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>> Job security. > Well, this one could really be problematic for everyone. We're talking about social unrest and revolts on a global scale. Not necessarily.

>> Job security. > Well, this one could really be problematic for everyone. We're talking about social unrest and revolts on a global scale. Not necessarily. Firstly it's not even clear that AI will eliminate jobs without creating new ones. It's not clear that any development in AI will be any different than the transition to mechanization in the 19th and early 20th century. Secondly, it's not clear that even if AI were to successfully automate away labor that we would have a problem. For one, we have a demographic cliff rapidly approaching whereby a lot of countries population is falling, and even where it's not, the population is rapidly aging. There's already protests in France about raising retirement age. What if AI lets us have our cake and retire earlier too? At any rate, if AI is busy automating away labor, then the world is getting more efficient. And that means there are more resources to support people. All those debates are worth having, but you gotta cross that bridge when you get there, if you get there.

abakker 4y ago
I'll just add that I have so much more "non economically viable" work than I'll ever be able to do. I'd love machines that could write code for me to do tasks that I'll never be able to afford to invest in otherwise. put another way, we have a labor shortage at today's level of output already. BUT, I don't know anyone who doesn't want more output. I mean, we're not going to run out of stuff to do!? what about space? curing diseases, etc. what about having time to make more art? if an AI can do work, or make work easier, what makes us certain that we'll just settle for getting the same amount done vs doing more?
- hackinthebochs 4y ago
  >if an AI can do work, or make work easier, what makes us certain that we'll just settle for getting the same amount done vs doing more? In this hyper-efficient future, is being paid for this stuff going to be viable? Why would anyone allocate money to your inefficient endeavors? There's this strange blindspot in people who think that more economic efficiency means you'll have time to do intrinsically inefficient labor. Who is going to feed and house you when your labor is irrelevant to the workings of the economy? UBI is a nice dream, but how do we get there from the current ruthless efficiently allocating system?
  - shagie 4y ago
    One of the proposals out there (often posed as part of funding UBI - but not always) is to tax robots. Should we tax robots? - https://news.mit.edu/2022/robot-tax-income-inequality-1221 https://news.mit.edu/2022/robot-tax-income-inequality-1221 > What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? The concept has been publicly discussed by policy analysts, scholars, and Bill Gates (who favors the notion). Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them would give firms incentive to help retain workers, while also compensating for a dropoff in payroll taxes when robots are used. Thus far, South Korea has reduced incentives for firms to deploy robots; European Union policymakers, on the other hand, considered a robot tax but did not enact it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax There is a lot of material out there both for and against taxing robots.
  - abakker 4y ago
    No, i mean, I don't expect anyone to allocate anything to my non-viable projects. I expect to allocate my own money to them like I always do, but, I'll be more able to achieve my goals. If things pan out, maybe these things could end up as a bootstrapped startup. Efficiency here could mean less need for equity funding and angel investing in early stage projects.
dumpsterlid 4y ago
[dead]
hackinthebochs 4y ago
>At any rate, if AI is busy automating away labor, then the world is getting more efficient. And that means there are more resources to support people. If the world is getting more efficient, then why would those resources go to people that are intrinsically less efficient? The current state of the economy is to funnel capital to those who efficiently allocate; the amount of intentional inefficient allocation reduces as efficiency grows (as the world gets more productive, less of this output lands in the hands of workers). Why think that the distribution model will change significantly in a timescale relevant to people? Our culture takes it as axiomatic that more efficiency is good. But its not clear to me that it is. The principle goal of society should be the betterment of the lives of people. Yes, efficiency has historically been a driver of widespread prosperity, but it's not obvious that there isn't a local maximum past which increased efficiency harms the average person. Historically, efficiency was driven by innovation that brings a decrease in the costs of transactions. This saw an explosion of the space of viable economic activity and with it an explosion of prosperity. Productivity and wages remained coupled up until recent decades. Modern automation has seen productivity and wages begin to decouple. Decoupling will only accelerate due to AI. We may already be on the other side of the critical point.
- jschveibinz 4y ago
  This is an excellent analysis, but I suggest that the state of the average person is not yet at a maximum. There are still thousands of major, valuable problems to solve. The efficiency offered by new automation should enable more people to become more powerful problem solvers.
DanHulton 4y ago
Counterpoint - what if AI automates away that labour and _nothing_ replaces it for the people who are automated away? Our history has not been kind to people whose jobs have been obsoleted, why would we assume any different this time, that because the technology that is obsoleting jobs is AI that the beneficiaries of that enhanced efficiency would choose to spread those savings back around? If they cared about that in the first place, why would they even chase the efficiency of replacing people with AI? I think this is a bridge you have to strongly consider if we want to cross _well in advance,_ given that it is likely to set on fire and fall down behind us if we do, trapping us on the other side whether we like it or not.
- visarga 4y ago
  It's not replacing people, it is doing something else than we do. Even the fact that AI is scalable and doesn't get tired indicates the job replacement idea is wrong. AI will do massive work, something we couldn't have done with 100x more people. Our mistake is to be human-centric. We think our work will be stolen by AI bots, but we can't imagine AI creating business and hiring people. When AGI comes, we will have to care for the needs of humans + the needs of AGI. And it has needs, so there will be jobs. And AGI might be more prolific in development than we are, there might be plenty of work for us.
