4 ms·

One human can manage far more work via AI than without, which still leads to job loss. Even if a human is still needed in the loop to verify the output. e.g. h

One human can manage far more work via AI than without, which still leads to job loss. Even if a human is still needed in the loop to verify the output. e.g. how much faster can a language translator work with AI driven translation as a first pass, and human editing afterwards? Clearly fewer people are required. And this is how innovations tend to go... manual book copying -> printing press and so on

kromem 3y ago
It only leads to job loss if the labor demand is capped to the status quo. Which will actually be the case in far less situations long term than people seem to think. The reality is the early adopters who downsize staff to maintain current levels of output are shooting themselves in the foot as what's going to happen down the road is competitors stay staffed up but expand the scope of labor pulling away market share from the early adopters. For example, you could cut staff and use AI to continue to produce mass market copy selling your products. Or you could keep the headcount the same and enhance each employee with AI in order to develop a pipeline spitting out copy optimized to the long tail of your customer base improving conversion in segments there was previously no way to tap with positive ROI. i.e. Book publishers in the age of the printing press could have kept a roster of only a handful of authors and fired most of their transcribing staff or kept a large headcount for an expanded roster of authors. Scaling up productivity without scanning down labor should generally be the first place a wise company's mind goes, not scaling up productivity to scale down labor. Individual jobs will shift (no need for transcribers with a printing press), but overall headcount shouldn't shift much as long as there's sufficient competition in a given market segment.
- adam_arthur 3y ago
  Yes, people get repurposed into new roles, but the jobs first in line for automation get downsized or eliminated. Given that unemployment is close to all time lows, it's clear that technology doesn't increase unemployment in the aggregate or longer term. When real incomes rise, previously economically non viable jobs become viable. But voice actors, translators, truckers will absolutely lose their jobs and unlikely to command the same compensation in whatever new venue they switch to.

kromem 3y ago

It only leads to job loss if the labor demand is capped to the status quo. Which will actually be the case in far less situations long term than people seem to think. The reality is the early adopters who downsize staff to maintain current levels of output are shooting themselves in the foot as what's going to happen down the road is competitors stay staffed up but expand the scope of labor pulling away market share from the early adopters. For example, you could cut staff and use AI to continue to produce mass market copy selling your products. Or you could keep the headcount the same and enhance each employee with AI in order to develop a pipeline spitting out copy optimized to the long tail of your customer base improving conversion in segments there was previously no way to tap with positive ROI. i.e. Book publishers in the age of the printing press could have kept a roster of only a handful of authors and fired most of their transcribing staff or kept a large headcount for an expanded roster of authors. Scaling up productivity without scanning down labor should generally be the first place a wise company's mind goes, not scaling up productivity to scale down labor. Individual jobs will shift (no need for transcribers with a printing press), but overall headcount shouldn't shift much as long as there's sufficient competition in a given market segment.

adam_arthur 3y ago
Yes, people get repurposed into new roles, but the jobs first in line for automation get downsized or eliminated. Given that unemployment is close to all time lows, it's clear that technology doesn't increase unemployment in the aggregate or longer term. When real incomes rise, previously economically non viable jobs become viable. But voice actors, translators, truckers will absolutely lose their jobs and unlikely to command the same compensation in whatever new venue they switch to.