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I became a parent about a year ago, completely unprepared for this future. My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffre

I became a parent about a year ago, completely unprepared for this future. My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffrey Hinton interviews which were really apocalyptic sounding, he is has a kind of kookie mad scientist vibe about him too. I remember thinking, like what the fuck just happened? Like I just woke up in a movie. I've learned to accept the situation, and realize that we can't really predict what will happen so I just try be the best, happiest parent I can to my kids that I can. But I never anticipated the "along for the ride" feeling I have now. Financially planning for 3 years ahead seems quite impossible as I have no idea what type of employment will or will not exist then. It seems like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. I say "seems like" because I have no idea if that's real or perceived but it's very hard plan ahead. I'm kind of glad my child didn't just finished university and planning a career in something that is ripe for disruption because that must be pretty heart breaking, especially because we bring kids up thinking they need a purpose, having a purpose (in my opinion) is a stupid way to live, but not everyone feels that way. I can't help feel a bit cynical too, like I'm kind of annoyed that realistically, the tech elite of the world are just throwing money at this thing like it's no one else' business and fuck what anyone else thinks about it and fuck how it might impact anyone else because, progress, which at the moment, is code for, "we're about to make copious amounts of money using everyone's IP, a bunch of open source software, and we might give something back, so fuck off. I'm trying to put the cynicism down, look forwards and hope for the best.

