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Since chatgpt 'massive explosion on the scene' I have and still do predict; the amount of info-tech jobs will actually GO UP. This has always been the case with

Since chatgpt 'massive explosion on the scene' I have and still do predict; the amount of info-tech jobs will actually GO UP. This has always been the case with any tech innovation. I find it humorous; as pointed out in the article; there is an assumption that once an efficiency is discovered we will just throw our hands up; sit back and relax. This has never happened. The market runs on innovation and competition. New tech means more competitive edge. If free energy is ever discovered (extremely doubtful), we will not help but boil ourselves from the excess heat it generates.

kristianp 3y ago
> If free energy is ever discovered (extremely doubtful), we will not help but boil ourselves from the excess heat it generates. Love this evocation. Although you missed a chance to say we'd boil the oceans!
Gravityloss 3y ago
Well, what happened to film makers or photo development shops? Photography as activity didn't go away but some components became unnecessary or a middleman could be bypassed with the new digital camera technology. And the same happened with camera makers as people could take good enough photos with their phones.
- sydbarrett74 3y ago
  The above doesn't even touch on the analogue photography renaissance taking place. Polaroid cameras are being snapped up at flea markets all over the place. Zoomers and younger millennials are spellbound by the whole milieu.
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    Oh come on, that's not the same at all. Horses didn't go extinct after the automobile either -- they still exist in quaint or niche cases, especially as a hobby for rich people. That doesn't mean their role in society came back along with all the supporting infrastructure. Are you looking to start a saddle making or carriage business?
    - sydbarrett74 3y ago
      Factories producing LP's have been unmothballed, so if there is sufficient demand for supporting infrastructure, the supply will follow. My point still stands. Come up with a better retort.
ben_w 3y ago
Demand sometimes goes up, but not always. More efficient food production has enabled higher demand (both more people and an obesity problem), but rich people with more money to spend on even more food… don't (at least not in ways that matter; literally gold plating a hamburger isn't relevant). And the growth in supply has been much less than the economy as a whole. Cheap metalworking means steel is everywhere; but there are not that many blacksmiths making full suits of plate armour and longswords. And the original example of the paradox, coal, is now in decline in many places. - So, what do I think will happen with AI and data? Short term, sure, more demand as it's now possible to process things like getting heart rate and eye dilation from CCTV data, or use WiFi as wall penetrating radar for emergency responders, etc. Long term (and in computing that just means >5 years because prediction is hard especially about the future), we might have automated everything. At some point, we will either automate everything directly (AGI), or automate the process of automating things "manually" (think narrow AI which makes narrow AI from watching human workers on whatever task for 6 months).
- lordnacho 3y ago
  I suppose the difference is that coal, or energy, is an input into every process conceivable. Any kind of transport, transformation, or information about anything requires an energy source, and coal at the time was ideal. It even displaces food because you'd rather feed coal to a machine than food to a laborer. You get a virtuous circle from coal cheapening everything, coal demand increases, so it becomes worthwhile to improve coal tech/infra, and that makes coal cheaper again. Food itself is limited by declining returns. Your second steak isn't as good as the first, and at some point you stop even though you can afford it. Steel had a huge explosion but also ultimately found its limits. So what about AI? Well for the moment it seems limitless. There's a ridiculous number of things we can image we'd do if AI became cheap. In that way you might think it will go the way of coal.
  - bsenftner 3y ago
    And as "we" attempt large scale automation, attempting to "automate our world", the devilish details and fractal complexity of a dynamic human society will be realized. Automation is an attempt to "freeze a process" and then accelerate it's handling, efficiencies, and outputs through machines - but is that even possible at city scale, not to contemplate larger scales yet, with a dynamic competitive human society inside? Will human society be future identified by the "version of automation" that ran at that time? Will future human society be constrained by the the designers of the automation in place, requiring violent overthrows to establish a newer automation? These speculations and similar strike me as infantile questions. I think as we approach our capabilities granted by AI, we will "see" the complexity of human civilization, in truth, for the first time. AI is a new set of eyes, data analysis is our vision, and as a civilization we've only been the three blind men examining an elephant. It's time to see what we are, and maybe, just maybe, mature enough to manage our own civilization without all our infantile infighting.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
This has never happened? Of course it has happened. There used to be buildings full of telephone switchers, did those jobs come back? We replaced horses with cars, the horses also never came back, and now we're the horses being replaced. I'm frankly somewhat bored trying to even recall every single example from history at this point, every time this myth about how "it always turns out fine" comes up. Survivor bias is a b**ch. "I wake up every day alive, therefore I'll live forever". Makes as much sense. Maybe in 50 years some electronic brain LLM human-like androids will be posting here and saying "See, it worked out, sure, organics no longer exist, but we're humans as well, just more modern humans. Tech demand goes up every time. Lots of jobs!"
- ace32229 3y ago
  There are more people working in telecomms now than there were when we had buildings full of switchers. _That_ is the point being made. Individual roles may go by the wayside but technological innovations result in industry-wide growth. Also, to state the obvious, humans aren't horses.
  - tarkin2 3y ago
    In the context of the currently defined job market, then jobs certainly will go down, in the same way the job market for switch operators went down. In the longer term, then there's a fairly good argument more jobs, and specifically more roles in newly defined jobs, will be created. What happens to those currently employed, and I'm not just talking about 23 year olds fresh out of university, in the current job market is the question.
    - visarga 3y ago
      Don't worry, this time the new tech wave has human language interface and can even tutor beginners one-on-one.
      - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
        It can tutor them to do what? You do realize, if AI is capable enough to "tutor" someone, it can simply do their job, for 1/1000 the cost.
jasfi 3y ago
AI can automate a lot of things, but not everything. There are also error rates which aren't zero, which can cause more problems than are solved if we assume that these systems don't need human direction and monitoring. So human jobs aren't going anywhere. We need to learn how to effectively utilize AI for a net positive benefit. Which isn't that difficult.
hoosieree 3y ago
It's strange to read editorials from the early days of automation - we expected to be Jetsons; instead most of us got 1984 so that a few of us could be Jetsons.
jbjohns 3y ago
Yes, I agree, tech innovation always brings more total jobs. But that doesn't mean everyone working now continues working and more are added. Many people will be left behind. It's not that they throw their hands up, sit back and relax. It is that the skills they possess become worthless overnight and the next thing they could learn takes a years long investment, and may not be viable by the time they get there.

