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AI is coming for white-collar jobs, [Bill] Gates warns

jleyank 4y ago
One could argue that if random text generated by an elaborate neural net can do you’re job you’re bloody lucky you’ve been paid (so much?) to do it…
- smt88 4y ago
  > random text generated by an elaborate neural net This isn't a good summary of ChatGPT or any AI that would take white-collar jobs. ChatGPT (and its competitors/successors) is trained on the work of millions of actual humans over the course of billions of hours. If you took away ChatGPT's ability to be trained on the un-reimbursed work of others, it could never replace anyone's job.
  - version_five 4y ago
    > un-reimbursed This is silly. I've learned most the theory behind my current profession from the internet. If you took away my ability to learn from that "un-reimbursed work" then I'd be pretty useless too. Whatever one thinks about chatgpt, it's a dead end to worry about the fact that it's trained on information shared publicly
    - smt88 4y ago
      > I've learned most the theory behind my current profession from the internet These things rarely violate copyright law. They're usually something written that was intended to be educational. The scope of a human's ability to ingest information is also limited. ChatGPT can ingest millions of lifetimes of information, and it doesn't give ad dollars or subscription money to anyone who created those things.
      - deadly_syn 4y ago
        If you expect to make money from a digital asset and you dont want it "stolen" put it behind a paywall
        smt88 4y ago
        The law doesn't care about paywalls, and neither do AI companies. ChatGPT is trained with content behind paywalls.
        deadly_syn 4y ago
        Right, which i see no issue with since they would have to pay to train on that data since by definition its behind a paywall.
BMc2020 4y ago
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has predicted rapid developments in the capability of artificial intelligence programs, such as high-profile tool ChatGPT, will dramatically change the way people source information online, and warned white-collar job losses will inevitably result from its use. I see this as a good thing. The more people who figure out the ruse the better. To put it another way, in Stalinist Russia people were starving while the government kept announcing record harvests, meeting yet another glorious 5 year plan etc. It led to the saying, "If you want milk, take your pail to the radio."
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
My blue-collar job is safe! (Hardly.) AI is like that fast, sloppy and stupid colleague whose work always needs to be checked. When that person does some "work", it isn't the end of the job, it's merely the beginning. Their "work" is always suspect and may be full of errors. AI will create more work. To jleyank's point, if AI can "pass" an exam, or get a "B", then a passing grade or a B average is no longer enough for students. They need to do better.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Garbage in, garbage out. GPT-3 is produced from ingestion of massive quantities of garbage sourced from the web (Wikipedia, CommonCrawl). It can then be used to generate more garbage that people can retrieve from, you guessed it, the web. But not before they submit some more garbage to the web (a prompt) in the process. From what we've seen so far, this is a closed system. Any "intelligence" that exists outside the web is ignored. Reminder: The web is where we find some of the dumbest people on the planet. Including ones who think they are brilliant. No doubt, GPT-3 can generate more of what's already found on the web. If one's job is generating more of what one finds in Wikipedia dumps and CommonCrawl data files (hint: there is a lot of source code in there), then yes, AI might be coming for that job.
protocolture 4y ago
I will hold on to my more than 64k of RAM for now. These tools are likely going to be used to augment human workers to a larger extent than replace them. Just like how Cloud was going to kill all our jobs, and then the (considerably weaker) 2/3rds of the space all went and became Devops Engineers and Cloud Specialists, I suspect any jobs lost will be made up by AWS AI Integration Engineers and Desktop AI Management Specialists.

One could argue that if random text generated by an elaborate neural net can do you’re job you’re bloody lucky you’ve been paid (so much?) to do it…

smt88 4y ago
> random text generated by an elaborate neural net This isn't a good summary of ChatGPT or any AI that would take white-collar jobs. ChatGPT (and its competitors/successors) is trained on the work of millions of actual humans over the course of billions of hours. If you took away ChatGPT's ability to be trained on the un-reimbursed work of others, it could never replace anyone's job.
- version_five 4y ago
  > un-reimbursed This is silly. I've learned most the theory behind my current profession from the internet. If you took away my ability to learn from that "un-reimbursed work" then I'd be pretty useless too. Whatever one thinks about chatgpt, it's a dead end to worry about the fact that it's trained on information shared publicly
  - smt88 4y ago
    > I've learned most the theory behind my current profession from the internet These things rarely violate copyright law. They're usually something written that was intended to be educational. The scope of a human's ability to ingest information is also limited. ChatGPT can ingest millions of lifetimes of information, and it doesn't give ad dollars or subscription money to anyone who created those things.
    - deadly_syn 4y ago
      If you expect to make money from a digital asset and you dont want it "stolen" put it behind a paywall
      - smt88 4y ago
        The law doesn't care about paywalls, and neither do AI companies. ChatGPT is trained with content behind paywalls.
        deadly_syn 4y ago
        Right, which i see no issue with since they would have to pay to train on that data since by definition its behind a paywall.

BMc2020 4y ago

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has predicted rapid developments in the capability of artificial intelligence programs, such as high-profile tool ChatGPT, will dramatically change the way people source information online, and warned white-collar job losses will inevitably result from its use. I see this as a good thing. The more people who figure out the ruse the better. To put it another way, in Stalinist Russia people were starving while the government kept announcing record harvests, meeting yet another glorious 5 year plan etc. It led to the saying, "If you want milk, take your pail to the radio."

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

My blue-collar job is safe! (Hardly.) AI is like that fast, sloppy and stupid colleague whose work always needs to be checked. When that person does some "work", it isn't the end of the job, it's merely the beginning. Their "work" is always suspect and may be full of errors. AI will create more work. To jleyank's point, if AI can "pass" an exam, or get a "B", then a passing grade or a B average is no longer enough for students. They need to do better.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

Garbage in, garbage out. GPT-3 is produced from ingestion of massive quantities of garbage sourced from the web (Wikipedia, CommonCrawl). It can then be used to generate more garbage that people can retrieve from, you guessed it, the web. But not before they submit some more garbage to the web (a prompt) in the process. From what we've seen so far, this is a closed system. Any "intelligence" that exists outside the web is ignored. Reminder: The web is where we find some of the dumbest people on the planet. Including ones who think they are brilliant. No doubt, GPT-3 can generate more of what's already found on the web. If one's job is generating more of what one finds in Wikipedia dumps and CommonCrawl data files (hint: there is a lot of source code in there), then yes, AI might be coming for that job.

protocolture 4y ago

I will hold on to my more than 64k of RAM for now. These tools are likely going to be used to augment human workers to a larger extent than replace them. Just like how Cloud was going to kill all our jobs, and then the (considerably weaker) 2/3rds of the space all went and became Devops Engineers and Cloud Specialists, I suspect any jobs lost will be made up by AWS AI Integration Engineers and Desktop AI Management Specialists.