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I think kids are a lot more prepared for this future than professional technologists probably realize. If you ask them today what profession they want to be, yo
by keiferski 3y ago
I think kids are a lot more prepared for this future than professional technologists probably realize. If you ask them today what profession they want to be, you often get “YouTuber” as an answer. Which might seem like a joke, but I think it’s actually quite accurate in terms of future professions. The jobs at most risk from AI are “anonymous” ones in which the creator of the work is unknown to its consumer. Writing, in a professional context, is a good example. Do you know who wrote the text on Amazon product pages? Probably not.
What is less at risk are charisma-based occupations, like actors or YouTubers. People are social animals and want to connect (or feel like they’re connected) to other humans, not robots. I expect the concept of an influencer to get even bigger.
Ergo, I would tell kids today to focus on social skills, filmmaking skills, and presentation skills.
- bo1024 3y agoYouTuber is a lottery-ticket profession. It's a winner-take-all, heavy-tailed distribution. It doesn't make sense to tell a whole population to buy lottery tickets. For kids, it's a modern equivalent of "I want to be in the NBA", "I want to be an astronaut".
- keiferski 3y agoYou are missing the point I’m making. Everyone won’t be a YouTuber. But the successful people will cultivate skills that are similar to those needed by successful YouTubers. Being an anonymous worker with anonymous output means you can be easily replaced.
- bo1024 3y agoAll of the examples you gave are lottery-ticket professions, though. And even if a large number of people could be successful entertainers, I'm not even sure about the premise. AI-generated media could compete with YouTubers very soon. AI will take a long, long time to replace garbagemen.
- keiferski 3y agoI think the markets for entertainment will grow as regular jobs become more redundant. Especially if we ever get a basic income. That will add a ton of time people are looking to fill. More generally though I’m just saying that the successful people of the future are the ones that understand how to connect to people via video/audio/in person; rather than relying on the anonymous code/writing/work that can be replaced by AI.
- czl 3y ago> AI will take a long, long time to replace garbagemen. In some places what holds this back is reliable AI driving. Single driver collection trucks doing all the work with robot arms are common in some places already and we are better for this physically difficult job being done by machines. Today society shares based on your work contribution and it is our sharing that must evolve when less and less work needs to be done.
- bo1024 3y ago> Today society shares based on your work contribution and it is our sharing that must evolve when less and less work needs to be done. Strong agree!
- j4yav 3y agoWhy would the vast majority of people watch a human YouTuber or other kind of charisma-based influencer when they can choose from infinite custom generated ones that always provide exactly the content they want at any time, look and act just like they want them to, and listen to feedback perfectly, and interact with them on a one on one basis?
- keiferski 3y agoFor the same reason people line up to get popular fashionable products that look the same as everyone else, when they could have an infinitely customized one for far less. The “customization” narrative is far too based on assumptions of individualism, and doesn’t factor in sociability at all.
- j4yav 3y agoThe potential difference I think is that you will be able to replace your social circle with people who behave to your preference. Advertising will be per person, rather than per segment, so that will fade as a unifying factor. I think once parents start putting AR goggles on their kids all bets are off about how social relationships with humans in your presence have some kind of primacy will fade away. That said, I do hope you’re right.
- ildjarn 3y agoYou don’t think AI generated content creators are a threat?
- keiferski 3y agoOnly in situations where the creator is anonymous or has a weak brand now. For creators that are functionally celebrities (I.e., successful YouTubers) people follow them because they like the human behind the video. I don’t see AI replacing that, potentially ever.
- dbish 3y agoThere are quite succesful vtubers fwiw, pretty easy to make those with AI in the near future.
- keiferski 3y agoI think it’s mostly a gimmick now, and even then, the channels with human beings that build a connection to their audience are more popular anyway.
- ildjarn 3y agoFor established creators, sure. But fast forward 10 years and imagine AI generated ones crowding out the human creators. Then how can humans get established in the first place?
- keiferski 3y agoYou already have companies like Google starting to crack down or limit ai generated stuff. It’s trivially easy for the companies controlling these channels to prefer human-made content.
- ardaoweo 3y agoI agree on social skills. However, I think that the most obvious job in the future is going to be nursing, which already has a severe labor shortage in most countries. Dropping birth rates ensure that there are always more old people to take care of than there are workers. We're also still a long way from cost-effective robotics that are reliable enough not to accidentally kill old people who need physical help in their daily lives. It's also a profession where mere human presence and social contact is valuable itself.