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What if the last available job ever is a soldier? I mean, if the only scarcity becomes about owning and having place to put the machines that work for you and n

by mrtksn 3y ago

What if the last available job ever is a soldier? I mean, if the only scarcity becomes about owning and having place to put the machines that work for you and no human work is better than the machine work maybe those who don't have AI to work for them will try to destroy those who have and seize the machines and the resources(energy, space, other machines). Maybe its a bit of a stretch but I don't believe that people will be like "oh crap, my skills don't make me a living anymore. bad luck, nothing I can do about it". Currently people in disadvantage(real or perceived) are already revolting against affirmative action and cheaper labor from abroad.

fnordpiglet 3y ago
If you look at modern warfare the drone is replacing the soldier already. That’ll only accelerate and multi modal generative AI will help that.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  True but the the current drones are made by people. If the thing beocmes a political movement, think a charismatic populist leader rallying people against the people with the smart machines, people can destroy the AI folks way before the AI folks can make machines that make other machines autonomously.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    If anything, history has gone in the opposite direction. The Luddites who broke into factories and smashed machines? Publicly executed. The same argument you’re making about automation could’ve been made 70 years ago before outsourcing was the norm. Those factory workers whose jobs were sold for pennies on the dollar? They will rise up against the factory owners. Actually, it turns out that racism is a pretty powerful distraction.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      Luddites might have lost but the governments and the industrialists also got lots of restraints against actual problems that the industrial revolution caused. Pensions, working condition requirements, environment protections, restrictions on child labour etc. Luddites were early reactionaries without a real solution to actual problems, then the world has seen successful movements that proposed workable solutions for the real problems. I don't believe even a bit that the progress can be stopped, can't even be slowed IMHO. However the society will be dramatically transformed and that transform wouldn't end as a libertarian dream world.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        The problem is the thinking that either stopping or slowing is obtainable or even desirable. “Progress” isn’t a single path thing. The goal is to progress in directions that minimize externalities and maximize benefit to all. Instead of trying to retard or stop a trend entirely, instead how can we counterbalance negative outcomes and direct its growth in a positive way? John Henry fought the steam digger and won, but it killed him. Fast forward to the present I don’t see tunnel projects unmanned - instead they’re covered in people working on various things. The difference is the people aren’t hired for their strong backs but for their strong mind and skill. Machines aren’t replacing people - they’re replacing the people doing the job now with new people doing an adjacent job. The churn in labor is definitely painful, but it’s disingenuous to say automation has eliminated work for humans. It’s just changing the nature of work. Finally, what’s so awesome about working? I welcome a time when humans are freed from the chains of toil. And if robots fight each other, as long as they do it away from people, that’s one job I’m thrilled to see end.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
If you resort to violence so will they to protect their property. If AGI becomes a thing, without political intervention, a lot of people will effectively be left out of the economy.
est31 3y ago
There is a thing in economics called "curse or resources", which is when a country discovers oil, diamonds, or some other rare mineral that can be easily recovered. One would think that's a good thing, because it brings jobs and wealth to the country. However, history shows that it's actually bad because it brings out the worst humans, the ones with the most greed and the most curel methods, and results in things like civil war, military dictatorships, and much higher wealth inequality than before. This is in contrast to the countries that are resource poor, they live from human labour instead and seem to have better development trajectory. Of course, there is an impact of influence from the west which benefits from cheap resources, but I'd argue that some of those effects come from the inside. I think that with AI, our societies will look more like some african country with warlords than the developed, labour based economies we have today. Does that mean that soldier is going to be the last job? AI is coming for those jobs too. Drones of various kinds are already used in today's wars, but they do certainly still have need for foot soldiers. I think that the emergence of AI will have a major impact on resource distribution questions in developed economies, which until now have distributed resources based on labour force. Without intervention, it will trend more towards distribution seen in countries with the curse of resources, which is more violent.
- alecco 3y ago
  Norway handled it pretty well.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  I agree but I think the solders will be the solders of the army that wants to seize the resources of the people with AI and themselves become people with AI. A temporary period until AI becomes AGI that can do everything, including building fighting machines. Then maybe can be anther period where people are trying to destroy AGI factories which build robots that fight humans.
- visarga 3y ago
  > I think that with AI, our societies will look more like some african country with warlords than the developed, labour based economies we have today. It's not the same. Oil and other extractable resources are not evenly spread. AI can be. You only need to train once the base models, but oil extraction is continual work. As for consumption - both resources and AI support diverse applications creating diverse jobs. AI has this interesting property that it adapts to the user by itself, the benefit flows mostly to the user as they prompt to solve their problems. The AI provider only gets cents per million tokens. When talking about job market comparing humans with AI is not very useful, humans will all have AI support, the real comparison will be between AI alone and AI+human.
visarga 3y ago
> no human work is better than the machine work never happened in any field, task or topic, domain experts >> AI

by mrtksn 3y ago

fnordpiglet 3y ago

If you look at modern warfare the drone is replacing the soldier already. That’ll only accelerate and multi modal generative AI will help that.

