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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

by 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.
        lewhoo 4y ago
        Thanks chat gpt. That's a very 2021 answer - definitely what we thought up till then. But the most curious thing is: both have led to job losses due to automation, but also created new jobs for skilled workers who were needed to operate the machines or run AI-powered systems respectively which does prove my point, no ? Operate machines across all industries vs data science ?
        kgwgk 4y ago
        >> created new jobs for skilled workers who were needed to operate the machines or run AI-powered systems respectively > Operate machines across all industries vs data science ? Operate the machines across all industries vs run AI-powered systems across all industries. (Those chatgpt-like responses miss a major factor, though. Automatisation of agricultural processes didn't result in 95% of the population operating agricultural machines: it freed them to do other things.)
        lewhoo 4y ago
        run AI-powered systems across all industries Sooo...data scientists ? Isn't the focal point of all of this the realization that given time (most likely a lot less than people thought before gpt's) AI systems won't need human oversight ? Isn't this the goal of OpenAI ? This is why I think making comparison to whatever that was is wrong. Our current situation is too distinctive. We're being potentially freed up to do things other than cognitive tasks - by the rise of AGI, or maybe a very refined language model.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        >> run AI-powered systems across all industries > Sooo...data scientists ? If someone using an AI-powered system is a data scientist (?) does that make someone using an electricity-powered system an electrical engineer?
        lewhoo 4y ago
- ToValueFunfetti 4y ago
  If your job gets taken by an AGI and that creates a new job that it can't do, it's not an AGI. The only things a human-level intelligence can't do but a human can are physical labor (provided that robotics are not available). That is distinctly different from the industrial revolution.
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    And with an AGI I am certain we can have a robot race building more robots autonomously, thus a reproducing organism, who like all others at the top are hell bent on maximum
- PeterisP 4y ago
  Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules, and they did that successfully - there are some jobs for horses still remaining, and initially many new jobs were created for horses in cooperation with the engines (peak-horse was at 1920-0ish), but the total number of jobs for horses has collapsed to nearly zero compared to what it used to be. So the analogy of steam engines suggests that this can be quite dangerous indeed. Also, we do have historical evidence at how fast human society reacts to changes when technology causes great shifts in needed jobs - not fast at all. Even getting to terms with decades-long changes caused significant social upheaval and strife, as in, for example, the automation of textile industry; If the current speed of technological change would cause a disruption in jobs which happens over the course of just a few years, it will be hectic and violent even if there is the same number of new, different jobs created.
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    > Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules > for example, the automation of textile industry How many horses and mules were working in the textile industry again?
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      As you have noticed, the last paragraph is about other types of automation during the industrial age than the steam engine.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        What do you think that was powering that automation exactly?
        PeterisP 4y ago
        In the textile industry many of the major changes were from better devices, not neccesarily of how they were powered. The cotton gin revolutionized the industry while it was still people-powered, including by slave labor (edit: and also horse-powered); and the Luddites (some decades after Ned Ludd) rebelled not against the looms being powered by steam but rather against the Jacquard loom - an add-on to the exiting looms which allowed complex products to be weaved by unskilled people, removing their bargaining power despite not changing a thing about how the loom was powered.
chrisco255 4y ago
> So we can have more of the "gene out of the bottle" or "train has left the station" response ? Your concern is theoretical "social unrest" due to being replaced by automation even in the face of factual social unrest due to extension of retirement age. Even if automation replaces jobs en masse, It's not as if this would happen in a vacuum even if it does. We already have social safety nets (even in US) like unemployment insurance, medicaid, food stamps, etc not to mention a robust private charity network. And government already showed, for example, during the pandemic, that it was willing to fund people in an emergency if and when it happens. One thing I do know about AGI/AI and automation in general, is that it's not going to sweep through entire industries overnight all at once. It takes time to deploy, time to deal with edge cases, time to refine, time to reconstruct processes around automation, time to adapt to whatever downstream changes and efficiencies the automation creates, time to effect prices in the marketplace, etc. Time to see if other jobs not previously anticipated when a new tech replaces an old one, like "web designer" or "web developer" or "SEO specialist" did with respect to newspapers or letter carriers or television programming being replaced or reduced by the existence of the internet.
- flippinburgers 4y ago
  Those safety nets are not enough to live on for a family. Are we really worried about elderly revolting?

