6 ms·

“Think of AI as generally acting as a high-end intern,” he said. “Jobs that are mostly designed as entry-level jobs to break you into a field where you do somet

“Think of AI as generally acting as a high-end intern,” he said. “Jobs that are mostly designed as entry-level jobs to break you into a field where you do something kind of useful, but it’s also sort of a steppingstone to the next level — those are the kinds of jobs under threat.” Every bit of this article worries me. Not because I think it's coming for my job, but because it's coming for so many other jobs. "Experts say that even advanced AI doesn’t match the writing skills of a human: It lacks personal voice and style, and it often churns out wrong, nonsensical or biased answers. But for many companies, the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality." That's the part that makes me think this is going to cause some serious job losses. "the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality." All of the AIs are pretty ok right now, and we're already seeing some (probably not many?) jobs cut because the stuff they make is "good enough". I'm worried what kids just starting college now will face in 4-5 years when they're trying to start a career.

basisword 3y ago
I think a lot of the jobs that go will be the ones that popped up recently. The low level white collar ones. Social media content writers for example. That tends to be a very well paid job compared with the skill necessary to do it and the benefits it provides. I imagine most of these jobs will just get replaced with something else that the AI can’t do and that only new grads will accept doing. For your kids, I think you’re imagining more progress with AI than we’ll have in the next five years. I think the changes of the last 3 years will be much more impactful on new grads. I recently switched role and learning remotely is a lot more difficult for various reasons. I’m already well into my career so I imagine for new grads it will be incredibly difficult. I’d worry more about that than AI provided they’re going to college to study something “useful”.
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  [dead]
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Also, most of the work that is produced is of poor quality anyway. 99% of writing is meh, so ChatGPT is not a downgrade.
- dinvlad 3y ago
  The funny part comes when it won't be able to be improved anymore because of regurgitating its own content all over.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    Couldn’t adversarial networks be used to continue to improve quality? I guess we could wind up with a bunch of humans in the loop to help guide learning improvements too, seeing as we’ll all be unemployed (sort of joking).
    - dinvlad 3y ago
      There’s only so much information content that exists on the Internet. There’s a limit to it, and one cannot simply produce more info once that limit is reached, it goes against the entropy so to speak. And then, “garbage in - garbage out”. In addition, I think we’re living in a huge bubble and are sort of entitled enough to think that Internet = human knowledge. So many jobs and skills are simply not transferable even using human language (and even if they hire an army if “trainers”). This is one of the core problems with the current incarnation of “AI” - tacit knowledge has always been the stumbling block, even back in the expert systems days when everyone was thinking what we’re thinking will happen today. So until the machines can somehow gain consciousness, autonomous and nimble movement, the will to live and all of the deep levels of the human mind that are outside language, I think we’ll be pretty safe :-) And for now, on all of these parameters they aren’t even close to a cat.
      - ForestCritter 3y ago
        Exactly, AI can regurgitate all the beautiful sunsets it has been trained on. An artist experiences a sunset and is inspired to create things inspired by the feeling of a sunset. These things could be textiles, furniture, abstract art, dessert, any number of functional items the color of the sunset, a short story, a mimi series....The misconception is that creativity is created by studying and copying past creativity. Creativity comes from living experience and is applied thoughout all aspects of our lives. The belief that AI trains the same way humans do is a sad misconception of the human experience.
Dudester230602 3y ago
> I'm worried what kids just starting college now will face in 4-5 years when they're trying to start a career. Why? Traditional family unit is over and generations are at war. Let them figure it out. Meanwhile let's not have kids without a clear plan for their future.
patagonia 3y ago
If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I think the number of available jobs will probably shrink to the point where this isn't much of a problem.
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before. * Past performance is not indicative of future results.
      - dinvlad 3y ago
        Well, we have to work with what we have :-) It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines.
        tivert 3y ago
        > It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. What now? Established trends have been regularly violated over thousands of years. > It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines. You know what would count as an adaptation? Large fractions of population becoming immiserated and either dying off or living in poverty at the margins. Mere survival is the wrong metric.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Every bit of this article worries me. Not because I think it's coming for my job, but because it's coming for so many other jobs This. Anyone who thinks that their job is safe is fooling themselves.
- HKH2 3y ago
  Text is 2D compared to face to face interaction. It's like assuming a video chat is the same as the real thing when there is so much data being lost. Is it blindly optimistic to assume that people will eventually yearn for more genuine interaction, daresay truth? Is it wrong to think that people gain purpose from other people, and that our mammalian instincts will not be so easily conquered?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Of course not. But I'm not talking about gaining purpose. I'm talking about being able to pay bills.
    - dinvlad 3y ago
      Temporarily, maybe, until misguided decision makers realize they could not feasibly replace people with a half-baked ‘AI’. And I do think we (the community lurking on HN) are living in a huge bubble - there’re so many more jobs out there that we have not even a slightest idea how to replace. On top of that, the biggest unaddressed problem that everyone seems to pounce over is tacit knowledge - it cannot simply be transferred even between humans, using words, gestures or any other media. It can only be gained through the human experience, by doing stuff. It’s the same old problem from the expert systems days. So we cannot hope to replace them with AI, at least not until AI somehow becomes self-aware and gains all of the non-surface depths of the human mind, and lives through the same experience.
    - HKH2 3y ago
      Okay. I'm talking about people particularly spending money on face to face interaction because they can clearly see everything else is subpar. If your argument is that there won't be anyone to spend money, so even the jobs that AI can't replace won't be safe, then okay.