bbor 3y ago
It seems like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. You’ve likely heard this sentiment before but it’s the right one so I’ll be the one to post it today: your job is not your purpose, and the economy is not the society. Obviously your whole comment is well founded and relatable, but I think this is the only cure for your anxieties. The world is a beautiful, beautiful place, with many more wonders to offer than the typical laborer is accustomed to. If we eventually have a society where everyone is happy with what they have and there’s no work left to do, that would be a cause for celebration IMO. This is all assuming that the intelligence explosion people are wrong. If they’re right… well, let’s hope they’re wrong.
- RobinL 3y ago
  I think this is subjective. I get a sense of purpose from my job. I don't feel like 'just' a labourer, I feel like by working I'm contributing to society and helping others. I don't want infinite leisure, I want to feel useful. A good day's work is very satisfying. But at the point machines can do my job better than I can, it might be difficult to feel useful.
  - inference-lord 3y ago
    It's called dignity and it's something people struggle with a LOT when they age. "Don't worry grandad, I'll mow the lawn".
  - tayo42 3y ago
    What happens to your purpose when you get fired, laid off, company goes out of business? I would be really surprised if there was anything more then a fringe minority that found a sense of purpose from their job.
    - RobinL 3y ago
      For me, it's about having a job I enjoy and feel like I'm good at. Which would apply to most of the jobs I've done. So in those circumstances I'd just get a new job, there are lots of roles and industries that interest me. The problem would occur if I was unemployed and unemployable because my skills (or any new skills I could conceivably learn) were no longer valuable.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- inference-lord 3y ago
  What do you suppose we all do during the transition to utopia? How do we feed our families once we've been laid off and while we wait for the arrival of paradise? People already going through this now.
  - 3y ago
alumic 3y ago
I drove around today listening to the most recent Lex Fridman podcast, in which the founder of Boston Dynamics was describing replacing human labor with machines that were capable of learning by seeing. I have family in the trades. I pursued tech and fell in love with the field. Listening to the interviewee, I began to feel sick to my stomach at the glib description of what amounts to ripping away peoples' livelihoods with plasticized fingers. Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two. How easy it must be for Sam Altman to drag the world kicking and screaming into the future. How pretty his offices.
- bbor 3y ago
  Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two. I’m gonna say there’s a very very selective “we” in use here. I’m sure you’re accurately reporting your surroundings, but many people outside America (and a few within it!) are very much already there. Plus, like, isn’t that kinda depressing? What are disabled people “worth”? If I choose to be an unpopular niche artist, am I “worth” less?
  - j4yav 3y ago
    Artists seem like they are first up for replacement, no?
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      That is one way of looking at it. The other is that we are now all artists. And GAI's are not our end, they are our future, our mind children - just another generation eclipsing and replacing their predecessors. Just eclipsing and replacing faster. I say this with all humor, but some seriousness stoicism may be the healthiest way to process what is happening.
      - j4yav 3y ago
        We are all artists in the sense that we type what we want into the text box? I think that’s more just another form of consumer than an artist.
Swizec 3y ago
> It seems like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. I say "seems like" because I have no idea if that's real or perceived but it's very hard plan ahead. If the average business leader remains as unable to precisely express their desires as they are now, our jobs will be just fine. 80% of the work is in the wisdom and experience to ask the right questions to tease out what people really want and consolidate their conflicting desires.
safety1st 3y ago
I'm not going to worry too much about my career being snuffed out by AI until AI actually exists. Right now we have LLMs and they're a very far cry from any form of AI that could replace a software engineer wholesale. In my little corner of the software engineering universe I have not seen any credible hiring manager say they were going to fire developers and replace them with LLMs (I have seen this threat from one or two of the least credible and least successful hiring managers I know, which I think speaks volumes). Here is what I would worry about, as a software engineer if you are not using an LLM as part of your workflow and using it well, yeah you may ultimately lose your job and you may even deserve to lose it. Despite their flaws they're immensely powerful simply because they represent a whole new class of tooling. The tools in this industry change all the time and you never get to stop learning, this is just another example. But how someone could look at all this and have it factor into their decisions about whether to have children... is beyond me. I think that person has to be living in the realm of speculative fiction, not in the present material universe. We don't have AI. We don't really have a clear path to the general AI that would be a thing you could just swap in for a random employee. I don't know who this chick is who wrote this article, I hate to throw shade but she's like a young mother who thinks about things and is worried? What is her specific experience with hiring and with AI? "Fire and replace with AI" is not a real hiring trend. I don't even think the software industry as we know it is under threat... I think LLMs might 10x our productivity when we iron out the kinks but the demand for more software in the world will simply grow with them. I am referring to Marc Andreessen's observation about a decade ago that "software is eating the world," this is still the case, there is no sign that the demand for software is declining, if anything it's increasing, so if we learn to make software cheaper with robot helpers it's unlikely the dev job market is going to be decimated (sure maybe it could stagnate but a job market in the doldrums is hardly a reason to not have a kid or the start of the apocalypse).
- threedark 3y ago
  >I think LLMs might 10x our productivity Think about this logically. Assuming demand for software engineers remain the same this reduces available jobs by 10x when the productivity of one engineer goes up by 10x. > there is no sign that the demand for software is declining There's been layoffs. Tons of layoffs. I'm curious how many people actually still agree with your positive sentiment. At one point I would call it 50%, but now I think it's past that. I think the view point is largely shifting.
seabird 3y ago
Not to minimize your concerns, but as it stands, AI is replacing dick-all in the near term. Wondering what employment will exist in 3 years is a tad silly. This shit is confidently wrong without a tinge of doubt and the mitigation for that is babysitting to the point where nothing but the most trivial jobs can be entrusted to it. I wouldn't sweat it robbing you of your career when it can't even recite airline ticket policy properly.
- threedark 3y ago
  >I wouldn't sweat it robbing you of your career when it can't even recite airline ticket policy properly. It's way past this. Not a tad bit silly at all. Come on. It's not ready to replace are jobs as of now, but it's remarkably close. To be honest your view point of utter total confidence when LLMs blew past the turing test causing everybody to reset the goal posts is imho much more silly and I mean to say this with no offense at all... which is Fair given you used the term as well.
- maeil 3y ago
  I'm witnessing LLM-based workflows (that would not have been possible 2 years ago) being developed as we speak that will make thousands of jobs obselete. I have colleagues working on multiple such applications and they're very much on track and some of them will be completed soon. And this is just the start. It's very much real and happening.
- textbookrental 3y ago
  I get this feeling that AI might be like full self driving in 2016. Elon said in months it would be solved. It seemed like it might be true, but it wasn't. One thing I definitely know is that no middle manager is showing up to work on Monday saying they could replace their team with an LLM. Every person that manages a team will fight to keep their status.
microtonal 3y ago
My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffrey Hinton interviews which were really apocalyptic sounding, he is has a kind of kookie mad scientist vibe about him too. Our daughter is ten and when it comes to AI and stuff, I am not worried about our kids. It's us who will suffer most from it. Remember when you were young and had to explain your parents over and over again how the remote worked? Your kid is going to do that to you. Not explaining remote, but explaining the new world, which is going to be completely foreign to you but native to them. I already see these dynamics, and I'm someone who is in tech. It's not just the technology that changes, but the socio-cultural frame of reference changes with it too and it's harder and harder to connect with it as an older person. For her I am more worried about the large-scale war that started on the European continent and potential break-down of the existing world order when the orange guy gets elected. He is already actively undermining Article 5 of the NATO charter. Casting any doubt on Article 5 pretty much makes it worthless. Once that happens, dominos might start to fall. With the US out, Putin will try poking at some countries that are hard to defend (Baltic states) or countries that people in Western Europe might not want to sacrifice their lives for because they feel less connected (Bulgaria, Romania). A bewildered Europe that will feel deserted by the US will be too occupied with its own issues or even strengthen ties to China (who still have Russia on a leash to some extend). China might feel more emboldened about the collapse of traditional pacts and try to attack Taiwan, etc. Not saying that this is the way it will play out, but there is a very large risk of slipping into a world war, especially if the US becomes more isolationist. And people will laugh about a bunch of hackers worrying in 2024 about AI taking over the world. (Well, war and climate change are going to be the enormous issues for our children's generation if we don't start fixing things soon.)
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > but explaining the new world, which is going to be completely foreign to you It might be different this time, if we are looking at accelerating higher order change. Human's have a speed limit. AI progress doesn't, and its rate of improvement is going to surpass the rate any human child can learn. Crossing major thresholds tends to break previous patterns. (Not trying to be downer. Just trying to understand what may happen, regardless of whether I like it or not.)

