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Almost certainly not, no. Evolution may work faster than once thought, but not that fast. The problem is that societal, and in particular, technological development is now vastly outstripping our ability to adapt. It's not that people are getting dumber per se - it's that they're having to deal with vastly more stuff. All. The. Time. For example, consider the world as it was a scant century ago - virtually nothing in evolutionary terms. A person did not have to cope with what was going on on the other side of the planet, and probably wouldn't even know for months if ever. Now? If an earthquake hits Paraguay, you'll be aware in minutes.

And you'll be expected to care.

Edit: Apologies. I wrote this comment as you were editing yours. It's quite different now, but you know what you wrote previously, so I trust you'll be able to interpret my response correctly.

Hey, look on the bright side: While it's a problem, at least it won't be your problem. Ah, sweet death. The only known solution to the problem of taxation.

And the predations of other financial institutions.

Thank you. I appreciate you saying so.

The thing about LLMs in particular is that - when used like this - they constitute one such grave positive feedback loop. I have no principal problem with machine learning. It can be a great tool to illuminate otherwise completely opaque relationships in large scientific datasets for example, but a polynomial binary space partitioning of a hyper-dimensional phase space is just a statistical knowledge model. It does not have opinions. All it can do is to codify what appears to be the consensus of the input it's given. Even assuming - which may well be far too generous - that the input is truly unbiased, at best all it'll tell you is what a bunch of morons think is the truth. At worst, it'll just tell you what you expect to hear. It's what everybody else is already saying, after all.

And when what people think is the truth and what they want to hear are both nuts, this kind of LLM-echo chamber suddenly becomes unfathomably dangerous.

Of course, that has always been true. What concerns me now is the proportion of useful to useless people. Most societies are - while cybernetically complex - rather resilient. Network effects and self-organization can route around and compensate for a lot of damage, but there comes a point where having a few brilliant minds in the midst of a bunch of atavistic confused panicking knuckle-draggers just isn't going to be enough to avoid cascading failure. I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback loops emerging, and I don't like it.

As they say about collapsing systems: First slowly, then suddenly very, very quickly.

Well, it's not like the dead have expenses. The funeral might need financing though.

Or, and hear me out America, you could try cutting out all the for-profit middle-men and indulge in some good old fashioned collective bargaining. It works for everybody else.

Alternatively, you could keep doing what you're doing. That's an option too, I guess.

Our species really isn't smart enough to live, is it?

And, as with all the people Trump admires, the sentiment wouldn't be reciprocated.

"Well, I suppose your squeals are mildly amusing, but the blubber is revolting and a grown man wearing diapers is just sad. Still, I'm not one to waste a test-subject when there's Sith Alchemy to be done."

I'm all for draining what little brains remain in the carcass. It's not like they're using them anyway.

Trump wouldn't have made it more than 30 seconds on Korriban. Say what you will about the Sith, but at least they don't tolerate incompetence.

Edit: Not that he would ever have hired fools in the first place, but can you imagine what Palps would have done to a PR team that couldn't even get the very basics of propaganda right? Their prolonged suffering would have passed legendary without even slowing down and headed straight for outright mythological.

Yeah, but who'd take a Nazi at their word?

Not beyond the level of a profoundly fascinated hobbyist. I know my limits :)

Professionally, I'll stick to my closely parallel lane in computing (no Black Holes involved - the I/O is notoriously difficult to manage, more's the pity).