kristianp 3y ago

> If free energy is ever discovered (extremely doubtful), we will not help but boil ourselves from the excess heat it generates. Love this evocation. Although you missed a chance to say we'd boil the oceans!

Gravityloss 3y ago

Well, what happened to film makers or photo development shops? Photography as activity didn't go away but some components became unnecessary or a middleman could be bypassed with the new digital camera technology. And the same happened with camera makers as people could take good enough photos with their phones.

sydbarrett74 3y ago
The above doesn't even touch on the analogue photography renaissance taking place. Polaroid cameras are being snapped up at flea markets all over the place. Zoomers and younger millennials are spellbound by the whole milieu.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Oh come on, that's not the same at all. Horses didn't go extinct after the automobile either -- they still exist in quaint or niche cases, especially as a hobby for rich people. That doesn't mean their role in society came back along with all the supporting infrastructure. Are you looking to start a saddle making or carriage business?
  - sydbarrett74 3y ago
    Factories producing LP's have been unmothballed, so if there is sufficient demand for supporting infrastructure, the supply will follow. My point still stands. Come up with a better retort.

ben_w 3y ago

Demand sometimes goes up, but not always. More efficient food production has enabled higher demand (both more people and an obesity problem), but rich people with more money to spend on even more food… don't (at least not in ways that matter; literally gold plating a hamburger isn't relevant). And the growth in supply has been much less than the economy as a whole. Cheap metalworking means steel is everywhere; but there are not that many blacksmiths making full suits of plate armour and longswords. And the original example of the paradox, coal, is now in decline in many places. - So, what do I think will happen with AI and data? Short term, sure, more demand as it's now possible to process things like getting heart rate and eye dilation from CCTV data, or use WiFi as wall penetrating radar for emergency responders, etc. Long term (and in computing that just means >5 years because prediction is hard especially about the future), we might have automated everything. At some point, we will either automate everything directly (AGI), or automate the process of automating things "manually" (think narrow AI which makes narrow AI from watching human workers on whatever task for 6 months).