bbor 3y ago

It seems like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. You’ve likely heard this sentiment before but it’s the right one so I’ll be the one to post it today: your job is not your purpose, and the economy is not the society. Obviously your whole comment is well founded and relatable, but I think this is the only cure for your anxieties. The world is a beautiful, beautiful place, with many more wonders to offer than the typical laborer is accustomed to. If we eventually have a society where everyone is happy with what they have and there’s no work left to do, that would be a cause for celebration IMO. This is all assuming that the intelligence explosion people are wrong. If they’re right… well, let’s hope they’re wrong.

RobinL 3y ago
I think this is subjective. I get a sense of purpose from my job. I don't feel like 'just' a labourer, I feel like by working I'm contributing to society and helping others. I don't want infinite leisure, I want to feel useful. A good day's work is very satisfying. But at the point machines can do my job better than I can, it might be difficult to feel useful.
- inference-lord 3y ago
  It's called dignity and it's something people struggle with a LOT when they age. "Don't worry grandad, I'll mow the lawn".
- tayo42 3y ago
  What happens to your purpose when you get fired, laid off, company goes out of business? I would be really surprised if there was anything more then a fringe minority that found a sense of purpose from their job.
  - RobinL 3y ago
    For me, it's about having a job I enjoy and feel like I'm good at. Which would apply to most of the jobs I've done. So in those circumstances I'd just get a new job, there are lots of roles and industries that interest me. The problem would occur if I was unemployed and unemployable because my skills (or any new skills I could conceivably learn) were no longer valuable.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
inference-lord 3y ago
What do you suppose we all do during the transition to utopia? How do we feed our families once we've been laid off and while we wait for the arrival of paradise? People already going through this now.
- 3y ago

alumic 3y ago

I drove around today listening to the most recent Lex Fridman podcast, in which the founder of Boston Dynamics was describing replacing human labor with machines that were capable of learning by seeing. I have family in the trades. I pursued tech and fell in love with the field. Listening to the interviewee, I began to feel sick to my stomach at the glib description of what amounts to ripping away peoples' livelihoods with plasticized fingers. Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two. How easy it must be for Sam Altman to drag the world kicking and screaming into the future. How pretty his offices.

bbor 3y ago
Work is equivalent to worth. We are not biologically or sociologically prepared to differentiate the two. I’m gonna say there’s a very very selective “we” in use here. I’m sure you’re accurately reporting your surroundings, but many people outside America (and a few within it!) are very much already there. Plus, like, isn’t that kinda depressing? What are disabled people “worth”? If I choose to be an unpopular niche artist, am I “worth” less?
- j4yav 3y ago
  Artists seem like they are first up for replacement, no?
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    That is one way of looking at it. The other is that we are now all artists. And GAI's are not our end, they are our future, our mind children - just another generation eclipsing and replacing their predecessors. Just eclipsing and replacing faster. I say this with all humor, but some seriousness stoicism may be the healthiest way to process what is happening.
    - j4yav 3y ago
      We are all artists in the sense that we type what we want into the text box? I think that’s more just another form of consumer than an artist.

Swizec 3y ago

> It seems like our careers could just be snuffed out instantly with little recourse available. I say "seems like" because I have no idea if that's real or perceived but it's very hard plan ahead. If the average business leader remains as unable to precisely express their desires as they are now, our jobs will be just fine. 80% of the work is in the wisdom and experience to ask the right questions to tease out what people really want and consolidate their conflicting desires.

