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Perhaps contrary to popular believe, I think the jobs that have survived thousands of years will likely survive another 50, even when all automatization include
by jamager 4y ago
Perhaps contrary to popular believe, I think the jobs that have survived thousands of years will likely survive another 50, even when all automatization included:
- teachers
- writers & artists
- doctors
- farmers
- builders
- scientists
- what people say is the oldest profession in the world
It is the relatively new jobs (< 100 yrs old) that face more uncertainty: they perhaps have proven themselves worthy in the last decades (and they are booming right now), but might not be resilient enough for world that is coming. It is not only about automation, but adaptability to quick / disruptive changes.
- programmers
- traders
- journalists
- marketers
However, I wouldn't call this a "prediction". I think very few jobs will actually disappear completely.
- antigirl 4y agointeresting you say writers and artists would survive over programmers when AI has practically threatened all writers and artists livelihood as of recent.
- jamager 4y agoRight? I don't think, however, that any competent writer or artist feel threatened by AI outputs at all. The threat comes for others abusing AI to misuse their name and steal their work. That is a legitimate concern.
- pjc50 4y agoIt'll just become even more of a bimodal distribution of income than at the moment. There will be hundreds of thousands of people writing for free in communities, with whatever anti-AI policing they need to make that work for them, and a few dozen celebrities who make a living from writing.
- resonious 4y agoI hear people say this, but I haven't seen any concrete examples of AI generated art actually threatening the entire art industry. Sure, AI can generate me a nice pic to use for my blog post, but are game studios ready to fire all of their concept artists?
- ekianjo 4y ago> but I haven't seen any concrete examples of AI generated art actually threatening the entire art industry Because you have not waited long enough. AI generated pictures were just born yesterday.
- jamager 4y agoI disagree. By definition, AI can generate average-ish work, but not new, disrupting, expressive work. It would have never come up with cubism, magic realism, or any innovation that makes art, art. They will improve at requiring less training data, less energy, come up with more likely possible works, polish out edges, sure. AI can imitate, period. It is not small feat. It is a fantastic achievement that can be used for good.
- dagw 4y agoBy definition, AI can generate average-ish work, but not new, disrupting, expressive work. The vast majority of people working full time as 'artists' are paid to quickly produce "average-ish" work to spec and on time. Nobody (to a first approximation) hires artists to produce capital A Art. If you want to get semantic about it, we could say the illustator and graphic design jobs (often done by artists) will be lost rather artist jobs.
- renierbotha 4y agoWell, the _entire stock image industry_ has surely been disrupted. If you relied on stock imagery last year as your primary source of income, you may be out of work come next year. https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435
- TylerE 4y agoPress F to doubt. 20 years? Maaaaybe. Next year? No way. Maybe when SD can do high res and soft focus.
- ritzaco 4y agoI guess most HN readers are aware of it by now, but if anyone isn't this is basically the idea of the Lindy Effect [0] -- counter-intuitively, in many cases age is a good predictor of future life span. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
- ekianjo 4y ago> ounter-intuitively, in many cases age is a good predictor of future life span. So people making swords was a job for 30 000 years but for some reason the Lindy Effect does not work with that one? That kind of logic does not work at all with all the jobs that disappeared in the 19th and 20th century.
- patates 4y agoThe logic worked for 29999 years, which is the whole point. It's like the German Tank Problem[0], but for lifespans. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem
- rieTohgh6 4y agoWeapon smiths might be gone but weapons manufacturing is as big or even bigger than ever in history. So until humanity does a fundamental shift and stops all armed conflicts, it is as safe job as any.
- ekianjo 4y ago> Weapon smiths might be gone but weapons manufacturing is as big or even bigger than ever in history That's called moving goalposts
- ritzaco 4y agothat's exactly why it's counter-intuitive! Obviously it can't be right forever, but at any given moment if you need predict the minimum future life span of a book, framework, language, job, country, whatever and you have very limited information it turns out that just predicting the thing's age will often be a reasonable prediction -- probability is hard!
- ekianjo 4y ago> I think the jobs that have survived thousands of years will likely survive another 50 That's a strange assumption. So the world will completely change but for some reason only these ones will remain intact and untouched? Btw most farmers are out of job compared to the early 20th century. Now a single farmer produces what 100's or more produced before.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- defrost 4y agoSo, we're agreed then that farming as a profession remains? I'm smack bang in the middle of a large agricultural region and while farm areas are larger than ever before they are multi million dollar (in annual cash flow) family businesses still. They have massive sheds, small fleets of machinery, WAN's and storage, welding shops, silos .. and are still extended family businesses that are crying out for more boots on the ground. The nature of farming has changed and will continue to change, but there will continue to be farmers; the robot that fixes the robots will get bogged and need repair itself.
- jamager 4y agoExactly, farming is a good example. It was the dominant economy sector 100 years ago, and still is in many countries. Right now less than 2% of world population works on farming, if I am not mistaken. But all the massive improvements, all the low hanging fruit it's gone - at least when you look at the next 50 years. The more something is optimized, the harder is to optimize it harder.
- jacknews 4y agoNo way, our food will come from 'labs' aka giant grow warehouses etc in 50 years. The only 'recognizable' farmers, ie tiling the soil, milking cows, herding sheep, and so-on, will be subsisting in poor countries or will be organic artisans. Innovation is at an inflection point for our food system.
- 4y ago
- quickthrower2 4y agoIt depends: is a programmer the same as the people who automated looms? designed steam engines? Because if we are, then we have some life left in us yet!
- therufa 4y agowe are driving towards an axiom here I believe. IMO the only way programming will change is the set of tools we are going to use on a daily basis, but no matter how evolved AI is going to be the need to formulate features in a formal manner will always be a requirement. Think of lawyers for instance. To a certain degree they are programmers acting within the boundaries of the law. Basically they are glueing together modules. I think programmers fate will be similar to that
- TylerE 4y agoJournalism goes back to AT LEAST 200AD. Han dynasty China had regular government news bulletins, albeit for internal use, not public consumption. Regularly published newspapers go back to the 1500's in China and early 1600's in the west.