6 ms·

Microsoft, Google join study to see if AI will affect jobs

16 points by kungfudoi 3y ago

CharlesW 3y ago
Actual title: "Big Tech usually dismisses fears that AI kills jobs. Now it’s studying them." Many Big Tech companies are participating, with unions advising. The Cisco announcement is less clickbait-y: https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2024/m04/leading-companies-launch-consortium-to-address-ai-impact-on-the-technology-workforce.html https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2024/m04/le...
agentultra 3y ago
"AI," won't kill jobs. Profit-seeking capitalists will. Keeping executive pay high while returning dividends to shareholders means cutting out labour everywhere possible and keeping expenses down. "AI," is how they keep laying people off while "growing" the business. This seems similar to asking the O&G companies to self-report their methane emissions.
- kypro 3y ago
  If capitalism is the problem – what's the solution?
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Capitalism isn't the problem. There is no system which prevents the elite and powerful from taking advantage of the working class.
    - analognoise 3y ago
      This is defeatism and not true. Worker solidarity, political awareness, and effective political work is the solution. Start Boycotting (in the original sense, literally everyone pretend they’re ghosts) the people who cut jobs after making record profits. There’s a lot we can do.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > This is defeatism and not true. It is, though, as the problem is scarcity. So long as you have that, it is impossible to not end up in a situation where some people have things other people don't have. It doesn't go away simply by slightly changing the way people choose to organize. > Worker solidarity, political awareness, and effective political work is the solution. These are oft considered useful tools to help us achieve post-scarcity, but are not the solution in and of themselves. This is like saying that the hammer is the solution to the housing problem. Indeed, a hammer can help with solving the housing problem, but simply having a hammer doesn't get you there. You have to also hit the nail.
        analognoise 3y ago
        We have FORCED scarcity as is, not REAL scarcity, already - remember Grapes of Wrath? I think the way they took the venom out of that book was to make us all read it in high school, but it was right there: "And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth." We are currently ensuring scarcity to propagate the system and not "solving" the problem. We could also solve homelessness - we went to the moon. The solution is... to build housing. We FORCE homelessness on people to ensure them "participating" in the system.
        randomdata 3y ago
        > We have FORCED scarcity as is, not REAL scarcity, already That's what Cuba thought, with the people coming together under worker solitary and political awareness to create an explicit mandate to see the transition from forced scarcity to post-scarcity through. Ironically, many years later, there are few places with more scarcity. They had the tools. Yet, it seems they missed the nail. But they maintain the transition will happen any day now, so... We shall see. > We could also solve homelessness - we went to the moon. I don't know, the moon might be a nice place to visit, but is rather hostile as a place to live. You might want to give this a second thought. > The solution is... to build housing. A good idea in theory, but in practice requires people. We've completely failed to automate house production in any meaningful way despite a whole lot of trying. And who wants to subject themselves to that harsh environment when you can relax behind a computer screen instead? Construction is not exactly fun. I expect you aren't lining up to do it. I'm definitely not. The few who are willing to do it are booked up years in advance. They are already building as fast as they can.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Ending scarcity. The question is, as always, how to get there and if it is possible at all.
- yareal 3y ago
  This is the lesson of the Luddites all over again. The Luddites were highly skilled workers who just wanted to share in the prosperity the auto loom would bring. Capitalist factory owners said no, the improved productivity belongs to us, not split between workers and owners. So the Luddites wrecked the looms.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    The lesson of the Luddites is the mill owners had enough financial incentive to get the state to brutally suppress the Luddites. If AI pays off as is hoped, the incentive to suppress neo-Luddites would be even greater.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > So the Luddites wrecked the looms. And then went on to create computers, which made them far more powerful capitalists than the loom owners. Funny how things work out.
    - dns_snek 3y ago
      Who were these luddites that were involved in creating computers?
    - yareal 3y ago
      What?! Source?
- test6554 3y ago