mrtksn 3y ago
True but the the current drones are made by people. If the thing beocmes a political movement, think a charismatic populist leader rallying people against the people with the smart machines, people can destroy the AI folks way before the AI folks can make machines that make other machines autonomously.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  If anything, history has gone in the opposite direction. The Luddites who broke into factories and smashed machines? Publicly executed. The same argument you’re making about automation could’ve been made 70 years ago before outsourcing was the norm. Those factory workers whose jobs were sold for pennies on the dollar? They will rise up against the factory owners. Actually, it turns out that racism is a pretty powerful distraction.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Luddites might have lost but the governments and the industrialists also got lots of restraints against actual problems that the industrial revolution caused. Pensions, working condition requirements, environment protections, restrictions on child labour etc. Luddites were early reactionaries without a real solution to actual problems, then the world has seen successful movements that proposed workable solutions for the real problems. I don't believe even a bit that the progress can be stopped, can't even be slowed IMHO. However the society will be dramatically transformed and that transform wouldn't end as a libertarian dream world.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      The problem is the thinking that either stopping or slowing is obtainable or even desirable. “Progress” isn’t a single path thing. The goal is to progress in directions that minimize externalities and maximize benefit to all. Instead of trying to retard or stop a trend entirely, instead how can we counterbalance negative outcomes and direct its growth in a positive way? John Henry fought the steam digger and won, but it killed him. Fast forward to the present I don’t see tunnel projects unmanned - instead they’re covered in people working on various things. The difference is the people aren’t hired for their strong backs but for their strong mind and skill. Machines aren’t replacing people - they’re replacing the people doing the job now with new people doing an adjacent job. The churn in labor is definitely painful, but it’s disingenuous to say automation has eliminated work for humans. It’s just changing the nature of work. Finally, what’s so awesome about working? I welcome a time when humans are freed from the chains of toil. And if robots fight each other, as long as they do it away from people, that’s one job I’m thrilled to see end.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago

If you resort to violence so will they to protect their property. If AGI becomes a thing, without political intervention, a lot of people will effectively be left out of the economy.

est31 3y ago

There is a thing in economics called "curse or resources", which is when a country discovers oil, diamonds, or some other rare mineral that can be easily recovered. One would think that's a good thing, because it brings jobs and wealth to the country. However, history shows that it's actually bad because it brings out the worst humans, the ones with the most greed and the most curel methods, and results in things like civil war, military dictatorships, and much higher wealth inequality than before. This is in contrast to the countries that are resource poor, they live from human labour instead and seem to have better development trajectory. Of course, there is an impact of influence from the west which benefits from cheap resources, but I'd argue that some of those effects come from the inside. I think that with AI, our societies will look more like some african country with warlords than the developed, labour based economies we have today. Does that mean that soldier is going to be the last job? AI is coming for those jobs too. Drones of various kinds are already used in today's wars, but they do certainly still have need for foot soldiers. I think that the emergence of AI will have a major impact on resource distribution questions in developed economies, which until now have distributed resources based on labour force. Without intervention, it will trend more towards distribution seen in countries with the curse of resources, which is more violent.

alecco 3y ago
Norway handled it pretty well.
mrtksn 3y ago
I agree but I think the solders will be the solders of the army that wants to seize the resources of the people with AI and themselves become people with AI. A temporary period until AI becomes AGI that can do everything, including building fighting machines. Then maybe can be anther period where people are trying to destroy AGI factories which build robots that fight humans.
visarga 3y ago
> I think that with AI, our societies will look more like some african country with warlords than the developed, labour based economies we have today. It's not the same. Oil and other extractable resources are not evenly spread. AI can be. You only need to train once the base models, but oil extraction is continual work. As for consumption - both resources and AI support diverse applications creating diverse jobs. AI has this interesting property that it adapts to the user by itself, the benefit flows mostly to the user as they prompt to solve their problems. The AI provider only gets cents per million tokens. When talking about job market comparing humans with AI is not very useful, humans will all have AI support, the real comparison will be between AI alone and AI+human.

visarga 3y ago

> no human work is better than the machine work never happened in any field, task or topic, domain experts >> AI