I think all the AI stuff is oversold. I don’t think it’s very good, but I think it’s going to be hugely successful because big companies will happily replace people with half broken garbage. They don’t care if nothing works because no one will have working systems and we’re forced to buy a lot of their junk no matter what due to oligopolies and monopolies, especially for critical services like communications, electricity, etc..
No one really knows how AI will develop and what sort of capabilities the next iterations will have. These kind of predictions are pointless.<p>1 year ago if you’d told me that commercial photographers would be toast, I wouldn’t have believed you. But after Midjourney V6, I have zero doubts that commercial photography is absolutely doomed.
We may have passed "peak office". Despite heavy pressure from the "get back to work or else" movement and the commercial real estate industry, office occupancy in the US is still way below pre-pandemic levels.
What if the last available job ever is a soldier? I mean, if the only scarcity becomes about owning and having place to put the machines that work for you and no human work is better than the machine work maybe those who don't have AI to work for them will try to destroy those who have and seize the machines and the resources(energy, space, other machines).<p>Maybe its a bit of a stretch but I don't believe that people will be like "oh crap, my skills don't make me a living anymore. bad luck, nothing I can do about it". Currently people in disadvantage(real or perceived) are already revolting against affirmative action and cheaper labor from abroad.
The general consensus seems to be that low income and low skill workers will be affected real soon.<p>I don't know where we currently are in the hockey stick curve in ML/AI development, but if it keeps developing at this pace it will soon start hitting high-skill and high-income workers, and then we're going to have a huge economic problem.
On the brightside (quote from actual study): "However, if productivity gains are sufficiently large, income levels could surge for most workers."
Can someone give me an actual example of what jobs you think are going to be replaced by these AIs?<p>I feel like these discussions are always so high level/hand wavy
I often hear the argument "the destroyed jobs will be replaced easily, as has been the case in all technological revolutions", but I think it's deeply flawed:<p>Up to know, all technological revolutions have occurred in an exponentially growing economy. That's why Schumpeter's "creative destruction" was not a problem: it was compensated by the opening of new areas for growth, mostly unlocked by consuming more resources.<p>But now we are hitting the limits of the planet, and amongst others the limit of extraction rhythm for most our materials. So the exponential growth can't continue. (apart from the growth from technological progress, which will be much lower)<p>That's where the argument doesn't hold: we do not have a growing supply of work anymore, so the increased productivity of some workers will just prevent the others from working.
I feel like this is said about every technology. It reminds me of this Silicon Valley scene: <a href="https://youtu.be/w61d-NBqafM?si=hCY58gE6b2pV9khm" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/w61d-NBqafM?si=hCY58gE6b2pV9khm</a><p>100 years ago, nobody could imagine a job like computer programmer. Jobs will disappear, but new jobs will be created.
Let's define AI here means assisted intelligence. AI will likely replaces jobs and create jobs at the same time. As most optimist will tell you. The problem is the skill set mismatch will never be caught up fast enough for most human being.<p>This will definitely create or widen inequality. However regulate AI aka EU also wouldn't help. You may slow it down but the result is still the same.<p>I don't have a solution. I know the basic common theme to this question on HN is UBI. But I have yet to see or read anyone's answer to how UBI solves housing issues. ( Which is a problem slightly different in different location / country / politics ) I guess that is a different topic.
Some more discussion on the official post: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38997832">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38997832</a>
I am sure this will happen eventually but there is extreme uncertainty as to the actual timelines. Any attempts to aggressively manage it much too early (our current position in the timeline) or much too late will cause extraordinary harm to the entire population.<p>I would argue that the timing of policy related to this issue can do at least as much damage as the technology itself.
Wasn't the preliminary consensus from current studies that LLMs improve the performance more for the workers with lower initial performance, in various fields (copywriters, developers)? I.e. C worker becomes a B+ worker, but A worker becomes A.1 worker. So if anything, it should reduce inequality...
Whenever I read stories like this, I'm always reminded of Chapter 7 of Hazlitt's book Economics in One Lesson, "The Curse of Machinery."