4 ms·

I will root for AI a lot more readily when we have a good alternative (UBI?) for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Y'all cheerl

I will root for AI a lot more readily when we have a good alternative (UBI?) for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Y'all cheerleaders are going to create an underclass the likes of which you've never seen before. I hope they take up torches and pitchforks

m3kw9 3y ago
When AI can solve most problems we have, we will have UBI because most will not need to work, but pessimists will say we will all lost jobs.
- idontpost 3y ago
  [dead]
- delusional 3y ago
  Do you need to work now? When is the crossover where you won't need to work? I live in a country where the government is actually calling for an INCREASE in work. When in history have we ever decreased the workload with the reason "well we don't need to produce any more"?
  - pdntspa 3y ago
    Yeah every breathless fucking advertisement and news article talking about the latest tech advance for the last 50 years has been promising to make like easier and with less work. Yet all this tech stuff does is create even more. Working hours are up and productivity is down, and purportedly nobody knows why. I want my 4 hour workday, goddammit
- slashdev 3y ago
  Or, more likely, if people no longer need to work they no longer provide utility and are dead weight that needs to go. I don’t think work will go away, it will just change, maybe too quickly for people to keep up. Post AGI nobody knows. It’s debatable that humans will still have a place in an AGI world. But that’s also much further away than people seem to think. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime (next 40-60 years).
- chii 3y ago
  > we will have UBI or those who become unneeded would simply starve to death, or have to compete to get the last vestiges of available jobs. I know which is more likely, from looking back at history.
qeternity 3y ago
> for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Where is this mass displacement of which you speak? Which companies are firing en masse and replacing with AI?
- pdntspa 3y ago
  Content writing and concept artists come to mind, I've heard commercial art is getting decimated. The trucking industry is dumping tons of $$$ into automated AI trucking. Tech companies are experimenting with drone delivery instead of hiring drivers. Rideshares experimenting with self-driving taxis. The list goes on. More locally, the local McDonalds recently remodeled, reducing the customer counter to something like 1/8th the size and installing terminals (not AI but automation), and I've seen images online of fast food testing AI for ordering, particularly over drive-through. My friend got a marketing director job using a ChatGPT-generated marketing strategy (they gave her an impossible deadline and so I suggested she try it), and now she uses ChatGPT to generate marketing copy instead of hiring content writers. Someone else I know uses AI to SEOize very technical text to something search engines like at like 10x the rate he used to do by hand. As a solo and formerly senior SWE, ChatGPT is like having a junior developer on call to do my research and get me preliminary results. Stuff I used to have to rely on my team or google-fu to answer, now I just ask ChatGPT. You're sticking your head in your sand if you think it isn't coming. Just think about every one of those optimizations that AI offers, typically you had to have a human being do it before.
  - chii 3y ago
    And yet every one of those automation has been driven by somebody, who presumably will receive value for that work. They in turn, will drive demand for goods/services - thus producing more jobs in the process (perhaps a job that doesn't currently exist). I dont think the doom and gloom scenario being sold as the AI apocalypse is as bad as it is being portrayed.
  - qeternity 3y ago
    > Content writing and concept artists come to mind, I've heard commercial art is getting decimated. Who? Be specific. This displacement is happening rapidly, it should be easy to point out. > The trucking industry is dumping tons of $$$ into automated AI trucking. Tech companies are experimenting with drone delivery instead of hiring drivers. Rideshares experimenting with self-driving taxis. The list goes on. How many truck drivers have been laid off from this technology which hasn't been deployed widely / left the experimentation phase? > she uses ChatGPT to generate marketing copy instead of hiring content writers. So far the only real competition you've mentioned. And yeah, language models are good at writing low value language. I have yet to hear about mass unemployment of content writers however. These are people who will upskill/shift into other marketing roles easily. > Someone else I know uses AI to SEOize very technical text to something search engines like at like 10x the rate he used to do by hand. And this is a bad thing? > As a solo and formerly senior SWE, ChatGPT is like having a junior developer on call to do my research and get me preliminary results. You say this as if companies will stop hiring juniors. They won't. The world will simply write more code with more productive people. > You're sticking your head in your sand if you think it isn't coming. The same has been said during every technological shift. Mechanization will result in mass unemployment of laborers. Email will result in mass unemployment of mail carriers. Through many cycles of technology, the human race has never allowed slack in the workforce to go unused for very long. We could have stopped at the steam engine and accepted the quality of life we had, instead of repurposing displaced workers and marching forward. This won't change until we have true AGI which we are nowhere near.

