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When GenAI first started taking off a few years ago I called out that the real market set to be absolutely decimated wasn't corporations - it was the gig econom

When GenAI first started taking off a few years ago I called out that the real market set to be absolutely decimated wasn't corporations - it was the gig economy. The quality of generative AI may not be professional level quality, but it presents an easy and cheap drop-in replacement for one-off tasks that people previously outsourced to platforms like Fiverr (voiceovers, logo design, clip art, copy editing, translation, etc).

aprilthird2021 2y ago
I mean, these type of cheap gig work apps already basically destroyed such work for people who were good at it since they can't compete with a guy who will do it for a fiver
- nurettin 2y ago
  I used to frequent rentacoder back in the 2000s. Got very good reviews, landed $20-50 a day doing C++/pascal/opengl homework for the first-world dunces. Then came the horny indian programmers. (we called them that on yahoo! chat because all they wanted in life was to marry up to a US/Canada lady and migrate). They would put in half the effort for 1/10th of the price and my gig was quickly over.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  The guy who is good at it and can make a $100 job for $5 will not keep charging $5 for too long
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > The guy who is good at it and can make a $100 job for $5 will not keep charging $5 for too long As long as there is a steady supply of new people willing to do it for $5, it will be a $5 job, even if it would still be a viable job at $100 if there was less competition.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Market helps take care of that!
energy123 2y ago
The real dichotomy will be labor vs. capital as factors of production. AI competes with labor. Capital owns AI. Capital stands to benefit immensely -- that includes corporations. Labor stands to lose -- that includes not only gig economy workers but all people who sell their skills for money.
- nextworddev 2y ago
  Eh I give most companies about 5 years before serious trouble
- nostromo 2y ago
  > Capital owns AI DeepSeek is free and you can run it anywhere. The price of intelligence is quickly trending to zero.
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    >The price of intelligence is quickly trending to zero. Please define intelligence as you see it then, because I see little of the accurate, astute, highly selective and precisely reasoned kind from AI. If anything is caused by AI tools its that the price of semi-coherent filler content (visual and textual for now) is falling to zero. This is far from similar to intelligence.

aprilthird2021 2y ago

I mean, these type of cheap gig work apps already basically destroyed such work for people who were good at it since they can't compete with a guy who will do it for a fiver

nurettin 2y ago
I used to frequent rentacoder back in the 2000s. Got very good reviews, landed $20-50 a day doing C++/pascal/opengl homework for the first-world dunces. Then came the horny indian programmers. (we called them that on yahoo! chat because all they wanted in life was to marry up to a US/Canada lady and migrate). They would put in half the effort for 1/10th of the price and my gig was quickly over.
throwaway290 2y ago
The guy who is good at it and can make a $100 job for $5 will not keep charging $5 for too long
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > The guy who is good at it and can make a $100 job for $5 will not keep charging $5 for too long As long as there is a steady supply of new people willing to do it for $5, it will be a $5 job, even if it would still be a viable job at $100 if there was less competition.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Market helps take care of that!

energy123 2y ago

The real dichotomy will be labor vs. capital as factors of production. AI competes with labor. Capital owns AI. Capital stands to benefit immensely -- that includes corporations. Labor stands to lose -- that includes not only gig economy workers but all people who sell their skills for money.

nextworddev 2y ago
Eh I give most companies about 5 years before serious trouble
nostromo 2y ago
> Capital owns AI DeepSeek is free and you can run it anywhere. The price of intelligence is quickly trending to zero.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  >The price of intelligence is quickly trending to zero. Please define intelligence as you see it then, because I see little of the accurate, astute, highly selective and precisely reasoned kind from AI. If anything is caused by AI tools its that the price of semi-coherent filler content (visual and textual for now) is falling to zero. This is far from similar to intelligence.