  If you can't beat shareholders, join em.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > Profit-seeking capitalists will. I like how you say this as if it's some sort of slur. This is fundamentally how the world economy works, not some evil plot. And even if you have some problems with particular implementations of some brands of capitalism, "wanting to get the most value for the lowest cost", which is exactly what "profit-seeking capitalists" do, is a pretty universal human trait, from the CEO who decides he can lay off humans and replace them with AI, to the everyday consumer who decides they can use ChatGPT to plan things around a specific vacation destination instead of using a travel agent.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    We can absolutely set the market parameters to prevent this. 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined. Stock buybacks incentivize short term beahavior - and they used to be illegal! WE set the market parameters. We don’t have to just say “this is how it works”.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined. Does that say more about the five families or the 120 million other families in America? Wealth is, after all, created out of thin air. Paint a painting that other people like and you've created wealth. Likewise, stop liking the metaphorical paintings those five families have and their wealth vanishes. How did most Americans become so boring that five families are responsible for 50% of all that is considered desirable?
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      I totally agree, which is why I wrote "even if you have some problems with particular implementations of some brands of capitalism" - and I certainly have some problems with the American brand of capitalism. I just think it's silly to blame "profit-seeking capitalists", which is really just another word for "people who want to get the most value for the lowest cost", which is everybody.
smnrg 3y ago
"If." As if leadership did not already cut copywriters, designers, or accountants during the last rounds of "optimizations." And as if video productions don't increasingly use ElevenLabs to replace voice actors for any digital and broadcast video, paying $5 for what would have been talent work with usage rights worth $1,200/6mo. Plus agency fees. In the real world, it already happened.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  Of course people jumped on it, but will it last? They've effectively tried to offshore a bunch of positions to a digital world, but I don't think it's going to work out like they think it will.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    "Tried"? There are millions of people in India working for western companies.
- kurthr 3y ago
  I think it would be really hilarious if it was decided that since those were not human created they did not receive the benefit of copyright. Nice movie business you have there... shame if something bad were to happen to it. Nice code you have there, yes that employee can reuse it! Honestly, I don't see anyway to keep AI generated content from being distributed (on a worldwide basis), but perhaps it can be used to level the playing field for new players rather than building higher barriers for the entrenched "leaders".
  - smnrg 3y ago
    Lead generation marketing materials that make millions with a Facebook or Google campaign don't need copyright. Most livelihood for media and creatives doesn't come from entertainment, but in the form of ephemeral "content." Sadly, content copyright doesn't matter much to the companies that produce that.
  - herval 3y ago
Jean-Papoulos 3y ago
Aaaaaand the study is now worthless. Although maybe not entirely, it could give us some insight in the thought process at these companies, like how they view themselves and their role in society.
slingnow 3y ago
Thank god Microsoft and Google are on the case! I was thinking next, we should have Exxon Mobile study the effects of oil on the environment.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  we should have Exxon Mobile study the effects of oil on the environment It already did. In 1977 Exxon studied just that, and concluded that it will destroy the planet. But Exxon kept on drilling because of greed, demonstrating that its leaders care more about making money than killing people. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-12/exxonmobil-accurately-predicted-effects-of-global-warming https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-12/exxonmo...
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > But Exxon kept on drilling because of greed Drilling oil no reason other than to give people jobs seems more virtuous than greedy, no?
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      > Drilling oil no reason other than to give people jobs Here we learn that greed means a desire to give other people jobs. The things one learns.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        Well, greed usually refers to a selfish desire for things that other people also want... But since nobody else wants oil because of that whole killing people thing, clearly it's not greed.
        pfdietz 3y ago
        And now we learn no one wants oil. This is totally consistent with history and current market conditions!!1!
alecsm 3y ago
I find it hard to trust studies like these made by the same companies that provide the tech and have a lot at stake.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Basically all research, on any given topic, is done by people with some kind of stake.
- randomdata 3y ago
  They have a lot at stake on both sides of the coin. They need AI to succeed, but not so much that they lose their customer base. Google needs to be especially careful – ain't no advertiser buying up ad space to market to legions of unemployed people. But, no matter who is behind a study, trust doesn't even begin until replication has occurred.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  Seems wise to get out in front of the impending backlash.
