6 ms·

In the context of AI attacking the core competence of a human being: natural language communication, associative and rational thought, decision making, design,

In the context of AI attacking the core competence of a human being: natural language communication, associative and rational thought, decision making, design, engineering, art... yes we're horses much like cars attacked the core competency of a horse, and therefore the market for horses collapsed. The horses never recovered. We kept recovering as we kept moving into higher and higher level intellectual work, or natural language work and customer interaction (like sales teams, service reps, store clerks, tech support, call centers). All this is directly replaced by AI now. Low end and high end. We have nowhere to run anymore. The idea we'll all be given god-like AI to wield insane leverage, simply because we're humans, is laughable. Think of the intellectual level of an average human. Think what the average voter is like in your country. Now, as Carlin joked, realize half of them are worse than that. Heck even think of our elite, our politicians, think of Trump, think of our top businessmen like Elon Musk. Most humans barely have the discipline to do the jobs they're doing now, where they can do a lot less damage than if being chimp-with-a-machine-gunned by given an army of AIs and robots to control. We're being obsoleted. And the faster we are the better as we're a danger to ourselves if we actually decide to rule over AI, and we'll be played hard by it (no, AI doesn't have to "want" anything, but drugs also don't want anything and trick people into overdose and death).

joshuahedlund 3y ago
> All this is directly replaced by AI now. ChatGTP came out nine months ago and the US has added two million jobs in that time. https://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/us/ https://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/us/
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  In the 70s one family had one working member supporting the whole family, currently it's becoming increasingly common for one person to hold multiple jobs and their spouse too. Multiple states are voting back child labor, literally, so add those jobs too, to the count. Working children. The job count is a BS metric at this point and doesn't reflect the quality of the jobs, or the quality of life. It means nothing. Also "9 months" is kinda ridiculous to expect to see the long-term effects of AI. AI may be evolving fast, and it is, but business, laws, healthcare, regulatory agencies and so on are held back by gigantic inertia and some real safety cocnerns. It is still humans who have to integrate AI in their human processes, so the first few iterations will be slow and cautious to occur (after that... eventually AIs will run systems made by AIs so change will accelerate). For example, a startup tried to offer an "AI lawyer app" for traffic tickets, and lawyers sued the startup. Hollywood is starting to use AI as well, and writers and actors went to strike. Obviously things like that will hold AI back for a while. But not forever. AI is inevitable.
  - mcculley 3y ago
    > In the 70s one family had one working member supporting the whole family Do you have a citation for this? I googled around and couldn't find a graph for "number of earners per U.S. household by year". I am wondering if it was the case that most households in the 70s had one earner or if it was mostly middle class or upper middle class households that had this luxury.
    - pengaru 3y ago
      Have you heard the phrase "vanishing middle class"? It was easier to be in the middle class then, for myriad reasons. In the 60s you'd be given kitchenware just for filling up your tank at a gas station...
      - mcculley 3y ago
        Of course I have heard the phrase. I am asking if anyone has data to back it up. edit to add: I am not specifically interested in the middle class, which is ill-defined. I am interested in the overall income of households and how that has changed.
        truculent 3y ago
        Elizabeth Warren wrote a book in 2003 (The Two-Income Trap) on this topic. I will admit that I haven’t read it, but I assume that has some solid references.
        mcculley 3y ago
        I have also not read the book, so I will not make any assumptions about it. My understanding is that throughout history, most households had at least two people working/earning (many homes were farms). Then we get some television shows in the 50s-70s that show how well the upper middle class lived. Now in 2023 we have people thinking that everyone in the past lived as well.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
  Come on man. Unemployment rate is a trailing indicator. If this technology is to displace jobs at scale it will take a few years at least for that to unfold.
  - joshuahedlund 3y ago
    It might. But how many more months of increasing employment do we need to have to disprove the claim "All this is directly replaced by AI now"?
somewhereoutth 3y ago
> natural language communication, associative and rational thought, decision making, design, engineering, art. Except of course LLMs (and any other AI technology even on the farthest horizon) does exactly none of that.
- AmpsterMan 3y ago
  I think the concern is that LLMs approximate that enough for decision makers to replace jobs. What critics see is a world where consumers and lower skilled workers get shafted in order for... what exactly? Humans aren't horses, because horses don't participate in the wider economy, but it seems increasingly swaths of people are being laid to pasture, so to speak, effectively becoming horses.

joshuahedlund 3y ago

> All this is directly replaced by AI now. ChatGTP came out nine months ago and the US has added two million jobs in that time. https://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/us/ https://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/us/

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
In the 70s one family had one working member supporting the whole family, currently it's becoming increasingly common for one person to hold multiple jobs and their spouse too. Multiple states are voting back child labor, literally, so add those jobs too, to the count. Working children. The job count is a BS metric at this point and doesn't reflect the quality of the jobs, or the quality of life. It means nothing. Also "9 months" is kinda ridiculous to expect to see the long-term effects of AI. AI may be evolving fast, and it is, but business, laws, healthcare, regulatory agencies and so on are held back by gigantic inertia and some real safety cocnerns. It is still humans who have to integrate AI in their human processes, so the first few iterations will be slow and cautious to occur (after that... eventually AIs will run systems made by AIs so change will accelerate). For example, a startup tried to offer an "AI lawyer app" for traffic tickets, and lawyers sued the startup. Hollywood is starting to use AI as well, and writers and actors went to strike. Obviously things like that will hold AI back for a while. But not forever. AI is inevitable.
- mcculley 3y ago
  > In the 70s one family had one working member supporting the whole family Do you have a citation for this? I googled around and couldn't find a graph for "number of earners per U.S. household by year". I am wondering if it was the case that most households in the 70s had one earner or if it was mostly middle class or upper middle class households that had this luxury.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    Have you heard the phrase "vanishing middle class"? It was easier to be in the middle class then, for myriad reasons. In the 60s you'd be given kitchenware just for filling up your tank at a gas station...
    - mcculley 3y ago
      Of course I have heard the phrase. I am asking if anyone has data to back it up. edit to add: I am not specifically interested in the middle class, which is ill-defined. I am interested in the overall income of households and how that has changed.
      - truculent 3y ago
        Elizabeth Warren wrote a book in 2003 (The Two-Income Trap) on this topic. I will admit that I haven’t read it, but I assume that has some solid references.
        mcculley 3y ago
        I have also not read the book, so I will not make any assumptions about it. My understanding is that throughout history, most households had at least two people working/earning (many homes were farms). Then we get some television shows in the 50s-70s that show how well the upper middle class lived. Now in 2023 we have people thinking that everyone in the past lived as well.
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
Come on man. Unemployment rate is a trailing indicator. If this technology is to displace jobs at scale it will take a few years at least for that to unfold.
- joshuahedlund 3y ago
  It might. But how many more months of increasing employment do we need to have to disprove the claim "All this is directly replaced by AI now"?

somewhereoutth 3y ago

> natural language communication, associative and rational thought, decision making, design, engineering, art. Except of course LLMs (and any other AI technology even on the farthest horizon) does exactly none of that.

AmpsterMan 3y ago
I think the concern is that LLMs approximate that enough for decision makers to replace jobs. What critics see is a world where consumers and lower skilled workers get shafted in order for... what exactly? Humans aren't horses, because horses don't participate in the wider economy, but it seems increasingly swaths of people are being laid to pasture, so to speak, effectively becoming horses.