8 ms·

People are very good at creating work. Every time tech creates a paradigm shift and people cry that there will be not enough work, the exact opposite happens.

by mertd 4y ago

simonh 4y ago
Exactly, we’ve been automating the living crap out of almost everything for hundreds of years, but employment has never been higher. Automation leads to higher productivity, cheaper goods and services, increased need for technical skills, thus higher wages and higher demand. Of course there can be some painful periods of adjustment, but that’s often caused by misguided policy trying to hold back the tide and delay the inevitable. Ultimately yes, full no holds barred human level AI may well render human labour obsolete, but we’re a very long way away from that. I know some people think LLMs are close to that already, but no, not even remotely close. I do believe strong AI is possible and maybe even inevitable. They’re a huge step forward, and are easily the biggest advance towards strong AI in my lifetime, but these things are just tools.
- avereveard 4y ago
  We have been automating at the beginning of the production chain , mostly. This is the first automation that targets directly knowledge workers, and hit almost all of them but those in profession where error can cause people deaths. Traditionally knowledge workers were the bulk of the middle class, because well it takes 30 years to produce one and not all make the cut, so they are paid market prices instead of minimum wages. And by that nature, knowledge workers cannot reinvent themselves overnight, there will nowhere left to go for them. Maybe lawyers and medics and a few other can entrenche themselves with legislation, but if you are a knowledge worker in a non union field things look scary.
  - simonh 4y ago
    > This is the first automation that targets directly knowledge workers You really don’t think computers, software and telecommunications services have boosted the productivity of knowledge workers?
    - cpeterso 4y ago
      Automation meaning replacement of the knowledge workers.
    - avereveard 4y ago
      These were automation tools for the knowledge worker, this is an automation tool of the knowledge worker.
      - simonh 4y ago
        Real human level strong AI would be that, but the LLMs we have now are nowhere close. They are just a powerful new software tool in the hands of specialists. Maybe GPT10 might get there, but I suspect we’ll quickly reach diminishing returns with current and near future architectures.
        qaq 4y ago
        I think you are overestimating complexity of most office jobs.
        simonh 4y ago
        A lot of the simplest office jobs like typist and most managers personal secretaries have already been replaced. These tools will increase productivity which will deprecate some jobs, but that is not at all the same thing as reducing overall employment.
        tekknik 4y ago
        This is a real hand wavy way to look at it. How about on the individual level? How is an individual affected by this and can you put yourself in their shoes?
        simonh 4y ago
        I can’t tell you which individual people will lose their jobs, or even which specific jobs will end up being cut and why. Can you? We’re both just making different estimates of the likely overall effects. I’m basing mine in the known historical effects of automation on economies and employment, and the fact that previous arguments that were all doomed by it have every single time turned out to be false.
  - qualudeheart 4y ago
    You will have somewhere to go. You can become a rich person’s serf and they give you food and an allowance and a place to live. It’s like childhood.
    - 876978095789789 4y ago
      > You can become a rich person’s serf and they give you food and an allowance and a place to live This, except I'm not sure they're going to actually deliver on the food, allowance, and place to live parts.
- tekknik 4y ago
  > painful periods of adjustment sure like hunger, losing houses, unable to have kids or send them to decent schools or schools at all. but totally worth it right?
  - simonh 4y ago
    I certainly won’t claim that capitalism is immune from abuses or failures. It’s undeniable that it has its failures. But criticising its failures is one thing, while criticising it as a failure is another. To make the latter claim credibly you’d need to argue for a better alternative that either further minimises or eliminates the flaws. What is it?
    - tekknik 4y ago
      I’m all for capitalism. What Im tired of is tech workers, of which I am one, automating people’s jobs away.
zamnos 4y ago
Right. The last time a labor saving device came around, letting you do in 2 hours what it used to take 8 to do, it didn't give you 6 hours of vacation, it just meant you were more productive over your 8 hour day. If your job is now 90% "copy and paste into ChatGPT", you're still getting paid to know what to type into it. Then again, I'm also reminded of a story of a homebuilder, hiring two workers. Together they held up the material and one of them measured the hypotenuse. Well, after someone showed him the Pythagorean theorem, the boss no longer needed the two workers to hold the materials up, and so sent one of them home. That day's labor market didn't expand to hire the guy who's job was replaced by a calculator. Does that extrapolate to the whole labor market, over a longer period of time, given a calculator for words?
HyperSane 4y ago
In the US at least we have used every technology that increases productivity to keep hours of labor constant and make the rich richer. Millions of Wal-Mart workers have to do a year of hard labor just to earn the cost of a set of new tires for the CEO's 10th supercar.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  If the Walmart employees aren't needed, Walmart would just fire them. They're still there because their work is still required, as people are continuing to buy more stuff from Walmart. It's not some conspiracy to keep hours of labor consistent, the workers aren't getting paid 8 hours just for no reason.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  > Millions of Wal-Mart workers have to do a year of hard labor Working at Wal-Mart would be miserable in many ways, however nothing I've ever seen their employees do is even 10% of what I'd call "hard labor". Probably even their warehouses are not even close to farm/ranch/factory labor people associate with that term.
  - 800xl 4y ago
    Someone has to unload the trucks and stack all that stuff on the shelves. It is pretty hard work. I know because I've done it.
    - klipklop 4y ago
      Agreed. I don’t know if I could be on my feet 8 hours a day like when I worked retail. When you work in a big box store it’s easy to walk 8+ miles a day.
  - klipklop 4y ago
    These jobs are not hard on the back, they are hard on the soul. Tilling a field can feel rewarding at the end of the day. Dealing with the living nightmare that is most Walmart shoppers is soul crushing. Your viewpoint is rather callous. Just standing on your feet bored out of your mind can make even the most hardy miserable.
lisasays 4y ago
When people cry that there will be not enough work, the exact opposite happens. Nevermind that these people aren't crybabies - and that it is incredible condescending to paint them as such. More fundamentally - what you're asserting as a self-evident fact is massively contradicted by what is probably the single largest sea change in many Western countries in the last 50 years - the systemic disappearance of solid middle-class jobs (and at least some form of community in many places), due exactly to these nifty "paradigm shifts" you are referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindustrialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindustrialization

People are very good at creating work. Every time tech creates a paradigm shift and people cry that there will be not enough work, the exact opposite happens.

by mertd 4y ago

People are very good at creating work. Every time tech creates a paradigm shift and people cry that there will be not enough work, the exact opposite happens.

simonh 4y ago

Exactly, we’ve been automating the living crap out of almost everything for hundreds of years, but employment has never been higher. Automation leads to higher productivity, cheaper goods and services, increased need for technical skills, thus higher wages and higher demand. Of course there can be some painful periods of adjustment, but that’s often caused by misguided policy trying to hold back the tide and delay the inevitable. Ultimately yes, full no holds barred human level AI may well render human labour obsolete, but we’re a very long way away from that. I know some people think LLMs are close to that already, but no, not even remotely close. I do believe strong AI is possible and maybe even inevitable. They’re a huge step forward, and are easily the biggest advance towards strong AI in my lifetime, but these things are just tools.

avereveard 4y ago
We have been automating at the beginning of the production chain , mostly. This is the first automation that targets directly knowledge workers, and hit almost all of them but those in profession where error can cause people deaths. Traditionally knowledge workers were the bulk of the middle class, because well it takes 30 years to produce one and not all make the cut, so they are paid market prices instead of minimum wages. And by that nature, knowledge workers cannot reinvent themselves overnight, there will nowhere left to go for them. Maybe lawyers and medics and a few other can entrenche themselves with legislation, but if you are a knowledge worker in a non union field things look scary.
- simonh 4y ago
  > This is the first automation that targets directly knowledge workers You really don’t think computers, software and telecommunications services have boosted the productivity of knowledge workers?
  - cpeterso 4y ago
    Automation meaning replacement of the knowledge workers.
  - avereveard 4y ago
    These were automation tools for the knowledge worker, this is an automation tool of the knowledge worker.
    - simonh 4y ago
      Real human level strong AI would be that, but the LLMs we have now are nowhere close. They are just a powerful new software tool in the hands of specialists. Maybe GPT10 might get there, but I suspect we’ll quickly reach diminishing returns with current and near future architectures.
      - qaq 4y ago
        I think you are overestimating complexity of most office jobs.
        simonh 4y ago
        A lot of the simplest office jobs like typist and most managers personal secretaries have already been replaced. These tools will increase productivity which will deprecate some jobs, but that is not at all the same thing as reducing overall employment.
        tekknik 4y ago
        This is a real hand wavy way to look at it. How about on the individual level? How is an individual affected by this and can you put yourself in their shoes?
        simonh 4y ago
        I can’t tell you which individual people will lose their jobs, or even which specific jobs will end up being cut and why. Can you? We’re both just making different estimates of the likely overall effects. I’m basing mine in the known historical effects of automation on economies and employment, and the fact that previous arguments that were all doomed by it have every single time turned out to be false.
- qualudeheart 4y ago
  You will have somewhere to go. You can become a rich person’s serf and they give you food and an allowance and a place to live. It’s like childhood.
  - 876978095789789 4y ago