- golemotron 4y ago
  It's worse than that. You refer to the mythical "we" that is able to act coherently and make effective decisions about AI use. There is no such thing. The world is a set of competing individuals, countries, and corporations; each with its own interests, acting independently. I don't think many people see this because the "mythical We" is used all the time. "If "we do this", "we must do that", as if all of humanity can act together coherently or ever has. People seldom think about how imaginary this viewpoint is.
  - elforce002 4y ago
    Exactly. There's no "we", just competing interests.
  - 4y ago
lewhoo 4y ago
Firstly it's not even clear that AI will eliminate jobs without creating new ones. I would say that's pretty clear in the long run. AI will most likely create jobs, but how many jobs can it create ? Every white collar job potentially affected against what exactly ? but you gotta cross that bridge when you get there, if you get there So we can have more of the "gene out of the bottle" or "train has left the station" response ?
- kgwgk 4y ago
  How many jobs can those damned steam engines create anyway?
  - lewhoo 4y ago
    And how good of an analogy is that ? On one hand there's something affecting a part of transportation (of course transportation directly or indirectly affects other things) and on the other something that will potentially affect every output of the human mind ?
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      > On one hand there's something affecting a part of transportation Yeah, it's not like there was an industrial revolution or anything...
      - lewhoo 4y ago
        Ok my bad. But still, why is it a good analogy again ? How does it compare to where we are. Walk me through it.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        > AI will most likely create jobs, but how many jobs can it create ? Please walk me through the parallelism with the Industrial Revolution. The impact of AI on jobs is a topic of ongoing debate among experts. While some argue that AI will lead to significant job losses, others believe that it will create new opportunities and stimulate economic growth. To understand the potential impact of AI on jobs, we can draw parallels with the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 18th century, marked a period of rapid technological advancement and social change, as new machines and manufacturing processes were introduced. Initially, the Industrial Revolution led to job losses in traditional industries, such as agriculture and textiles, as machines replaced manual labor. However, it also created new jobs in manufacturing, engineering, and other industries. Over time, as the benefits of industrialization became clear, the economy grew, and new opportunities emerged. Similarly, AI is expected to create new jobs in industries such as robotics, data analysis, and software development. These jobs will require specialized skills and training, and may not be accessible to all workers. However, they are likely to pay well and offer opportunities for career advancement. At the same time, AI may also lead to job losses in certain industries, particularly those that rely on routine, repetitive tasks. For example, automated manufacturing systems may replace human workers in factories, and self-driving vehicles may reduce the demand for truck drivers. Overall, the impact of AI on jobs is difficult to predict, as it will depend on a variety of factors, such as the rate of technological progress, the availability of training and education programs, and government policies. However, history has shown us that technological advancement can both create and destroy jobs, and that the economy can adapt and evolve over time.
sharemywin 4y ago
I think the issue is how fast it could happen. What if 75% of most white collar jobs disappear in 2-5 years. What would happen to the economy and demand? And let's assume the 25% left is out side of skill set to be retrained within the month of training most corps are willing to spend training someone.
- elforce002 4y ago
  That's the issue. We don't know what would happen but if what you said were to happen, governments will ban AI since the current economic model (capitalism and taxation) will be render useless and society itself will demand it (AI ban).
- chrisco255 4y ago
  What if a different statistically just as likely utopian scenario happens instead and we generate more jobs than we can keep up with because we start colonizing star systems as a result of using AI tech to discover some new propulsion technology? What if AI can't do anything useful without a human in the loop to guide, monitor, assist? What if groups of humans augmented with AIs are far more powerful than AIs alone? What if the implications of that are that we create advancements in biotech, energy efficiency, software and information systems, interactive entertainment, agriculture, production, mineral extraction, etc that cause an explosion in jobs?
odessacubbage 4y ago
>It's not clear that any development in AI will be any different than the transition to mechanization in the 19th and early 20th century. so you mean utterly hellish? >https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/martyrmade-22-whose-america-ep-2#details https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/martyrmade-22-whose-americ...
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Coal miners protesting drastic conditions in dark shafts in raw mineral extraction mines in 1921 doesn't tell you anything about mechanization and the effect it had on people's lives, not to mention electrification. It wasn't possible to mechanize coal extraction until later and even today with superior tooling and safety conditions, coal extraction remains dangerous. In the meantime, for vast majority, it improved standards of living, hourly wages, etc. You can't just look at arbitrary data points in early 1900s or late 1800s. Hellish wars, famines, civil strifes, rebellions, assassinations, religious battles, etc go back millenia. > https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2018/01/historic_photos_fords_assembly.html https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2018/01/historic_photos_f... > https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-workers-get-40-hour-week https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-wor... > https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/ https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/ >