by lewhoo 4y ago

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.
      - lewhoo 4y ago
        Thanks chat gpt. That's a very 2021 answer - definitely what we thought up till then. But the most curious thing is: both have led to job losses due to automation, but also created new jobs for skilled workers who were needed to operate the machines or run AI-powered systems respectively which does prove my point, no ? Operate machines across all industries vs data science ?
        kgwgk 4y ago
        >> created new jobs for skilled workers who were needed to operate the machines or run AI-powered systems respectively > Operate machines across all industries vs data science ? Operate the machines across all industries vs run AI-powered systems across all industries. (Those chatgpt-like responses miss a major factor, though. Automatisation of agricultural processes didn't result in 95% of the population operating agricultural machines: it freed them to do other things.)
        lewhoo 4y ago
        run AI-powered systems across all industries Sooo...data scientists ? Isn't the focal point of all of this the realization that given time (most likely a lot less than people thought before gpt's) AI systems won't need human oversight ? Isn't this the goal of OpenAI ? This is why I think making comparison to whatever that was is wrong. Our current situation is too distinctive. We're being potentially freed up to do things other than cognitive tasks - by the rise of AGI, or maybe a very refined language model.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        >> run AI-powered systems across all industries > Sooo...data scientists ? If someone using an AI-powered system is a data scientist (?) does that make someone using an electricity-powered system an electrical engineer?
        lewhoo 4y ago
ToValueFunfetti 4y ago
If your job gets taken by an AGI and that creates a new job that it can't do, it's not an AGI. The only things a human-level intelligence can't do but a human can are physical labor (provided that robotics are not available). That is distinctly different from the industrial revolution.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  And with an AGI I am certain we can have a robot race building more robots autonomously, thus a reproducing organism, who like all others at the top are hell bent on maximum
PeterisP 4y ago
Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules, and they did that successfully - there are some jobs for horses still remaining, and initially many new jobs were created for horses in cooperation with the engines (peak-horse was at 1920-0ish), but the total number of jobs for horses has collapsed to nearly zero compared to what it used to be. So the analogy of steam engines suggests that this can be quite dangerous indeed. Also, we do have historical evidence at how fast human society reacts to changes when technology causes great shifts in needed jobs - not fast at all. Even getting to terms with decades-long changes caused significant social upheaval and strife, as in, for example, the automation of textile industry; If the current speed of technological change would cause a disruption in jobs which happens over the course of just a few years, it will be hectic and violent even if there is the same number of new, different jobs created.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  > Steam engines and their descendants largely replaced the jobs which were done by horses and mules > for example, the automation of textile industry How many horses and mules were working in the textile industry again?
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    As you have noticed, the last paragraph is about other types of automation during the industrial age than the steam engine.
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      What do you think that was powering that automation exactly?
      - PeterisP 4y ago
        In the textile industry many of the major changes were from better devices, not neccesarily of how they were powered. The cotton gin revolutionized the industry while it was still people-powered, including by slave labor (edit: and also horse-powered); and the Luddites (some decades after Ned Ludd) rebelled not against the looms being powered by steam but rather against the Jacquard loom - an add-on to the exiting looms which allowed complex products to be weaved by unskilled people, removing their bargaining power despite not changing a thing about how the loom was powered.

chrisco255 4y ago

> So we can have more of the "gene out of the bottle" or "train has left the station" response ? Your concern is theoretical "social unrest" due to being replaced by automation even in the face of factual social unrest due to extension of retirement age. Even if automation replaces jobs en masse, It's not as if this would happen in a vacuum even if it does. We already have social safety nets (even in US) like unemployment insurance, medicaid, food stamps, etc not to mention a robust private charity network. And government already showed, for example, during the pandemic, that it was willing to fund people in an emergency if and when it happens. One thing I do know about AGI/AI and automation in general, is that it's not going to sweep through entire industries overnight all at once. It takes time to deploy, time to deal with edge cases, time to refine, time to reconstruct processes around automation, time to adapt to whatever downstream changes and efficiencies the automation creates, time to effect prices in the marketplace, etc. Time to see if other jobs not previously anticipated when a new tech replaces an old one, like "web designer" or "web developer" or "SEO specialist" did with respect to newspapers or letter carriers or television programming being replaced or reduced by the existence of the internet.

flippinburgers 4y ago
Those safety nets are not enough to live on for a family. Are we really worried about elderly revolting?