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All major technological advancements have eliminated some jobs and created others. In general, producing more with less human input is how society becomes riche

All major technological advancements have eliminated some jobs and created others. In general, producing more with less human input is how society becomes richer. Is it a tragedy that we no longer need telephone switchboard operators, ice cutters, and lamplighters? There were surely countless mini-tragedies as the people who made their livelihoods that way struggled with stagnant wages and unemployment, but the next generation became free to pursue other more productive forms of work and accumulated greater wealth as a result.

veunes 2y ago
Yet the change isn’t without hardship, though. For the people who lose jobs due to new technologies, the transition can be difficult. But I agree innovation may seem disruptive in the short term for some, in the long run, it’s part of a broader process
- versteegen 2y ago
  > in the long run, it’s part of a broader process Well put. And what is this broader process? Those who say new jobs will always be created as others become obsolete think that the broader process is standing still in stream: job titles change, average wealth and comfort increase, but the structure of civilisation will never change. That we'll all still have jobs and won't become unemployable. Eternal stasis sounds absurd to me. But I don't assume that the change that happens will be bad. And I don't think all jobs will go. I think we'll end up with a fraction of people employed and well off, such as tradespeople, while the majority will busy themselves with unpaid labour. I already do.
jatins 2y ago
> have eliminated some jobs and created others genuinely asking: Do you see LLMs creating jobs? I see them taking 10 jobs to create one Sure there might be a world down the line where one does NOT need jobs and everything is practically free because AI makes infinite of it. But the transition period could be quite painful
Xenoamorphous 2y ago
> Is it a tragedy that we no longer need telephone switchboard operators, ice cutters, and lamplighters? As a society? No. For those individuals that were caught up in the transition? Probably.
slooonz 2y ago
Yes, but this time the automation (AI) can immediately displace humans in the newly created, "more productive form of work" jobs too. Recursively.
- munksbeer 2y ago
  Could you describe what you imagine an end state to look like? If you could, please be quite specific. How do people go about their days?
  - slooonz 2y ago
    "There is no good answer to that" is precisely my concern.
    - munksbeer 2y ago
      You could speculate though. Presumably you're detail oriented enough to dig in.
weatherlite 2y ago
Well if we have machines that can think, plan and reason and also exhibit incredible amounts of infinite empathy and patience and an IQ of a PHD physicist wtf is there for us to do exactly? Sure, we'll have work for people taking care of children and the elderly (and even this might start to fade away as we get humanoid robots that become cheaper and more capable, staff losing it and beating up children is a frequent occurrence where I'm from) but what about the tens of millions of other jobs we all do? I'm talking about the theoritcal case AGI is in fact achieved. For now - we're not there at all.
- slooonz 2y ago
  > For now - we're not there at all. Both OpenAI and Anthropic think it’s a question of a couple of years at most. Gwern, who has a good track record of predictions, think so too. We’re pretty much here. I arrived at the same conclusion independently. Not because I’m a genius like Gwern and Could Work at a Big Lab if I Wanted, but because it is in fact pretty obvious. People focus way too much on the current limitations of current models, not enough on their strength. The core strength of current LLMs are already superhuman (speed, memorization, ability to navigate long context) by a significant margin. Their overall ability is heavily constrained by their weaknesses (mainly planning — hallucinations is a non-story). There are known solutions to this. AlphaZero is "training to plan" and predates GPT-2, you just have to adapt it to the LLM paradigm. What did you think AlphaProof was ? An idle experiment just for fun ? The only hope now is that there’s some non-identified and non foreseen weakness, where LLMs currently sit well below human-level but has been obscured by the lack of planning, that significantly limit capabilities of the planned models in the same way that planning limits current models, and that has no obvious solution. But at that point that’s just Copium. Or that we collectively fucking wake up, realize that "we’re pretty much there" and "we don’t want this", and do something. But at that point that’s just Copium too: the governing elites got the memo and are okaying this (cue Andreessen on the Trump camp, the last Biden EO ordering to fast-track AI-scale datacenters on the Democrats camp). The big issue is that people who don’t want this (the vast majority of people I believe) think we’re not here, and people who think we’re here want this (the labs, the two big parties). It does not helps that usual human irrationality kicks in heavily on this topic. "I don’t like AI and its consequences" => "I enjoy disparaging AI and consuming content disparaging AI" (look at those 10 epic fails of ChatGPT !) => "I’m going to inflate their weaknesses and downplay their strength" (I can’t believe it can’t count the r in strawberry !) => "Yes AGI is Very Bad News but it’s not there, have you looked at where we’re at ?". Expect a lot of Pikachu Faces in the following months/years. 2028 was the initial timeline given by, I believe, Shane Legg. He recently said he’s on track. You better give some credence to that or wake up with some very, very nasty surprise very soon.