abakker 4y ago

I'll just add that I have so much more "non economically viable" work than I'll ever be able to do. I'd love machines that could write code for me to do tasks that I'll never be able to afford to invest in otherwise. put another way, we have a labor shortage at today's level of output already. BUT, I don't know anyone who doesn't want more output. I mean, we're not going to run out of stuff to do!? what about space? curing diseases, etc. what about having time to make more art? if an AI can do work, or make work easier, what makes us certain that we'll just settle for getting the same amount done vs doing more?

hackinthebochs 4y ago
>if an AI can do work, or make work easier, what makes us certain that we'll just settle for getting the same amount done vs doing more? In this hyper-efficient future, is being paid for this stuff going to be viable? Why would anyone allocate money to your inefficient endeavors? There's this strange blindspot in people who think that more economic efficiency means you'll have time to do intrinsically inefficient labor. Who is going to feed and house you when your labor is irrelevant to the workings of the economy? UBI is a nice dream, but how do we get there from the current ruthless efficiently allocating system?
- shagie 4y ago
  One of the proposals out there (often posed as part of funding UBI - but not always) is to tax robots. Should we tax robots? - https://news.mit.edu/2022/robot-tax-income-inequality-1221 https://news.mit.edu/2022/robot-tax-income-inequality-1221 > What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? The concept has been publicly discussed by policy analysts, scholars, and Bill Gates (who favors the notion). Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them would give firms incentive to help retain workers, while also compensating for a dropoff in payroll taxes when robots are used. Thus far, South Korea has reduced incentives for firms to deploy robots; European Union policymakers, on the other hand, considered a robot tax but did not enact it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax There is a lot of material out there both for and against taxing robots.
- abakker 4y ago
  No, i mean, I don't expect anyone to allocate anything to my non-viable projects. I expect to allocate my own money to them like I always do, but, I'll be more able to achieve my goals. If things pan out, maybe these things could end up as a bootstrapped startup. Efficiency here could mean less need for equity funding and angel investing in early stage projects.

dumpsterlid 4y ago

[dead]

hackinthebochs 4y ago

>At any rate, if AI is busy automating away labor, then the world is getting more efficient. And that means there are more resources to support people. If the world is getting more efficient, then why would those resources go to people that are intrinsically less efficient? The current state of the economy is to funnel capital to those who efficiently allocate; the amount of intentional inefficient allocation reduces as efficiency grows (as the world gets more productive, less of this output lands in the hands of workers). Why think that the distribution model will change significantly in a timescale relevant to people? Our culture takes it as axiomatic that more efficiency is good. But its not clear to me that it is. The principle goal of society should be the betterment of the lives of people. Yes, efficiency has historically been a driver of widespread prosperity, but it's not obvious that there isn't a local maximum past which increased efficiency harms the average person. Historically, efficiency was driven by innovation that brings a decrease in the costs of transactions. This saw an explosion of the space of viable economic activity and with it an explosion of prosperity. Productivity and wages remained coupled up until recent decades. Modern automation has seen productivity and wages begin to decouple. Decoupling will only accelerate due to AI. We may already be on the other side of the critical point.

jschveibinz 4y ago
This is an excellent analysis, but I suggest that the state of the average person is not yet at a maximum. There are still thousands of major, valuable problems to solve. The efficiency offered by new automation should enable more people to become more powerful problem solvers.

DanHulton 4y ago

Counterpoint - what if AI automates away that labour and _nothing_ replaces it for the people who are automated away? Our history has not been kind to people whose jobs have been obsoleted, why would we assume any different this time, that because the technology that is obsoleting jobs is AI that the beneficiaries of that enhanced efficiency would choose to spread those savings back around? If they cared about that in the first place, why would they even chase the efficiency of replacing people with AI? I think this is a bridge you have to strongly consider if we want to cross _well in advance,_ given that it is likely to set on fire and fall down behind us if we do, trapping us on the other side whether we like it or not.

