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If an AI can do my job, an AI should be allowed to do my job. I don't want a union to "protect" me doing a job which can be automated. That's a waste of human t
by limelight 5y ago
If an AI can do my job, an AI should be allowed to do my job. I don't want a union to "protect" me doing a job which can be automated. That's a waste of human talent and potential.
It is terrible to hold back progress just to provide "make-work" jobs protected by unions. Should we still employ elevator operators?
In a scenario where my job is obsolete, a union would simply delay the inevitable. It might keep the company from replacing me with an AI, but the company would therefore eventually fail to competitors who could. In the meantime, the union would make people miserable and delay progress.
For what it's worth, I completely agree that developer jobs are on their way towards automation. Instead of trying to fight that trend with unionization, I focus on being part of it (building automation tools) and building a capital base.
- eru 5y agoYes. Developers have always worked on automating developers' jobs. Both their own and other developers' jobs.
- onion2k 5y agoa union would simply delay the inevitable Yes, which is the difference between having the time to offboard from your current career and do something else instead of being chucked out overnight and losing your house and everything else, multiplied by all the lost developer jobs. Imagine the cost of that in the Bay Area. It'd be catastrophic to the entire region. Slowing progress down a little can be a positive thing.
- morgante 5y ago> Yes, which is the difference between having the time to offboard from your current career and do something else instead of being chucked out overnight and losing your house and everything else, multiplied by all the lost developer jobs. That's what savings are for. > Imagine the cost of that in the Bay Area. It'd be catastrophic to the entire region. It would be a much-needed correction. I don't want unions slowing down progress.
- chii 5y agoif such an AI truly could be created, then what would stop the developers made redundant by the AI from using the AI to start their own software company and coming up with new services? After all, it would be cheap now - no need to hire anyone any more. Improvements to tech results in better - even if there's some temporary disruption to people as they are made redundant by the tech. And it's not as if you cannot prepare - use the excess earnings that a software engineer earns today to invest and own a piece of that future productivity.