    > You can become a rich person’s serf and they give you food and an allowance and a place to live This, except I'm not sure they're going to actually deliver on the food, allowance, and place to live parts.
tekknik 4y ago
> painful periods of adjustment sure like hunger, losing houses, unable to have kids or send them to decent schools or schools at all. but totally worth it right?
- simonh 4y ago
  I certainly won’t claim that capitalism is immune from abuses or failures. It’s undeniable that it has its failures. But criticising its failures is one thing, while criticising it as a failure is another. To make the latter claim credibly you’d need to argue for a better alternative that either further minimises or eliminates the flaws. What is it?
  - tekknik 4y ago
    I’m all for capitalism. What Im tired of is tech workers, of which I am one, automating people’s jobs away.

zamnos 4y ago

Right. The last time a labor saving device came around, letting you do in 2 hours what it used to take 8 to do, it didn't give you 6 hours of vacation, it just meant you were more productive over your 8 hour day. If your job is now 90% "copy and paste into ChatGPT", you're still getting paid to know what to type into it. Then again, I'm also reminded of a story of a homebuilder, hiring two workers. Together they held up the material and one of them measured the hypotenuse. Well, after someone showed him the Pythagorean theorem, the boss no longer needed the two workers to hold the materials up, and so sent one of them home. That day's labor market didn't expand to hire the guy who's job was replaced by a calculator. Does that extrapolate to the whole labor market, over a longer period of time, given a calculator for words?

HyperSane 4y ago

In the US at least we have used every technology that increases productivity to keep hours of labor constant and make the rich richer. Millions of Wal-Mart workers have to do a year of hard labor just to earn the cost of a set of new tires for the CEO's 10th supercar.

satvikpendem 4y ago
If the Walmart employees aren't needed, Walmart would just fire them. They're still there because their work is still required, as people are continuing to buy more stuff from Walmart. It's not some conspiracy to keep hours of labor consistent, the workers aren't getting paid 8 hours just for no reason.
TexanFeller 4y ago
> Millions of Wal-Mart workers have to do a year of hard labor Working at Wal-Mart would be miserable in many ways, however nothing I've ever seen their employees do is even 10% of what I'd call "hard labor". Probably even their warehouses are not even close to farm/ranch/factory labor people associate with that term.
- 800xl 4y ago
  Someone has to unload the trucks and stack all that stuff on the shelves. It is pretty hard work. I know because I've done it.
  - klipklop 4y ago
    Agreed. I don’t know if I could be on my feet 8 hours a day like when I worked retail. When you work in a big box store it’s easy to walk 8+ miles a day.
- klipklop 4y ago
  These jobs are not hard on the back, they are hard on the soul. Tilling a field can feel rewarding at the end of the day. Dealing with the living nightmare that is most Walmart shoppers is soul crushing. Your viewpoint is rather callous. Just standing on your feet bored out of your mind can make even the most hardy miserable.

lisasays 4y ago

When people cry that there will be not enough work, the exact opposite happens. Nevermind that these people aren't crybabies - and that it is incredible condescending to paint them as such. More fundamentally - what you're asserting as a self-evident fact is massively contradicted by what is probably the single largest sea change in many Western countries in the last 50 years - the systemic disappearance of solid middle-class jobs (and at least some form of community in many places), due exactly to these nifty "paradigm shifts" you are referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindustrialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindustrialization