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I get the feeling that the plan to keep that from just being lots of people in poverty takes longer to evolve than the AI does to take the jobs. Edit: For the

by tyingq 3y ago

I get the feeling that the plan to keep that from just being lots of people in poverty takes longer to evolve than the AI does to take the jobs. Edit: For the replies, yes, things adjust. It's not, however, instantaneous.

advisedwang 3y ago
Hah, many of the VC folks behind AI companies are fighting policies that would keep people out of poverty.
schrodinger 3y ago
Also—every new sufficiently advanced technology has been predicted to do this. If there's one thing humans are good at, it's finding the remaining jobs that computers _cannot_ do, and sometimes accelerating the now-obsolete jobs has a positive effect.
- imiric 3y ago
  Sure, but this has never happened at the scale and speed that it will with AI. We're inventing technology that will be capable of doing every creative, intellectual and physical task better than any human. This will have a far greater impact than when the telephone, car, or even computer were invented. Certain jobs have already been made obsolete practically overnight, and the writing is on the wall for many more. Society needs time to adjust, for new jobs to be created and people to be trained in them. We'll figure it out, but the transition period will be rough for many.
  - semiquaver 3y ago
    > Certain jobs have already been made obsolete practically overnight Which jobs are you referring to?
    - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
      Commercial illustrators are the first that come to mind.
      - imiric 3y ago
        I was thinking more in line of audio transcribers and copywriters. Visual art is more subjective, and humans are still highly valued in many cases. But maybe this will change soon as well.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  > finding the remaining jobs that computers _cannot_ do Until a few years ago, this was "knowledge work". Creativity, empathy, imagination, communication, the work you do using your brain. Automation can replace human hands and muscles, you see, but not our minds. That's why education and upskilling is so important to dealing with the impact of automation on workers. ... Except now it's 2023 and AI has its crosshairs on both our minds and our hands. What else do human workers have to offer?
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Automating jobs is the thing that gets people out of poverty. The exception is when the regulatory environment prevents certain jobs from being automated or otherwise competitive, resulting in artificial scarcity of necessities. But then your problem isn't AI, it's market consolidation and regulatory capture.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  No it isn't. It might work that way on a spreadsheet model, but in practice people whose jobs are automated away become unemployed. To the extent that their job was skillful, acquiring another skillset is likely to take a while. I suspect that there will also be a subtle kind fo discrimination attendant on this, with the assumption that if one was replaced by AI, one must not have been very good at the previous line of work. AI is manifestly not automating away the shittiest jobs like hand-digging for rare earth minerals, subsistence agriculture, sorting through garbage to collect recyclables and so on. It is being very disruptive to cottage industries like graphic design, tech consulting and the like. In some cases it will certainly free up providers to skip the boring stuff and move up market or serve a larger number of customers, but in other cases it's just going to make people redundant. For example, it's entirely practical right now to launch and run a greeting card company without ever hiring an artist.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > in practice people whose jobs are automated away become unemployed. And then the products they used to make become less expensive because they require less labor to produce, which reduces amount of pay or hours anyone needs to make a living. Meanwhile all of the people who didn't lose their jobs now have that much more disposable income, which they use to buy something else, which creates new jobs doing whatever it is they're buying with the money they saved. > AI is manifestly not automating away the shittiest jobs like hand-digging for rare earth minerals, subsistence agriculture, sorting through garbage to collect recyclables and so on. You're describing work that has been under heavy and increasing automation for decades. Farmers use combines and sophisticated irrigation systems. Miners use heavy machinery, not their hands. > It is being very disruptive to cottage industries like graphic design, tech consulting and the like. Obviously the people who used to do the thing being automated will have to do something else, but then they do something else. If there is a something else then that's fine (and this has been the historical norm), if there ever comes to be no something else then substantially everything has been automated and the cost of living should be negligible absent some kind of government regulatory dysfunction.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
The plan has existed for a long time and it is worker ownership of the means of production. If the means of production is heavily AI based then that would be community ownership of the means of production, where everyone is co-owner in the bulk of the production systems they depend upon for survival. The problem is not that a plan doesn't exist! It's that powerful don't have the goal of enabling the plan, and they use their power to actively fight against it. I do not see that changing with the advent of more powerful computer systems.

