history to live, but that this period we are now entering broadly speaking is the worse for our humanity in many ways.

I think the latter could be true, at least for some of us. There's many things that gave my life meaning which I've abruptly stopped doing as a result of AI – and no one has given me a good reason to want to continue pursuing those things.

- I used to write a technical blog and published technical books. There is absolutely no point in me doing this anymore. I've spent years of my life writing and I'd now advise people to use AI over reading anything I've ever written. Acknowledging this makes me physically hurt because it was a huge sense of pride for me in the recent past.

- I used to write music. I'd argue there's absolutely no point in anyone wasting their time with music now. Unless you're extremely talented AI is going to do a better job than you. Unless you get a kick out of prompting AI to produce music or enjoy creating subpar music there's no point.

- I've spend decades of my life coding. It's my number 1 passion in life. It's the thing I loved doing more than anything as a teen. But I no longer code. AI is broadly superhuman at all coding, and even where it's not it's quite there yet it's far faster for me to tell AI what code to write. This isn't remotely enjoyable, but I'll do it for a while more just for the money.

- I used to do a fair amount of casual photo editing and VFX for people. It was a bit of a side hobby from when I was a teen, but I was decent enough. I'd never do this anymore. For almost all small projects people are better off using AI.

Elsewhere I no longer ask humans to do things for me:

- I don't need to pay human to design things for me anymore

- I don't need humans to pay humans for translations

- I don't need to pay humans for technical knowledge I don't have

I genuinely don't know what people are doing on computers where they're finding meaning anymore. For me I'm just checking out and growing my own food, building furniture, raising my chickens, etc. None of it gives me creative meaning, but at least I feel like I'm accomplishing something.

My sense is that AI appeals to the types of people video game cheat codes appeal to. If you feel satisfaction from completing games with unlimited health, then you probably love AI. I'm not that person. I like things I do to be hard with high barriers to entry. If I can talk to an LLM and do something it's pointless in my eyes.

GPerson 22 days ago | |

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying except I’m still choosing to create things, knowing full-well the computer can (or will be able to) do better. I’m going to choose to create things that are interesting or challenging, and I’m going to share them with a few friends in my vicinity.

“I used to write music. I'd argue there's absolutely no point in anyone wasting their time with music now. Unless you're extremely talented AI is going to do a better job than you. Unless you get a kick out of prompting AI to produce music or enjoy creating subpar music there's no point.”

I do disagree with this conclusion. Screwing around on the keyboard is fun, and I imagine people who actually make music like yourself have fun doing structured versions of that. Why deny yourself that enjoyment? It’s not like there weren’t more talented people around before the AI craze started (presumably) at making songs. This can be cured with a perspective shift I’m quite confident.

notahacker 22 days ago | | |

> I do disagree with this conclusion. Screwing around on the keyboard is fun, and I imagine people who actually make music like yourself have fun doing structured versions of that. Why deny yourself that enjoyment? It’s not like there weren’t more talented people around before the AI craze started (presumably) at making songs. This can be cured with a perspective shift I’m quite confident.

It's also not a novel argument. Why write new music or perform music at all in an era in which recordings are widely available?

kypro 22 days ago | | |

Thanks for the reply.

I don't think you're wrong, I think I'm just wired differently. I really like achievement. And effort without achievement seems pointless to me.

I was never particularly talented at music, but I could do things most people couldn't and so there was a sense of pride.

Similarly with my writing, the topics I covered in the way I did required undeniable thought, effort and care.

Today if it wasn't for the metadata showing a pre-2023 creation data, you'd genuinely struggle to know if it was 5 mins of prompting or days of effort... The last 2 decades of my effort can be summed up in this way. If I've waste 2 decades, I don't want to waste anymore time. I just have to try to find other things I can be proud of and that requires moving on from the things that once gave me joy.

shaunxcode 22 days ago |

fencer12 22 days ago |

No offense dude, but have you ever been outside?

firemelt 22 days ago |

bro are you floating?

For the end of the world was long ago, And all we dwell to-day As children of some second birth, Like a strange people left on earth After a judgment day. For the end of the world was long ago, When the ends of the world waxed free, When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves, And the sun drowned in the sea. When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky And whoso hearkened right Could only hear the plunging Of the nations in the night. When the ends of the earth came marching in To torch and cresset gleam. And the roads of the world that lead to Rome Were filled with faces that moved like foam, Like faces in a dream. And men rode out of the eastern lands, Broad river and burning plain; Trees that are Titan flowers to see, And tiger skies, striped horribly, With tints of tropic rain. Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise Around that inmost one, Where ancient eagles on its brink, Vast as archangels, gather and drink The sacrament of the sun. And men brake out of the northern lands, Enormous lands alone, Where a spell is laid upon life and lust And the rain is changed to a silver dust And the sea to a great green stone. And a Shape that moveth murkily In mirrors of ice and night, Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds, As death and a shock of evil words Blast a man's hair with white. And the cry of the palms and the purple moons, Or the cry of the frost and foam, Swept ever around an inmost place, And the din of distant race on race Cried and replied round Rome. And there was death on the Emperor And night upon the Pope: And Alfred, hiding in deep grass, Hardened his heart with hope. A sea-folk blinder than the sea Broke all about his land, But Alfred up against them bare And gripped the ground and grasped the air, Staggered, and strove to stand. He bent them back with spear and spade, With desperate dyke and wall, With foemen leaning on his shield And roaring on him when he reeled; And no help came at all. He broke them with a broken sword A little towards the sea, And for one hour of panting peace, Ringed with a roar that would not cease, With golden crown and girded fleece Made laws under a tree.