safety1st 3y ago

I'm not going to worry too much about my career being snuffed out by AI until AI actually exists. Right now we have LLMs and they're a very far cry from any form of AI that could replace a software engineer wholesale. In my little corner of the software engineering universe I have not seen any credible hiring manager say they were going to fire developers and replace them with LLMs (I have seen this threat from one or two of the least credible and least successful hiring managers I know, which I think speaks volumes). Here is what I would worry about, as a software engineer if you are not using an LLM as part of your workflow and using it well, yeah you may ultimately lose your job and you may even deserve to lose it. Despite their flaws they're immensely powerful simply because they represent a whole new class of tooling. The tools in this industry change all the time and you never get to stop learning, this is just another example. But how someone could look at all this and have it factor into their decisions about whether to have children... is beyond me. I think that person has to be living in the realm of speculative fiction, not in the present material universe. We don't have AI. We don't really have a clear path to the general AI that would be a thing you could just swap in for a random employee. I don't know who this chick is who wrote this article, I hate to throw shade but she's like a young mother who thinks about things and is worried? What is her specific experience with hiring and with AI? "Fire and replace with AI" is not a real hiring trend. I don't even think the software industry as we know it is under threat... I think LLMs might 10x our productivity when we iron out the kinks but the demand for more software in the world will simply grow with them. I am referring to Marc Andreessen's observation about a decade ago that "software is eating the world," this is still the case, there is no sign that the demand for software is declining, if anything it's increasing, so if we learn to make software cheaper with robot helpers it's unlikely the dev job market is going to be decimated (sure maybe it could stagnate but a job market in the doldrums is hardly a reason to not have a kid or the start of the apocalypse).

threedark 3y ago
>I think LLMs might 10x our productivity Think about this logically. Assuming demand for software engineers remain the same this reduces available jobs by 10x when the productivity of one engineer goes up by 10x. > there is no sign that the demand for software is declining There's been layoffs. Tons of layoffs. I'm curious how many people actually still agree with your positive sentiment. At one point I would call it 50%, but now I think it's past that. I think the view point is largely shifting.

seabird 3y ago

Not to minimize your concerns, but as it stands, AI is replacing dick-all in the near term. Wondering what employment will exist in 3 years is a tad silly. This shit is confidently wrong without a tinge of doubt and the mitigation for that is babysitting to the point where nothing but the most trivial jobs can be entrusted to it. I wouldn't sweat it robbing you of your career when it can't even recite airline ticket policy properly.

threedark 3y ago
>I wouldn't sweat it robbing you of your career when it can't even recite airline ticket policy properly. It's way past this. Not a tad bit silly at all. Come on. It's not ready to replace are jobs as of now, but it's remarkably close. To be honest your view point of utter total confidence when LLMs blew past the turing test causing everybody to reset the goal posts is imho much more silly and I mean to say this with no offense at all... which is Fair given you used the term as well.
maeil 3y ago
I'm witnessing LLM-based workflows (that would not have been possible 2 years ago) being developed as we speak that will make thousands of jobs obselete. I have colleagues working on multiple such applications and they're very much on track and some of them will be completed soon. And this is just the start. It's very much real and happening.
textbookrental 3y ago
I get this feeling that AI might be like full self driving in 2016. Elon said in months it would be solved. It seemed like it might be true, but it wasn't. One thing I definitely know is that no middle manager is showing up to work on Monday saying they could replace their team with an LLM. Every person that manages a team will fight to keep their status.

microtonal 3y ago

My Son was born around the time ChatGPT-4 was released and I remember all the Geoffrey Hinton interviews which were really apocalyptic sounding, he is has a kind of kookie mad scientist vibe about him too. Our daughter is ten and when it comes to AI and stuff, I am not worried about our kids. It's us who will suffer most from it. Remember when you were young and had to explain your parents over and over again how the remote worked? Your kid is going to do that to you. Not explaining remote, but explaining the new world, which is going to be completely foreign to you but native to them. I already see these dynamics, and I'm someone who is in tech. It's not just the technology that changes, but the socio-cultural frame of reference changes with it too and it's harder and harder to connect with it as an older person. For her I am more worried about the large-scale war that started on the European continent and potential break-down of the existing world order when the orange guy gets elected. He is already actively undermining Article 5 of the NATO charter. Casting any doubt on Article 5 pretty much makes it worthless. Once that happens, dominos might start to fall. With the US out, Putin will try poking at some countries that are hard to defend (Baltic states) or countries that people in Western Europe might not want to sacrifice their lives for because they feel less connected (Bulgaria, Romania). A bewildered Europe that will feel deserted by the US will be too occupied with its own issues or even strengthen ties to China (who still have Russia on a leash to some extend). China might feel more emboldened about the collapse of traditional pacts and try to attack Taiwan, etc. Not saying that this is the way it will play out, but there is a very large risk of slipping into a world war, especially if the US becomes more isolationist. And people will laugh about a bunch of hackers worrying in 2024 about AI taking over the world. (Well, war and climate change are going to be the enormous issues for our children's generation if we don't start fixing things soon.)

Nevermark 3y ago
> but explaining the new world, which is going to be completely foreign to you It might be different this time, if we are looking at accelerating higher order change. Human's have a speed limit. AI progress doesn't, and its rate of improvement is going to surpass the rate any human child can learn. Crossing major thresholds tends to break previous patterns. (Not trying to be downer. Just trying to understand what may happen, regardless of whether I like it or not.)