lm28469 3y ago
NRA joins US army to determine if bullets affect people
icapybara 3y ago
I don't think it's going to be as bad as everyone is saying in this comment thread. Current AI's not accurate enough to replace most human work and only showing incremental improvements lately. A new technological strategy is probably needed to achieve human-level capability. The jobs at risk / already dead from AI are things like internet ghost writing / SEO spam writing and customer service roles for cheap companies. For the rest of us it's a (very useful) tool, not a competitor.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  I'd concur and also add one other aspect here. The reason a person hires a e.g. janitor is not because they themselves are incapable of janitorial work. It's because they have different tasks that they would prefer to dedicate their energy to. Even if there were absolutely perfect LLMs capable of e.g. generating code precisely to specification, you still end up with the issue of actually creating said specification, deploying the result, managing with various local constraints/limitations, updating all of this when it turns out there's an unforeseen issue, and so on. Even if its work that a wider range of people could do, it's still work that's going to need to be done, and it's not going to be done by a chatbot. So it seems that even for many jobs that LLMs could ostensibly replace, it's more likely to widen the labor pool rather than literally replace people. If anything it might increase the number of businesses and opportunities, because it would enable the breadth of domains that micro and small companies could perform in.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    It will widen the labor pool until it suddenly doesn’t anymore, right? “Horses Need Not Apply” was all about that - the point being new devices were introduced until suddenly horses became pets rather than working animals (on a farm), and our insistence that technological change creates new jobs (“creative destruction”) wasn’t well founded.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      I'm not arguing that more tech advances create more jobs. I'm arguing that what we're trying to automate would be insufficient to obsolete many of the jobs people fear it could, even if successful. And I think that's a very big if. Vehicles were quite unique in that they were capable of entirely replacing their predecessor for simple transportation tasks. But in e.g. software, the programming tasks LLMs may one day be able to carry out are but one aspect of the job. Getting back to janitors for instance, you're not going to replace a janitor with a roomba.
gmm1990 3y ago
Given the amount of investment in the space I'm surprised there isn't more concrete data available on how it will affect jobs.
Lariscus 3y ago
In other words, the companies set to gain the most from dismissing any fears about the negative effects of AI join forces to fund dubious research that argues in their favour.
maurimo 3y ago
Need to start enabling a pre-filtering of unbearably silly titles. This title raising the question of whether an elephant in a porcelain shop could possibly affect the porcelains.
MyFedora 3y ago
Misleading title. The source, Cisco, “[...] announced the launch of the AI-Enabled Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Workforce Consortium focused on upskilling and reskilling roles most likely to be impacted by AI.” So in other words: AI impacts jobs. Let's upskill and reskill roles most likely to be impacted by AI. ... the exact opposite of this title.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
garbanz0 3y ago
"Benefiting humanity" would be letting profits stay the same but giving an equal UBI salary to people who lose their jobs to this stuff. In its current state, the main thing AI does is hollow out the middle class. Who has access to the best models, and where does the money go when i.e. an entire customer support tier is let go?
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  > letting profits stay the same but giving an equal UBI salary to people who lose their jobs to this stuff. We didn't do that with computers in the '70s (which are also "AI"); why start now? ;D
  - Auracle 3y ago
    Computers, printing press, cars, electric tools, chainsaws…
stonks 3y ago
While GPT and other AI tools have been incredibly useful in work and outside work, we must consider the negative impact it has on the society. They promote their AI tools in such way that companies actively try to replace their employees with these tools, leading to more layoffs. Unemployment Insurance is either not enough, or in some cases people are ineligible to get it (I worked just over one quarter in NY and my application was rejected). There is no UBI (Universal Basic Income), also people who struggle with rent cannot get housing. OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft and others are causing layoffs and they are happy to do that because of greed (profits and prestige of having great products). While people are left struggling to survive. When these people have nothing left to live for there will be an increase in petty and violent crime and thus affect all people. We need better care for the people affected - housing, food, health care benefits and helping them get their next job by providing opportunities to advance their career / upskill or change career.
asdefghyk 3y ago
The mentioned companies will be trying VERY HARD to sway the result to the result they want, that's my opinion AND -We all know which way they want it swayed,