by tyingq 3y ago

advisedwang 3y ago

Hah, many of the VC folks behind AI companies are fighting policies that would keep people out of poverty.

schrodinger 3y ago

Also—every new sufficiently advanced technology has been predicted to do this. If there's one thing humans are good at, it's finding the remaining jobs that computers _cannot_ do, and sometimes accelerating the now-obsolete jobs has a positive effect.

imiric 3y ago
Sure, but this has never happened at the scale and speed that it will with AI. We're inventing technology that will be capable of doing every creative, intellectual and physical task better than any human. This will have a far greater impact than when the telephone, car, or even computer were invented. Certain jobs have already been made obsolete practically overnight, and the writing is on the wall for many more. Society needs time to adjust, for new jobs to be created and people to be trained in them. We'll figure it out, but the transition period will be rough for many.
- semiquaver 3y ago
  > Certain jobs have already been made obsolete practically overnight Which jobs are you referring to?
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    Commercial illustrators are the first that come to mind.
    - imiric 3y ago
      I was thinking more in line of audio transcribers and copywriters. Visual art is more subjective, and humans are still highly valued in many cases. But maybe this will change soon as well.
mitthrowaway2 3y ago
> finding the remaining jobs that computers _cannot_ do Until a few years ago, this was "knowledge work". Creativity, empathy, imagination, communication, the work you do using your brain. Automation can replace human hands and muscles, you see, but not our minds. That's why education and upskilling is so important to dealing with the impact of automation on workers. ... Except now it's 2023 and AI has its crosshairs on both our minds and our hands. What else do human workers have to offer?

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Automating jobs is the thing that gets people out of poverty. The exception is when the regulatory environment prevents certain jobs from being automated or otherwise competitive, resulting in artificial scarcity of necessities. But then your problem isn't AI, it's market consolidation and regulatory capture.

anigbrowl 3y ago
No it isn't. It might work that way on a spreadsheet model, but in practice people whose jobs are automated away become unemployed. To the extent that their job was skillful, acquiring another skillset is likely to take a while. I suspect that there will also be a subtle kind fo discrimination attendant on this, with the assumption that if one was replaced by AI, one must not have been very good at the previous line of work. AI is manifestly not automating away the shittiest jobs like hand-digging for rare earth minerals, subsistence agriculture, sorting through garbage to collect recyclables and so on. It is being very disruptive to cottage industries like graphic design, tech consulting and the like. In some cases it will certainly free up providers to skip the boring stuff and move up market or serve a larger number of customers, but in other cases it's just going to make people redundant. For example, it's entirely practical right now to launch and run a greeting card company without ever hiring an artist.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > in practice people whose jobs are automated away become unemployed. And then the products they used to make become less expensive because they require less labor to produce, which reduces amount of pay or hours anyone needs to make a living. Meanwhile all of the people who didn't lose their jobs now have that much more disposable income, which they use to buy something else, which creates new jobs doing whatever it is they're buying with the money they saved. > AI is manifestly not automating away the shittiest jobs like hand-digging for rare earth minerals, subsistence agriculture, sorting through garbage to collect recyclables and so on. You're describing work that has been under heavy and increasing automation for decades. Farmers use combines and sophisticated irrigation systems. Miners use heavy machinery, not their hands. > It is being very disruptive to cottage industries like graphic design, tech consulting and the like. Obviously the people who used to do the thing being automated will have to do something else, but then they do something else. If there is a something else then that's fine (and this has been the historical norm), if there ever comes to be no something else then substantially everything has been automated and the cost of living should be negligible absent some kind of government regulatory dysfunction.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

The plan has existed for a long time and it is worker ownership of the means of production. If the means of production is heavily AI based then that would be community ownership of the means of production, where everyone is co-owner in the bulk of the production systems they depend upon for survival. The problem is not that a plan doesn't exist! It's that powerful don't have the goal of enabling the plan, and they use their power to actively fight against it. I do not see that changing with the advent of more powerful computer systems.