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AGI has become a philosophical term in the way you are using it. Which is fine to discuss philosophy, but to the point of the article, AI enabled automation is

AGI has become a philosophical term in the way you are using it. Which is fine to discuss philosophy, but to the point of the article, AI enabled automation is beginning to have significant impact on the economy due to the new functionality.

steveBK123 3y ago
Where have LLM AIs made measurable economic impacts that weren't already using some form of AI to start with (translation, legal, content farms, marketing, robotics)?
- gitfan86 3y ago
  SubReddits for copywriting and graphic design and digital art are full of people talking about how the amount of gig work available has dropped off.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Fair examples! Also, not to move the goal posts, but there has been a large economic shift since Q3 2022 with tech & finance belt tightening, inflation normalizing and generally slowing. So these things don't happen in a vacuum (which makes them hard to measure!). For example my previous & current employer have done their first layoffs since pre-pandemic, and neither has anything to do with AI. They just overexpanded and need to shrink.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Software developers on HN are saying the same thing. I don't see much evidence that AI has changed the game such that it would cause the work to dry up, though. In fact, I am surprised it hasn't created more work exploring the possibilities of new AI APIs. But when you can get 5% returns just by sticking your money in the bank, why would you bother investing in software, where 99¢ is considered an exorbitant cost by its customers? That is no doubt why all of these creative industries are on the decline. There is, generally speaking, no money to be made.
    - distortionfield 3y ago
      I think software devs on here are conflating AI with a hidden recession and other economic factors causing a slump in tech. I still can’t find a single thing that AI could reasonably replace about my job even if I was a junior developer. As a senior engineer using LLM tooling, it offers some benefits, but it’s still nowhere near “job stealing” capabilities.
      - electrondood 3y ago
        There's a new fallacy, where AI is dismissed if it "can't replace" a human completely. AI is more like an augmentation tool, that allows fewer people to create work faster by effectively outsourcing the grunt work. Better tools like Copilot and ChatGPT reduce the amount of time it takes to deliver a feature, reducing the need to horizontally scale developers. Why hire 10 when 3 could do the same work with AI tooling? I think while tech is obviously contracting post-COVID from overhiring, it's also true that you just don't need as many people anymore.
        randomdata 3y ago
        > Why hire 10 when 3 could do the same work with AI tooling? Why hire 3 when you can hire 10 to do the work of 33? It was only a couple of years ago when businesses were boasting "We can't possibly hire enough." But, of course, there isn't enough money to be made anymore, which is the real reason creative industries are on the decline.
mechagodzilla 3y ago
I think for us to say it's "beginning to have a significant impact on the economy", there needs to be an actual measurable increase in productivity due to AI-enabled automation, which so far has been elusive. It might be impacting employment in some specific jobs, but the mix of jobs in the economy is always constantly changing.
- gitfan86 3y ago
  Just because something is difficult to measure does not mean it doesn't exist. People who have automated their jobs are unlikely to report that, since they like having a paycheck. But that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
  - mechagodzilla 3y ago
    It's not difficult to measure though - we've been tracking total factor productivity of our economy for decades. Steam power, electrification, computers - all of these things had huge, measurable impacts on the amount of economic output vs input. No self-reporting (of what?) necessary. If AI means that companies are getting the same or more output from less input of labor and capital, productivity should be soaring right now.
    - gitfan86 3y ago
      Electrical output, number of units shipped can be measured. How do you measure the output of a DEI department? Now assume those people automated their jobs with Chat GPT. How would you measure the change in productivity?
    - mechagodzilla 3y ago
      @gitfan86 - You would measure that the same way productivity is always measured - The company's overall economic output would be unchanged, and their labor inputs would have decreased, so the total factor productivity would have increased by virtue of automating the DEI group (just the same as when companies used 'mail-merge' to automate large groups of people doing that work manually, for instance).

steveBK123 3y ago

Where have LLM AIs made measurable economic impacts that weren't already using some form of AI to start with (translation, legal, content farms, marketing, robotics)?

gitfan86 3y ago
SubReddits for copywriting and graphic design and digital art are full of people talking about how the amount of gig work available has dropped off.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Fair examples! Also, not to move the goal posts, but there has been a large economic shift since Q3 2022 with tech & finance belt tightening, inflation normalizing and generally slowing. So these things don't happen in a vacuum (which makes them hard to measure!). For example my previous & current employer have done their first layoffs since pre-pandemic, and neither has anything to do with AI. They just overexpanded and need to shrink.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Software developers on HN are saying the same thing. I don't see much evidence that AI has changed the game such that it would cause the work to dry up, though. In fact, I am surprised it hasn't created more work exploring the possibilities of new AI APIs. But when you can get 5% returns just by sticking your money in the bank, why would you bother investing in software, where 99¢ is considered an exorbitant cost by its customers? That is no doubt why all of these creative industries are on the decline. There is, generally speaking, no money to be made.
  - distortionfield 3y ago
    I think software devs on here are conflating AI with a hidden recession and other economic factors causing a slump in tech. I still can’t find a single thing that AI could reasonably replace about my job even if I was a junior developer. As a senior engineer using LLM tooling, it offers some benefits, but it’s still nowhere near “job stealing” capabilities.
    - electrondood 3y ago
      There's a new fallacy, where AI is dismissed if it "can't replace" a human completely. AI is more like an augmentation tool, that allows fewer people to create work faster by effectively outsourcing the grunt work. Better tools like Copilot and ChatGPT reduce the amount of time it takes to deliver a feature, reducing the need to horizontally scale developers. Why hire 10 when 3 could do the same work with AI tooling? I think while tech is obviously contracting post-COVID from overhiring, it's also true that you just don't need as many people anymore.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > Why hire 10 when 3 could do the same work with AI tooling? Why hire 3 when you can hire 10 to do the work of 33? It was only a couple of years ago when businesses were boasting "We can't possibly hire enough." But, of course, there isn't enough money to be made anymore, which is the real reason creative industries are on the decline.

mechagodzilla 3y ago

I think for us to say it's "beginning to have a significant impact on the economy", there needs to be an actual measurable increase in productivity due to AI-enabled automation, which so far has been elusive. It might be impacting employment in some specific jobs, but the mix of jobs in the economy is always constantly changing.

gitfan86 3y ago
Just because something is difficult to measure does not mean it doesn't exist. People who have automated their jobs are unlikely to report that, since they like having a paycheck. But that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
- mechagodzilla 3y ago
  It's not difficult to measure though - we've been tracking total factor productivity of our economy for decades. Steam power, electrification, computers - all of these things had huge, measurable impacts on the amount of economic output vs input. No self-reporting (of what?) necessary. If AI means that companies are getting the same or more output from less input of labor and capital, productivity should be soaring right now.
  - gitfan86 3y ago
    Electrical output, number of units shipped can be measured. How do you measure the output of a DEI department? Now assume those people automated their jobs with Chat GPT. How would you measure the change in productivity?
  - mechagodzilla 3y ago
    @gitfan86 - You would measure that the same way productivity is always measured - The company's overall economic output would be unchanged, and their labor inputs would have decreased, so the total factor productivity would have increased by virtue of automating the DEI group (just the same as when companies used 'mail-merge' to automate large groups of people doing that work manually, for instance).