16 points by kungfudoi 3y ago

Actual title: "Big Tech usually dismisses fears that AI kills jobs. Now it’s studying them." Many Big Tech companies are participating, with unions advising. The Cisco announcement is less clickbait-y: https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2024/m04/leading-companies-launch-consortium-to-address-ai-impact-on-the-technology-workforce.html https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2024/m04/le...

agentultra 3y ago

"AI," won't kill jobs. Profit-seeking capitalists will. Keeping executive pay high while returning dividends to shareholders means cutting out labour everywhere possible and keeping expenses down. "AI," is how they keep laying people off while "growing" the business. This seems similar to asking the O&G companies to self-report their methane emissions.

kypro 3y ago
If capitalism is the problem – what's the solution?
- deelowe 3y ago
  Capitalism isn't the problem. There is no system which prevents the elite and powerful from taking advantage of the working class.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    This is defeatism and not true. Worker solidarity, political awareness, and effective political work is the solution. Start Boycotting (in the original sense, literally everyone pretend they’re ghosts) the people who cut jobs after making record profits. There’s a lot we can do.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > This is defeatism and not true. It is, though, as the problem is scarcity. So long as you have that, it is impossible to not end up in a situation where some people have things other people don't have. It doesn't go away simply by slightly changing the way people choose to organize. > Worker solidarity, political awareness, and effective political work is the solution. These are oft considered useful tools to help us achieve post-scarcity, but are not the solution in and of themselves. This is like saying that the hammer is the solution to the housing problem. Indeed, a hammer can help with solving the housing problem, but simply having a hammer doesn't get you there. You have to also hit the nail.
      - analognoise 3y ago
        We have FORCED scarcity as is, not REAL scarcity, already - remember Grapes of Wrath? I think the way they took the venom out of that book was to make us all read it in high school, but it was right there: "And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth." We are currently ensuring scarcity to propagate the system and not "solving" the problem. We could also solve homelessness - we went to the moon. The solution is... to build housing. We FORCE homelessness on people to ensure them "participating" in the system.
        randomdata 3y ago
        > We have FORCED scarcity as is, not REAL scarcity, already That's what Cuba thought, with the people coming together under worker solitary and political awareness to create an explicit mandate to see the transition from forced scarcity to post-scarcity through. Ironically, many years later, there are few places with more scarcity. They had the tools. Yet, it seems they missed the nail. But they maintain the transition will happen any day now, so... We shall see. > We could also solve homelessness - we went to the moon. I don't know, the moon might be a nice place to visit, but is rather hostile as a place to live. You might want to give this a second thought. > The solution is... to build housing. A good idea in theory, but in practice requires people. We've completely failed to automate house production in any meaningful way despite a whole lot of trying. And who wants to subject themselves to that harsh environment when you can relax behind a computer screen instead? Construction is not exactly fun. I expect you aren't lining up to do it. I'm definitely not. The few who are willing to do it are booked up years in advance. They are already building as fast as they can.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Ending scarcity. The question is, as always, how to get there and if it is possible at all.
yareal 3y ago
This is the lesson of the Luddites all over again. The Luddites were highly skilled workers who just wanted to share in the prosperity the auto loom would bring. Capitalist factory owners said no, the improved productivity belongs to us, not split between workers and owners. So the Luddites wrecked the looms.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The lesson of the Luddites is the mill owners had enough financial incentive to get the state to brutally suppress the Luddites. If AI pays off as is hoped, the incentive to suppress neo-Luddites would be even greater.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > So the Luddites wrecked the looms. And then went on to create computers, which made them far more powerful capitalists than the loom owners. Funny how things work out.
  - dns_snek 3y ago
    Who were these luddites that were involved in creating computers?
  - yareal 3y ago
    What?! Source?
test6554 3y ago
If you can't beat shareholders, join em.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> Profit-seeking capitalists will. I like how you say this as if it's some sort of slur. This is fundamentally how the world economy works, not some evil plot. And even if you have some problems with particular implementations of some brands of capitalism, "wanting to get the most value for the lowest cost", which is exactly what "profit-seeking capitalists" do, is a pretty universal human trait, from the CEO who decides he can lay off humans and replace them with AI, to the everyday consumer who decides they can use ChatGPT to plan things around a specific vacation destination instead of using a travel agent.
- analognoise 3y ago
  We can absolutely set the market parameters to prevent this. 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined. Stock buybacks incentivize short term beahavior - and they used to be illegal! WE set the market parameters. We don’t have to just say “this is how it works”.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined. Does that say more about the five families or the 120 million other families in America? Wealth is, after all, created out of thin air. Paint a painting that other people like and you've created wealth. Likewise, stop liking the metaphorical paintings those five families have and their wealth vanishes. How did most Americans become so boring that five families are responsible for 50% of all that is considered desirable?
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I totally agree, which is why I wrote "even if you have some problems with particular implementations of some brands of capitalism" - and I certainly have some problems with the American brand of capitalism. I just think it's silly to blame "profit-seeking capitalists", which is really just another word for "people who want to get the most value for the lowest cost", which is everybody.

