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"AI will enhance jobs rather than replace them" has always been the more practical argument for AI in the workforce. Humans cannot be eliminated, and those that

"AI will enhance jobs rather than replace them" has always been the more practical argument for AI in the workforce. Humans cannot be eliminated, and those that have tried to fully replace humans with chatbots like ChatGPT or artists with Midjourney/Stable Diffusion haven't had as much success. Unfortunately discourse around this particular topic tends to be less nuanced than it should be.

x86x87 3y ago
This conversation is rarely in good faith. AI will replace jobs is code for "we'll pay you less and you'll be happy to have a job. in fact, we could replace you but we are sooo generous!!" It's all about leverage.
malfist 3y ago
Just like cars didn't eliminate walking, they just enhanced transportation efficiency. Gains in efficiency only occasionally result in less jobs, generally they result in more production.
- pixl97 3y ago
  >Just like cars didn't eliminate walking, This is about the worst analogy that you could come up with. https://www.fastcompany.com/3034289/your-car-centric-city-is-why-youre-fat https://www.fastcompany.com/3034289/your-car-centric-city-is...
  - malfist 3y ago
    Oh fair. Maybe a better example: Stick framing didn't eliminate pole barn construction. Or prefab didn't eliminate build on site.
pixl97 3y ago
>and those that have tried to fully replace humans with chatbots like ChatGPT or artists with Midjourney/Stable Diffusion haven't had as much success. Being that it's an application that's really only a few months/years old it would be rather insane and worrying if we did replace people that fast. A better way to look at it would be farming in the US. In the 1850s we went from a very large percentage of people working in and around feeding the population. Today that number is rather small. This change lead to a massive amount of people moving from rural areas and a further increase in industrialization and factory workers. The question we have today is, ok, we won't eliminate all humans in jobs, but what percent will we eliminate? How fast will it happen? What meaningful labor that actually pays enough for people to live will crop up in its place? If we look back at the history of the 1800s industrial revolution it was a very unstable time. There were labor wars in the US over unionization. Do we want to blindly stumble into another age of instability because of rapid changes in the labor market? Never forget, it's not a companies job to have as many employees as possible, it's just currently that correlates with how much money they make. It is completely possible for AI to tip this balance where companies make huge profits, but those profits are tightly held and not distributed to a large labor pool. Income inequality is a huge problem in a world with expensive assets.

x86x87 3y ago

This conversation is rarely in good faith. AI will replace jobs is code for "we'll pay you less and you'll be happy to have a job. in fact, we could replace you but we are sooo generous!!" It's all about leverage.

malfist 3y ago

Just like cars didn't eliminate walking, they just enhanced transportation efficiency. Gains in efficiency only occasionally result in less jobs, generally they result in more production.

pixl97 3y ago
>Just like cars didn't eliminate walking, This is about the worst analogy that you could come up with. https://www.fastcompany.com/3034289/your-car-centric-city-is-why-youre-fat https://www.fastcompany.com/3034289/your-car-centric-city-is...
- malfist 3y ago
  Oh fair. Maybe a better example: Stick framing didn't eliminate pole barn construction. Or prefab didn't eliminate build on site.

pixl97 3y ago

>and those that have tried to fully replace humans with chatbots like ChatGPT or artists with Midjourney/Stable Diffusion haven't had as much success. Being that it's an application that's really only a few months/years old it would be rather insane and worrying if we did replace people that fast. A better way to look at it would be farming in the US. In the 1850s we went from a very large percentage of people working in and around feeding the population. Today that number is rather small. This change lead to a massive amount of people moving from rural areas and a further increase in industrialization and factory workers. The question we have today is, ok, we won't eliminate all humans in jobs, but what percent will we eliminate? How fast will it happen? What meaningful labor that actually pays enough for people to live will crop up in its place? If we look back at the history of the 1800s industrial revolution it was a very unstable time. There were labor wars in the US over unionization. Do we want to blindly stumble into another age of instability because of rapid changes in the labor market? Never forget, it's not a companies job to have as many employees as possible, it's just currently that correlates with how much money they make. It is completely possible for AI to tip this balance where companies make huge profits, but those profits are tightly held and not distributed to a large labor pool. Income inequality is a huge problem in a world with expensive assets.