lordnacho 3y ago
I suppose the difference is that coal, or energy, is an input into every process conceivable. Any kind of transport, transformation, or information about anything requires an energy source, and coal at the time was ideal. It even displaces food because you'd rather feed coal to a machine than food to a laborer. You get a virtuous circle from coal cheapening everything, coal demand increases, so it becomes worthwhile to improve coal tech/infra, and that makes coal cheaper again. Food itself is limited by declining returns. Your second steak isn't as good as the first, and at some point you stop even though you can afford it. Steel had a huge explosion but also ultimately found its limits. So what about AI? Well for the moment it seems limitless. There's a ridiculous number of things we can image we'd do if AI became cheap. In that way you might think it will go the way of coal.
- bsenftner 3y ago
  And as "we" attempt large scale automation, attempting to "automate our world", the devilish details and fractal complexity of a dynamic human society will be realized. Automation is an attempt to "freeze a process" and then accelerate it's handling, efficiencies, and outputs through machines - but is that even possible at city scale, not to contemplate larger scales yet, with a dynamic competitive human society inside? Will human society be future identified by the "version of automation" that ran at that time? Will future human society be constrained by the the designers of the automation in place, requiring violent overthrows to establish a newer automation? These speculations and similar strike me as infantile questions. I think as we approach our capabilities granted by AI, we will "see" the complexity of human civilization, in truth, for the first time. AI is a new set of eyes, data analysis is our vision, and as a civilization we've only been the three blind men examining an elephant. It's time to see what we are, and maybe, just maybe, mature enough to manage our own civilization without all our infantile infighting.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

This has never happened? Of course it has happened. There used to be buildings full of telephone switchers, did those jobs come back? We replaced horses with cars, the horses also never came back, and now we're the horses being replaced. I'm frankly somewhat bored trying to even recall every single example from history at this point, every time this myth about how "it always turns out fine" comes up. Survivor bias is a b**ch. "I wake up every day alive, therefore I'll live forever". Makes as much sense. Maybe in 50 years some electronic brain LLM human-like androids will be posting here and saying "See, it worked out, sure, organics no longer exist, but we're humans as well, just more modern humans. Tech demand goes up every time. Lots of jobs!"

ace32229 3y ago
There are more people working in telecomms now than there were when we had buildings full of switchers. _That_ is the point being made. Individual roles may go by the wayside but technological innovations result in industry-wide growth. Also, to state the obvious, humans aren't horses.
- tarkin2 3y ago
  In the context of the currently defined job market, then jobs certainly will go down, in the same way the job market for switch operators went down. In the longer term, then there's a fairly good argument more jobs, and specifically more roles in newly defined jobs, will be created. What happens to those currently employed, and I'm not just talking about 23 year olds fresh out of university, in the current job market is the question.
  - visarga 3y ago
    Don't worry, this time the new tech wave has human language interface and can even tutor beginners one-on-one.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      It can tutor them to do what? You do realize, if AI is capable enough to "tutor" someone, it can simply do their job, for 1/1000 the cost.

jasfi 3y ago

AI can automate a lot of things, but not everything. There are also error rates which aren't zero, which can cause more problems than are solved if we assume that these systems don't need human direction and monitoring. So human jobs aren't going anywhere. We need to learn how to effectively utilize AI for a net positive benefit. Which isn't that difficult.

hoosieree 3y ago

It's strange to read editorials from the early days of automation - we expected to be Jetsons; instead most of us got 1984 so that a few of us could be Jetsons.

jbjohns 3y ago

Yes, I agree, tech innovation always brings more total jobs. But that doesn't mean everyone working now continues working and more are added. Many people will be left behind. It's not that they throw their hands up, sit back and relax. It is that the skills they possess become worthless overnight and the next thing they could learn takes a years long investment, and may not be viable by the time they get there.