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"Everyone's Jobs" "Everyone" is doing a lot of implied work here. AI doesn't have to take over everyone's job. Even 10% would have a disastrous impact on our w

"Everyone's Jobs" "Everyone" is doing a lot of implied work here. AI doesn't have to take over everyone's job. Even 10% would have a disastrous impact on our workforce, especially if there are insufficient safety nets. That being said, I feel fairly certain that our economy will come up with (if not outright demand) more Bullshit Jobs† for the workforce to fill to keep all the appropriate graph lines going up. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

kaba0 4y ago
What do you think might be such a bullshit job? 100 years ago a whole village had to help with crops, now a single air conditioned combine harvester can do the job (hell, doesn’t even need a driver, it works solely through GPS). We somewhat earned a bit of time with many of the bullshit jobs, but I think that bubble is bursting — we will have to undergo a huge societal change (UBI or something like that), otherwise we will get to Gotham city levels.
- mitchdoogle 4y ago
  Japan has bullshit parking lot jobs. Imagine if your local CVS had a parking lot attendant to direct you to one of the 30 open spots
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > What do you think might be such a bullshit job? Babysitter. We'll go from robots supporting humans to humans supporting robots. My Roomba still can't vacuum the house without needing some form of "help" at least three times. Robots can do a lot, but it will probably be cheaper to pay human custodians to manually intervene as needed than to program AI and bots to account for every conceivable failure case in every possible scenario.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I'm with you, I don't see where everyone will go. We've got a few sinks or de facto jobs programs (military; healthcare system, in the US) for "excess" workers, but I don't know how any of those can expand enough to absorb a shock of the sort that LLMs and related tech may soon usher in—especially when those programs or semi-deliberate inefficiencies aren't actually sold as being for that purpose, how much waste will we collectively tolerate? UBI definitely seems like a more-honest approach, and probably healthier all around. [EDIT] Just after posting this I had a mini-nightmare about how LLMs might enable a much, much higher volume of lawsuit activity with the same number of highly-skilled workers, driving an expansion of low-skilled ancillary jobs in that sector, at the cost of an absolutely huge drag on the overall economy and probably increased overall stress, to basically no actual benefit to society. God, chills up and down my spine.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Assistant administrator to the prompt engineer? Director of Phone Polishing? Air Circulation Specialist? In many high population countries, people are used where other countries would use automation or robots. Automation is relatively expensive when compared to people desperate for any job that lets them meet their basic needs.
fortuna86 4y ago
Bullshit Jobs are an important part of every economy. If the criteria for work was "only jobs absolutely needed", unemployment would be at 30% and society would be unstable.

kaba0 4y ago

What do you think might be such a bullshit job? 100 years ago a whole village had to help with crops, now a single air conditioned combine harvester can do the job (hell, doesn’t even need a driver, it works solely through GPS). We somewhat earned a bit of time with many of the bullshit jobs, but I think that bubble is bursting — we will have to undergo a huge societal change (UBI or something like that), otherwise we will get to Gotham city levels.

mitchdoogle 4y ago
Japan has bullshit parking lot jobs. Imagine if your local CVS had a parking lot attendant to direct you to one of the 30 open spots
jstarfish 4y ago
> What do you think might be such a bullshit job? Babysitter. We'll go from robots supporting humans to humans supporting robots. My Roomba still can't vacuum the house without needing some form of "help" at least three times. Robots can do a lot, but it will probably be cheaper to pay human custodians to manually intervene as needed than to program AI and bots to account for every conceivable failure case in every possible scenario.
yamtaddle 4y ago
I'm with you, I don't see where everyone will go. We've got a few sinks or de facto jobs programs (military; healthcare system, in the US) for "excess" workers, but I don't know how any of those can expand enough to absorb a shock of the sort that LLMs and related tech may soon usher in—especially when those programs or semi-deliberate inefficiencies aren't actually sold as being for that purpose, how much waste will we collectively tolerate? UBI definitely seems like a more-honest approach, and probably healthier all around. [EDIT] Just after posting this I had a mini-nightmare about how LLMs might enable a much, much higher volume of lawsuit activity with the same number of highly-skilled workers, driving an expansion of low-skilled ancillary jobs in that sector, at the cost of an absolutely huge drag on the overall economy and probably increased overall stress, to basically no actual benefit to society. God, chills up and down my spine.
falcolas 4y ago
Assistant administrator to the prompt engineer? Director of Phone Polishing? Air Circulation Specialist? In many high population countries, people are used where other countries would use automation or robots. Automation is relatively expensive when compared to people desperate for any job that lets them meet their basic needs.

fortuna86 4y ago

Bullshit Jobs are an important part of every economy. If the criteria for work was "only jobs absolutely needed", unemployment would be at 30% and society would be unstable.