m3kw9 3y ago

When AI can solve most problems we have, we will have UBI because most will not need to work, but pessimists will say we will all lost jobs.

idontpost 3y ago
[dead]
delusional 3y ago
Do you need to work now? When is the crossover where you won't need to work? I live in a country where the government is actually calling for an INCREASE in work. When in history have we ever decreased the workload with the reason "well we don't need to produce any more"?
- pdntspa 3y ago
  Yeah every breathless fucking advertisement and news article talking about the latest tech advance for the last 50 years has been promising to make like easier and with less work. Yet all this tech stuff does is create even more. Working hours are up and productivity is down, and purportedly nobody knows why. I want my 4 hour workday, goddammit
slashdev 3y ago
Or, more likely, if people no longer need to work they no longer provide utility and are dead weight that needs to go. I don’t think work will go away, it will just change, maybe too quickly for people to keep up. Post AGI nobody knows. It’s debatable that humans will still have a place in an AGI world. But that’s also much further away than people seem to think. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime (next 40-60 years).
chii 3y ago
> we will have UBI or those who become unneeded would simply starve to death, or have to compete to get the last vestiges of available jobs. I know which is more likely, from looking back at history.

qeternity 3y ago

> for people whos jobs are being displaced faster than they can retrain Where is this mass displacement of which you speak? Which companies are firing en masse and replacing with AI?

pdntspa 3y ago
Content writing and concept artists come to mind, I've heard commercial art is getting decimated. The trucking industry is dumping tons of $$$ into automated AI trucking. Tech companies are experimenting with drone delivery instead of hiring drivers. Rideshares experimenting with self-driving taxis. The list goes on. More locally, the local McDonalds recently remodeled, reducing the customer counter to something like 1/8th the size and installing terminals (not AI but automation), and I've seen images online of fast food testing AI for ordering, particularly over drive-through. My friend got a marketing director job using a ChatGPT-generated marketing strategy (they gave her an impossible deadline and so I suggested she try it), and now she uses ChatGPT to generate marketing copy instead of hiring content writers. Someone else I know uses AI to SEOize very technical text to something search engines like at like 10x the rate he used to do by hand. As a solo and formerly senior SWE, ChatGPT is like having a junior developer on call to do my research and get me preliminary results. Stuff I used to have to rely on my team or google-fu to answer, now I just ask ChatGPT. You're sticking your head in your sand if you think it isn't coming. Just think about every one of those optimizations that AI offers, typically you had to have a human being do it before.
- chii 3y ago
  And yet every one of those automation has been driven by somebody, who presumably will receive value for that work. They in turn, will drive demand for goods/services - thus producing more jobs in the process (perhaps a job that doesn't currently exist). I dont think the doom and gloom scenario being sold as the AI apocalypse is as bad as it is being portrayed.
- qeternity 3y ago
  > Content writing and concept artists come to mind, I've heard commercial art is getting decimated. Who? Be specific. This displacement is happening rapidly, it should be easy to point out. > The trucking industry is dumping tons of $$$ into automated AI trucking. Tech companies are experimenting with drone delivery instead of hiring drivers. Rideshares experimenting with self-driving taxis. The list goes on. How many truck drivers have been laid off from this technology which hasn't been deployed widely / left the experimentation phase? > she uses ChatGPT to generate marketing copy instead of hiring content writers. So far the only real competition you've mentioned. And yeah, language models are good at writing low value language. I have yet to hear about mass unemployment of content writers however. These are people who will upskill/shift into other marketing roles easily. > Someone else I know uses AI to SEOize very technical text to something search engines like at like 10x the rate he used to do by hand. And this is a bad thing? > As a solo and formerly senior SWE, ChatGPT is like having a junior developer on call to do my research and get me preliminary results. You say this as if companies will stop hiring juniors. They won't. The world will simply write more code with more productive people. > You're sticking your head in your sand if you think it isn't coming. The same has been said during every technological shift. Mechanization will result in mass unemployment of laborers. Email will result in mass unemployment of mail carriers. Through many cycles of technology, the human race has never allowed slack in the workforce to go unused for very long. We could have stopped at the steam engine and accepted the quality of life we had, instead of repurposing displaced workers and marching forward. This won't change until we have true AGI which we are nowhere near.