smnrg 3y ago

"If." As if leadership did not already cut copywriters, designers, or accountants during the last rounds of "optimizations." And as if video productions don't increasingly use ElevenLabs to replace voice actors for any digital and broadcast video, paying $5 for what would have been talent work with usage rights worth $1,200/6mo. Plus agency fees. In the real world, it already happened.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Of course people jumped on it, but will it last? They've effectively tried to offshore a bunch of positions to a digital world, but I don't think it's going to work out like they think it will.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  "Tried"? There are millions of people in India working for western companies.
kurthr 3y ago
I think it would be really hilarious if it was decided that since those were not human created they did not receive the benefit of copyright. Nice movie business you have there... shame if something bad were to happen to it. Nice code you have there, yes that employee can reuse it! Honestly, I don't see anyway to keep AI generated content from being distributed (on a worldwide basis), but perhaps it can be used to level the playing field for new players rather than building higher barriers for the entrenched "leaders".
- smnrg 3y ago
  Lead generation marketing materials that make millions with a Facebook or Google campaign don't need copyright. Most livelihood for media and creatives doesn't come from entertainment, but in the form of ephemeral "content." Sadly, content copyright doesn't matter much to the companies that produce that.
- herval 3y ago

Jean-Papoulos 3y ago

Aaaaaand the study is now worthless. Although maybe not entirely, it could give us some insight in the thought process at these companies, like how they view themselves and their role in society.

slingnow 3y ago

Thank god Microsoft and Google are on the case! I was thinking next, we should have Exxon Mobile study the effects of oil on the environment.

reaperducer 3y ago
we should have Exxon Mobile study the effects of oil on the environment It already did. In 1977 Exxon studied just that, and concluded that it will destroy the planet. But Exxon kept on drilling because of greed, demonstrating that its leaders care more about making money than killing people. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-12/exxonmobil-accurately-predicted-effects-of-global-warming https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-12/exxonmo...
- randomdata 3y ago
  > But Exxon kept on drilling because of greed Drilling oil no reason other than to give people jobs seems more virtuous than greedy, no?
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > Drilling oil no reason other than to give people jobs Here we learn that greed means a desire to give other people jobs. The things one learns.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      Well, greed usually refers to a selfish desire for things that other people also want... But since nobody else wants oil because of that whole killing people thing, clearly it's not greed.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        And now we learn no one wants oil. This is totally consistent with history and current market conditions!!1!

alecsm 3y ago

I find it hard to trust studies like these made by the same companies that provide the tech and have a lot at stake.