visarga 4y ago
It's not replacing people, it is doing something else than we do. Even the fact that AI is scalable and doesn't get tired indicates the job replacement idea is wrong. AI will do massive work, something we couldn't have done with 100x more people. Our mistake is to be human-centric. We think our work will be stolen by AI bots, but we can't imagine AI creating business and hiring people. When AGI comes, we will have to care for the needs of humans + the needs of AGI. And it has needs, so there will be jobs. And AGI might be more prolific in development than we are, there might be plenty of work for us.
golemotron 4y ago
It's worse than that. You refer to the mythical "we" that is able to act coherently and make effective decisions about AI use. There is no such thing. The world is a set of competing individuals, countries, and corporations; each with its own interests, acting independently. I don't think many people see this because the "mythical We" is used all the time. "If "we do this", "we must do that", as if all of humanity can act together coherently or ever has. People seldom think about how imaginary this viewpoint is.
- elforce002 4y ago
  Exactly. There's no "we", just competing interests.
- 4y ago

lewhoo 4y ago

Firstly it's not even clear that AI will eliminate jobs without creating new ones. I would say that's pretty clear in the long run. AI will most likely create jobs, but how many jobs can it create ? Every white collar job potentially affected against what exactly ? but you gotta cross that bridge when you get there, if you get there So we can have more of the "gene out of the bottle" or "train has left the station" response ?

kgwgk 4y ago
How many jobs can those damned steam engines create anyway?
- lewhoo 4y ago
  And how good of an analogy is that ? On one hand there's something affecting a part of transportation (of course transportation directly or indirectly affects other things) and on the other something that will potentially affect every output of the human mind ?
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    > On one hand there's something affecting a part of transportation Yeah, it's not like there was an industrial revolution or anything...
    - lewhoo 4y ago
      Ok my bad. But still, why is it a good analogy again ? How does it compare to where we are. Walk me through it.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        > AI will most likely create jobs, but how many jobs can it create ? Please walk me through the parallelism with the Industrial Revolution. The impact of AI on jobs is a topic of ongoing debate among experts. While some argue that AI will lead to significant job losses, others believe that it will create new opportunities and stimulate economic growth. To understand the potential impact of AI on jobs, we can draw parallels with the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 18th century, marked a period of rapid technological advancement and social change, as new machines and manufacturing processes were introduced. Initially, the Industrial Revolution led to job losses in traditional industries, such as agriculture and textiles, as machines replaced manual labor. However, it also created new jobs in manufacturing, engineering, and other industries. Over time, as the benefits of industrialization became clear, the economy grew, and new opportunities emerged. Similarly, AI is expected to create new jobs in industries such as robotics, data analysis, and software development. These jobs will require specialized skills and training, and may not be accessible to all workers. However, they are likely to pay well and offer opportunities for career advancement. At the same time, AI may also lead to job losses in certain industries, particularly those that rely on routine, repetitive tasks. For example, automated manufacturing systems may replace human workers in factories, and self-driving vehicles may reduce the demand for truck drivers. Overall, the impact of AI on jobs is difficult to predict, as it will depend on a variety of factors, such as the rate of technological progress, the availability of training and education programs, and government policies. However, history has shown us that technological advancement can both create and destroy jobs, and that the economy can adapt and evolve over time.

sharemywin 4y ago

I think the issue is how fast it could happen. What if 75% of most white collar jobs disappear in 2-5 years. What would happen to the economy and demand? And let's assume the 25% left is out side of skill set to be retrained within the month of training most corps are willing to spend training someone.

elforce002 4y ago
That's the issue. We don't know what would happen but if what you said were to happen, governments will ban AI since the current economic model (capitalism and taxation) will be render useless and society itself will demand it (AI ban).
chrisco255 4y ago
What if a different statistically just as likely utopian scenario happens instead and we generate more jobs than we can keep up with because we start colonizing star systems as a result of using AI tech to discover some new propulsion technology? What if AI can't do anything useful without a human in the loop to guide, monitor, assist? What if groups of humans augmented with AIs are far more powerful than AIs alone? What if the implications of that are that we create advancements in biotech, energy efficiency, software and information systems, interactive entertainment, agriculture, production, mineral extraction, etc that cause an explosion in jobs?

odessacubbage 4y ago

>It's not clear that any development in AI will be any different than the transition to mechanization in the 19th and early 20th century. so you mean utterly hellish? >https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/martyrmade-22-whose-america-ep-2#details https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/martyrmade-22-whose-americ...

chrisco255 4y ago
Coal miners protesting drastic conditions in dark shafts in raw mineral extraction mines in 1921 doesn't tell you anything about mechanization and the effect it had on people's lives, not to mention electrification. It wasn't possible to mechanize coal extraction until later and even today with superior tooling and safety conditions, coal extraction remains dangerous. In the meantime, for vast majority, it improved standards of living, hourly wages, etc. You can't just look at arbitrary data points in early 1900s or late 1800s. Hellish wars, famines, civil strifes, rebellions, assassinations, religious battles, etc go back millenia. > https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2018/01/historic_photos_fords_assembly.html https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2018/01/historic_photos_f... > https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-workers-get-40-hour-week https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-wor... > https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/ https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/ >