veunes 2y ago

Yet the change isn’t without hardship, though. For the people who lose jobs due to new technologies, the transition can be difficult. But I agree innovation may seem disruptive in the short term for some, in the long run, it’s part of a broader process

versteegen 2y ago
> in the long run, it’s part of a broader process Well put. And what is this broader process? Those who say new jobs will always be created as others become obsolete think that the broader process is standing still in stream: job titles change, average wealth and comfort increase, but the structure of civilisation will never change. That we'll all still have jobs and won't become unemployable. Eternal stasis sounds absurd to me. But I don't assume that the change that happens will be bad. And I don't think all jobs will go. I think we'll end up with a fraction of people employed and well off, such as tradespeople, while the majority will busy themselves with unpaid labour. I already do.

jatins 2y ago

> have eliminated some jobs and created others genuinely asking: Do you see LLMs creating jobs? I see them taking 10 jobs to create one Sure there might be a world down the line where one does NOT need jobs and everything is practically free because AI makes infinite of it. But the transition period could be quite painful

Xenoamorphous 2y ago

> Is it a tragedy that we no longer need telephone switchboard operators, ice cutters, and lamplighters? As a society? No. For those individuals that were caught up in the transition? Probably.

slooonz 2y ago

Yes, but this time the automation (AI) can immediately displace humans in the newly created, "more productive form of work" jobs too. Recursively.

munksbeer 2y ago
Could you describe what you imagine an end state to look like? If you could, please be quite specific. How do people go about their days?
- slooonz 2y ago
  "There is no good answer to that" is precisely my concern.
  - munksbeer 2y ago
    You could speculate though. Presumably you're detail oriented enough to dig in.

weatherlite 2y ago

Well if we have machines that can think, plan and reason and also exhibit incredible amounts of infinite empathy and patience and an IQ of a PHD physicist wtf is there for us to do exactly? Sure, we'll have work for people taking care of children and the elderly (and even this might start to fade away as we get humanoid robots that become cheaper and more capable, staff losing it and beating up children is a frequent occurrence where I'm from) but what about the tens of millions of other jobs we all do? I'm talking about the theoritcal case AGI is in fact achieved. For now - we're not there at all.

slooonz 2y ago
> For now - we're not there at all. Both OpenAI and Anthropic think it’s a question of a couple of years at most. Gwern, who has a good track record of predictions, think so too. We’re pretty much here. I arrived at the same conclusion independently. Not because I’m a genius like Gwern and Could Work at a Big Lab if I Wanted, but because it is in fact pretty obvious. People focus way too much on the current limitations of current models, not enough on their strength. The core strength of current LLMs are already superhuman (speed, memorization, ability to navigate long context) by a significant margin. Their overall ability is heavily constrained by their weaknesses (mainly planning — hallucinations is a non-story). There are known solutions to this. AlphaZero is "training to plan" and predates GPT-2, you just have to adapt it to the LLM paradigm. What did you think AlphaProof was ? An idle experiment just for fun ? The only hope now is that there’s some non-identified and non foreseen weakness, where LLMs currently sit well below human-level but has been obscured by the lack of planning, that significantly limit capabilities of the planned models in the same way that planning limits current models, and that has no obvious solution. But at that point that’s just Copium. Or that we collectively fucking wake up, realize that "we’re pretty much there" and "we don’t want this", and do something. But at that point that’s just Copium too: the governing elites got the memo and are okaying this (cue Andreessen on the Trump camp, the last Biden EO ordering to fast-track AI-scale datacenters on the Democrats camp). The big issue is that people who don’t want this (the vast majority of people I believe) think we’re not here, and people who think we’re here want this (the labs, the two big parties). It does not helps that usual human irrationality kicks in heavily on this topic. "I don’t like AI and its consequences" => "I enjoy disparaging AI and consuming content disparaging AI" (look at those 10 epic fails of ChatGPT !) => "I’m going to inflate their weaknesses and downplay their strength" (I can’t believe it can’t count the r in strawberry !) => "Yes AGI is Very Bad News but it’s not there, have you looked at where we’re at ?". Expect a lot of Pikachu Faces in the following months/years. 2028 was the initial timeline given by, I believe, Shane Legg. He recently said he’s on track. You better give some credence to that or wake up with some very, very nasty surprise very soon.