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This is not putting people out of a job, this is changing their jobs. As always, workforce will adapt. Just like all previous tech, this is trying to improve ef

This is not putting people out of a job, this is changing their jobs. As always, workforce will adapt. Just like all previous tech, this is trying to improve efficiency. LLM can't do "anything" on a computer that's a misunderstanding of the tech but they can already interface with screen/keyboard. You overestimate the innovations abilities of big tech companies. They'll buy a lot of companies designing robots that are putting nuts and bolts together, or diagnostics, that's a great opportunity.

ben_w 2y ago
> As always, workforce will adapt I was never a fan of the term "Singularity" for the AI thing. When mathematical singularities pop up in physics, it's usually a sign the physics is missing something. Instead, I like to think of the AI "event horizon", the point in the future — always ahead, yet getting ever closer — beyond which you can no longer predict what happens next. Obviously that will depend on how much attention you pay to the developments in the field (and I've seen software developers surprised by Google Translate having an AR mode a decade after the tech was first demonstrated), but there is an upper limit even for people who obsessively consume all public information about a topic: if you're reading about it when you go to sleep, will you be surprised when you wake up by all the overnight developments? When that happens, no workforce can possibly adapt. How close is that? Dunno, but what I can say is that I cannot tell you what to expect 2 months from now, despite following developments in this field as best I can from the outside, and occasionally implementing one or other of the recent-ish AI models myself.
- cryptonym 2y ago
  You don't ask people to know everything about last tech, they just need to do their job. If a new cool tool benefit is high enough, everybody will know about it and use it. Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. With industrialisation, one man with some steam could suddenly do the work of thousands, and it expanded to each and every activity. Multiple "event horizon" later (transport, communication, IT), we are still there with everyone working, differently than previous generations, but still working. We improved a bit reducing child labor but doubled the workforce by including women and we always need more people at work for longer time. The only constant thing is we keep people at work until we figure out how to burn the last remaining atom. People are far too optimistic believing a new tech will move people away from work.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. In every case I showed it to people, they were amazed and delighted because it absolutely did matter to them. This may be a biased sample because of how many of my colleagues (like myself) didn't speak German very well despite being in Berlin, but it was definitely the case that they benefited from me showing them a thing invented a decade earlier. > Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. No: an event horizon is always ahead of you. That's why I'm choosing that name and rejecting the other. You can wake up to the news the world has changed unpredictably, or the stuff you thought was scifi turned out to be possible, but it doesn't happen every day, and even less so with your* job in particular. * generic "you" More common is e.g.: radio was invented, and almost immediately people started predicting that by 2000 there would be video conference calling — fiction writers can see possible futures coming well before it's possible. Plus some futures that aren't possible, of course. Radioactivity gets discovered, Victorian fiction talks about it being weaponised. Incorrectly as it happens, but it was foreseeable. When I was a kid, phone numbers were 6 digits, and "long distance" meant the next town over. It getting better and cheaper was predictable and predicted, as were personal videophones. Even the original iPhone wasn't much of a step change from everything around it, and no single update to the iPhone was either. Sputnik? Led to Star Trek, which even in TOS had characters using tablet computers that wouldn't be realised for 40-50 years. AI? The fiction is everything and anything from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream to The Culture, via Her, The Terminator, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Short Circuit, and Isaac Asimov, and the attempts to do "real" predictions are even more diverse and include precursors for each scenario and what to expect on the way. Nobody knows how close any of the speculation is, or how soon it is assuming it's right, or even when specific things such as full self drive is coming (despite being in 80s TV). We don't know how long it will take between FSD and humanoid robots passing same legal/safety standard (despite everyone already being familiar with the ideas since The Jetsons) or what having them would mean in practice. We don't even know what we're getting from the AI labs as soon as the US election is over. From what I've heard, neither do they.
moralestapia 2y ago
I don't know why you're downvoted, you are correct. People just don't like their bubbles being popped. I do software, have done it for about 20 years. My job has been perpetually "on the verge of becoming obsolete in the next few years", lol. Also, "yeah but as you get older people will not want to hire you" and all that. Cool stories, *yawn*. Meanwhile, in reality, my bank account disagrees, and more and more work has been increasingly available for me.