basisword 3y ago

I think a lot of the jobs that go will be the ones that popped up recently. The low level white collar ones. Social media content writers for example. That tends to be a very well paid job compared with the skill necessary to do it and the benefits it provides. I imagine most of these jobs will just get replaced with something else that the AI can’t do and that only new grads will accept doing. For your kids, I think you’re imagining more progress with AI than we’ll have in the next five years. I think the changes of the last 3 years will be much more impactful on new grads. I recently switched role and learning remotely is a lot more difficult for various reasons. I’m already well into my career so I imagine for new grads it will be incredibly difficult. I’d worry more about that than AI provided they’re going to college to study something “useful”.

housemusicfan 3y ago
[dead]

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Also, most of the work that is produced is of poor quality anyway. 99% of writing is meh, so ChatGPT is not a downgrade.

dinvlad 3y ago
The funny part comes when it won't be able to be improved anymore because of regurgitating its own content all over.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  Couldn’t adversarial networks be used to continue to improve quality? I guess we could wind up with a bunch of humans in the loop to help guide learning improvements too, seeing as we’ll all be unemployed (sort of joking).
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    There’s only so much information content that exists on the Internet. There’s a limit to it, and one cannot simply produce more info once that limit is reached, it goes against the entropy so to speak. And then, “garbage in - garbage out”. In addition, I think we’re living in a huge bubble and are sort of entitled enough to think that Internet = human knowledge. So many jobs and skills are simply not transferable even using human language (and even if they hire an army if “trainers”). This is one of the core problems with the current incarnation of “AI” - tacit knowledge has always been the stumbling block, even back in the expert systems days when everyone was thinking what we’re thinking will happen today. So until the machines can somehow gain consciousness, autonomous and nimble movement, the will to live and all of the deep levels of the human mind that are outside language, I think we’ll be pretty safe :-) And for now, on all of these parameters they aren’t even close to a cat.
    - ForestCritter 3y ago
      Exactly, AI can regurgitate all the beautiful sunsets it has been trained on. An artist experiences a sunset and is inspired to create things inspired by the feeling of a sunset. These things could be textiles, furniture, abstract art, dessert, any number of functional items the color of the sunset, a short story, a mimi series....The misconception is that creativity is created by studying and copying past creativity. Creativity comes from living experience and is applied thoughout all aspects of our lives. The belief that AI trains the same way humans do is a sad misconception of the human experience.

Dudester230602 3y ago

> I'm worried what kids just starting college now will face in 4-5 years when they're trying to start a career. Why? Traditional family unit is over and generations are at war. Let them figure it out. Meanwhile let's not have kids without a clear plan for their future.

patagonia 3y ago

If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs?

JohnFen 3y ago
I think the number of available jobs will probably shrink to the point where this isn't much of a problem.
- dinvlad 3y ago
  This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before. * Past performance is not indicative of future results.
    - dinvlad 3y ago
      Well, we have to work with what we have :-) It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines.
      - tivert 3y ago
        > It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. What now? Established trends have been regularly violated over thousands of years. > It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines. You know what would count as an adaptation? Large fractions of population becoming immiserated and either dying off or living in poverty at the margins. Mere survival is the wrong metric.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Every bit of this article worries me. Not because I think it's coming for my job, but because it's coming for so many other jobs This. Anyone who thinks that their job is safe is fooling themselves.

HKH2 3y ago
Text is 2D compared to face to face interaction. It's like assuming a video chat is the same as the real thing when there is so much data being lost. Is it blindly optimistic to assume that people will eventually yearn for more genuine interaction, daresay truth? Is it wrong to think that people gain purpose from other people, and that our mammalian instincts will not be so easily conquered?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Of course not. But I'm not talking about gaining purpose. I'm talking about being able to pay bills.
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    Temporarily, maybe, until misguided decision makers realize they could not feasibly replace people with a half-baked ‘AI’. And I do think we (the community lurking on HN) are living in a huge bubble - there’re so many more jobs out there that we have not even a slightest idea how to replace. On top of that, the biggest unaddressed problem that everyone seems to pounce over is tacit knowledge - it cannot simply be transferred even between humans, using words, gestures or any other media. It can only be gained through the human experience, by doing stuff. It’s the same old problem from the expert systems days. So we cannot hope to replace them with AI, at least not until AI somehow becomes self-aware and gains all of the non-surface depths of the human mind, and lives through the same experience.
  - HKH2 3y ago
    Okay. I'm talking about people particularly spending money on face to face interaction because they can clearly see everything else is subpar. If your argument is that there won't be anyone to spend money, so even the jobs that AI can't replace won't be safe, then okay.