HPsquared 3y ago
Basically all research, on any given topic, is done by people with some kind of stake.
randomdata 3y ago
They have a lot at stake on both sides of the coin. They need AI to succeed, but not so much that they lose their customer base. Google needs to be especially careful – ain't no advertiser buying up ad space to market to legions of unemployed people. But, no matter who is behind a study, trust doesn't even begin until replication has occurred.
2devnull 3y ago
Seems wise to get out in front of the impending backlash.

lm28469 3y ago

NRA joins US army to determine if bullets affect people

icapybara 3y ago

I don't think it's going to be as bad as everyone is saying in this comment thread. Current AI's not accurate enough to replace most human work and only showing incremental improvements lately. A new technological strategy is probably needed to achieve human-level capability. The jobs at risk / already dead from AI are things like internet ghost writing / SEO spam writing and customer service roles for cheap companies. For the rest of us it's a (very useful) tool, not a competitor.

somenameforme 3y ago
I'd concur and also add one other aspect here. The reason a person hires a e.g. janitor is not because they themselves are incapable of janitorial work. It's because they have different tasks that they would prefer to dedicate their energy to. Even if there were absolutely perfect LLMs capable of e.g. generating code precisely to specification, you still end up with the issue of actually creating said specification, deploying the result, managing with various local constraints/limitations, updating all of this when it turns out there's an unforeseen issue, and so on. Even if its work that a wider range of people could do, it's still work that's going to need to be done, and it's not going to be done by a chatbot. So it seems that even for many jobs that LLMs could ostensibly replace, it's more likely to widen the labor pool rather than literally replace people. If anything it might increase the number of businesses and opportunities, because it would enable the breadth of domains that micro and small companies could perform in.
- analognoise 3y ago
  It will widen the labor pool until it suddenly doesn’t anymore, right? “Horses Need Not Apply” was all about that - the point being new devices were introduced until suddenly horses became pets rather than working animals (on a farm), and our insistence that technological change creates new jobs (“creative destruction”) wasn’t well founded.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    I'm not arguing that more tech advances create more jobs. I'm arguing that what we're trying to automate would be insufficient to obsolete many of the jobs people fear it could, even if successful. And I think that's a very big if. Vehicles were quite unique in that they were capable of entirely replacing their predecessor for simple transportation tasks. But in e.g. software, the programming tasks LLMs may one day be able to carry out are but one aspect of the job. Getting back to janitors for instance, you're not going to replace a janitor with a roomba.

gmm1990 3y ago

Given the amount of investment in the space I'm surprised there isn't more concrete data available on how it will affect jobs.

Lariscus 3y ago

In other words, the companies set to gain the most from dismissing any fears about the negative effects of AI join forces to fund dubious research that argues in their favour.

maurimo 3y ago

Need to start enabling a pre-filtering of unbearably silly titles. This title raising the question of whether an elephant in a porcelain shop could possibly affect the porcelains.

MyFedora 3y ago

Misleading title. The source, Cisco, “[...] announced the launch of the AI-Enabled Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Workforce Consortium focused on upskilling and reskilling roles most likely to be impacted by AI.” So in other words: AI impacts jobs. Let's upskill and reskill roles most likely to be impacted by AI. ... the exact opposite of this title.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

garbanz0 3y ago

"Benefiting humanity" would be letting profits stay the same but giving an equal UBI salary to people who lose their jobs to this stuff. In its current state, the main thing AI does is hollow out the middle class. Who has access to the best models, and where does the money go when i.e. an entire customer support tier is let go?

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
> letting profits stay the same but giving an equal UBI salary to people who lose their jobs to this stuff. We didn't do that with computers in the '70s (which are also "AI"); why start now? ;D
- Auracle 3y ago
  Computers, printing press, cars, electric tools, chainsaws…

stonks 3y ago

While GPT and other AI tools have been incredibly useful in work and outside work, we must consider the negative impact it has on the society. They promote their AI tools in such way that companies actively try to replace their employees with these tools, leading to more layoffs. Unemployment Insurance is either not enough, or in some cases people are ineligible to get it (I worked just over one quarter in NY and my application was rejected). There is no UBI (Universal Basic Income), also people who struggle with rent cannot get housing. OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft and others are causing layoffs and they are happy to do that because of greed (profits and prestige of having great products). While people are left struggling to survive. When these people have nothing left to live for there will be an increase in petty and violent crime and thus affect all people. We need better care for the people affected - housing, food, health care benefits and helping them get their next job by providing opportunities to advance their career / upskill or change career.

asdefghyk 3y ago

The mentioned companies will be trying VERY HARD to sway the result to the result they want, that's my opinion AND -We all know which way they want it swayed,