ben_w 2y ago

> As always, workforce will adapt I was never a fan of the term "Singularity" for the AI thing. When mathematical singularities pop up in physics, it's usually a sign the physics is missing something. Instead, I like to think of the AI "event horizon", the point in the future — always ahead, yet getting ever closer — beyond which you can no longer predict what happens next. Obviously that will depend on how much attention you pay to the developments in the field (and I've seen software developers surprised by Google Translate having an AR mode a decade after the tech was first demonstrated), but there is an upper limit even for people who obsessively consume all public information about a topic: if you're reading about it when you go to sleep, will you be surprised when you wake up by all the overnight developments? When that happens, no workforce can possibly adapt. How close is that? Dunno, but what I can say is that I cannot tell you what to expect 2 months from now, despite following developments in this field as best I can from the outside, and occasionally implementing one or other of the recent-ish AI models myself.

cryptonym 2y ago
You don't ask people to know everything about last tech, they just need to do their job. If a new cool tool benefit is high enough, everybody will know about it and use it. Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. With industrialisation, one man with some steam could suddenly do the work of thousands, and it expanded to each and every activity. Multiple "event horizon" later (transport, communication, IT), we are still there with everyone working, differently than previous generations, but still working. We improved a bit reducing child labor but doubled the workforce by including women and we always need more people at work for longer time. The only constant thing is we keep people at work until we figure out how to burn the last remaining atom. People are far too optimistic believing a new tech will move people away from work.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Based on what you said, one could infer Translate AR mode is a nice cool but not something that'll meaningfully change the life of the average joe. In every case I showed it to people, they were amazed and delighted because it absolutely did matter to them. This may be a biased sample because of how many of my colleagues (like myself) didn't speak German very well despite being in Berlin, but it was definitely the case that they benefited from me showing them a thing invented a decade earlier. > Humanity had been through multiple "event horizon" or whatever you want to call it. No: an event horizon is always ahead of you. That's why I'm choosing that name and rejecting the other. You can wake up to the news the world has changed unpredictably, or the stuff you thought was scifi turned out to be possible, but it doesn't happen every day, and even less so with your* job in particular. * generic "you" More common is e.g.: radio was invented, and almost immediately people started predicting that by 2000 there would be video conference calling — fiction writers can see possible futures coming well before it's possible. Plus some futures that aren't possible, of course. Radioactivity gets discovered, Victorian fiction talks about it being weaponised. Incorrectly as it happens, but it was foreseeable. When I was a kid, phone numbers were 6 digits, and "long distance" meant the next town over. It getting better and cheaper was predictable and predicted, as were personal videophones. Even the original iPhone wasn't much of a step change from everything around it, and no single update to the iPhone was either. Sputnik? Led to Star Trek, which even in TOS had characters using tablet computers that wouldn't be realised for 40-50 years. AI? The fiction is everything and anything from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream to The Culture, via Her, The Terminator, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Short Circuit, and Isaac Asimov, and the attempts to do "real" predictions are even more diverse and include precursors for each scenario and what to expect on the way. Nobody knows how close any of the speculation is, or how soon it is assuming it's right, or even when specific things such as full self drive is coming (despite being in 80s TV). We don't know how long it will take between FSD and humanoid robots passing same legal/safety standard (despite everyone already being familiar with the ideas since The Jetsons) or what having them would mean in practice. We don't even know what we're getting from the AI labs as soon as the US election is over. From what I've heard, neither do they.

moralestapia 2y ago

I don't know why you're downvoted, you are correct. People just don't like their bubbles being popped. I do software, have done it for about 20 years. My job has been perpetually "on the verge of becoming obsolete in the next few years", lol. Also, "yeah but as you get older people will not want to hire you" and all that. Cool stories, *yawn*. Meanwhile, in reality, my bank account disagrees, and more and more work has been increasingly available for me.