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I have a solid understanding of AI, and it will destroy the value of most human work, creative and non-creative. The power to do exactly what your job is with t

I have a solid understanding of AI, and it will destroy the value of most human work, creative and non-creative. The power to do exactly what your job is with the push of a button, for free, in seconds. If it's not already here, it's coming. Ubiquity kills the value of anything. Anything short of an actual boycott on AI produced work/art will result in this.

CamperBob2 2y ago
What makes you correct, while the generations of your ancestors who said similar things weren't?
- palata 2y ago
  What makes them wrong?
- zero_shift 2y ago
  Were they incorrect? Most preventative measures were, at some stage, speculation or moral panics. For example our consumer laws emerged out of anxiety about poisonous food. Our libel laws emerged out of moral panics about misuse of the press. Etc. But were still good measures. There's also the asymmetric risk element. The social risks of the technology are larger than the material risks of putting it off. Being wary of that isn't Luddism, it's just math
- joe_the_user 2y ago
  I don't think generations of my ancestors made any predictions about AI /s. I mean, an argument that "technology" hasn't eliminated work previously so we can assume it won't do so now is ridiculously broad. I don't even think current LLMs will eliminate all jobs - I think it's limited to a particular kind of mediocre output, an output the demand for which is very elastic. But an arguments about what "AI" can do should based on it's potential, not on some "technology has always created jobs" incantation.
- notfed 2y ago
  To support the grand-post but reword it: we're on the verge of AI becoming a "great creativity equalizer". It used to be that each individual had a "skill level" on a scale from 0-100 for each practice, where very few people were above level 60. But now everyone can be a level 60+ artist, if they want to be. This lower limit will keep rising and, at a certain point (and maybe were talking 1000 years) it will be hard for anyone to differentiate any everyday media from human- vs AI-generated. Maybe equality is good? For utilities like locomotion, that sounds great. But for creativity? I think what will happen is a later generation will grow up bombarded by level-100 art and music. I guess that sounds net positive...right? As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost. This dilemma came up before, as photography started to become practical. Artists didn't see the point in painting what the camera could render perfectly. So instead, we got Impressionism, and everything that grew out of it. There will always be room in art to do something different, something "out of distribution," so to speak. Great artists will still surprise us. Average ones can still have fun. Crappy ones will just have to find something else to do. Life will go on. As for the notion of a "creativity equalizer", that's laughable. It would take a god to do that, not a computer. AI is a tool, and some people will always be better than others at using the available tools. Those are the ones we will continue to call "artists," "musicians," and "writers."
- jimbokun 2y ago
  Our ancestors didn't have machines on pace to surpass human productive capabilities on every axis. So if AI reaches that point in the next few years, machines will replace humans for all productive work.
ada1981 2y ago
Seems silly that we would boycott a technology so we can make busy work for ourselves.
- transcriptase 2y ago
  Exactly. Being a lamplighter at the time when cities were illuminated by gas street lamps that needed to be lit, fuelled, and extinguished manually was once a stable and respectable career. Wherever cities began transitioning to electric lighting which was far more reliable and brighter the role of the lamplighter became obsolete. They organized protests, strikes, and sabotaged the electrical systems because their livelihood was threatened by a given tech.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
wincy 2y ago
I guess I’ll just keep working in construction. The arrogance of people who think the value of most human work is done hunched over a computer is staggering.
- hirvi74 2y ago
  I concur. I work hunched over a computer, but I have realized over the years how hollow it all is internally. Most people do not only have no conception of what I actually do, but also, most people will never see it, use it, etc.. My work brings no pleasure to people and is confined to live on a bunch of NAND gates and across various wires. I think it hurt me most when I realized, on days when I have been really productive, if I just turn my computer off and look around me, then I have absolutely nothing to show for it.
  - wincy 2y ago
    I feel you, I had this problem when I worked making marketing websites for a really scummy company and realized I wasn’t making the world a better place. I got burnt out. I got a new job, I do websites and CRUD apps still, but it’s in service of a large multinational construction company, and seeing engineers and the actual boots on the ground doing construction work really makes me feel like the stuff I’m making means something. We get an opportunity to go out in the field sometimes and it was an eye opener, a “small” construction site may employee 800 people and have people working round the clock. There are ways to make this work meaningful, you just have to seek it out. Wish you all the best.
daedrdev 2y ago
A boycott is voluntary. Presumably not everyone will follow, and those who still use it will be more productive which you say is bad. Do you mean we should ban it? That itself seems impossible to do considering its a program running on a PC.
dartos 2y ago
> I have a solid understanding of AI > and it will destroy the value of most human work From my view, as someone studying and working with ML and AI since 2017, these two statements seem in conflict. Either you’re overestimating what AI actually provides, you’re understanding of what “most human work” is skewed by the field you work in, or you’re underestimating the value of human labor. We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

CamperBob2 2y ago

What makes you correct, while the generations of your ancestors who said similar things weren't?

palata 2y ago
What makes them wrong?
zero_shift 2y ago
Were they incorrect? Most preventative measures were, at some stage, speculation or moral panics. For example our consumer laws emerged out of anxiety about poisonous food. Our libel laws emerged out of moral panics about misuse of the press. Etc. But were still good measures. There's also the asymmetric risk element. The social risks of the technology are larger than the material risks of putting it off. Being wary of that isn't Luddism, it's just math
joe_the_user 2y ago
I don't think generations of my ancestors made any predictions about AI /s. I mean, an argument that "technology" hasn't eliminated work previously so we can assume it won't do so now is ridiculously broad. I don't even think current LLMs will eliminate all jobs - I think it's limited to a particular kind of mediocre output, an output the demand for which is very elastic. But an arguments about what "AI" can do should based on it's potential, not on some "technology has always created jobs" incantation.
notfed 2y ago
To support the grand-post but reword it: we're on the verge of AI becoming a "great creativity equalizer". It used to be that each individual had a "skill level" on a scale from 0-100 for each practice, where very few people were above level 60. But now everyone can be a level 60+ artist, if they want to be. This lower limit will keep rising and, at a certain point (and maybe were talking 1000 years) it will be hard for anyone to differentiate any everyday media from human- vs AI-generated. Maybe equality is good? For utilities like locomotion, that sounds great. But for creativity? I think what will happen is a later generation will grow up bombarded by level-100 art and music. I guess that sounds net positive...right? As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  As a musician, I can tell you one thing: part of what gives me drive to make music is knowing that what I'm creating is a scarce resource. (For example, if I realize one of my songs sounds like another existing song, it stops sounding good to me.) If it comes that AI can generate new songs for me, all of that value I assign to creating music is lost. This dilemma came up before, as photography started to become practical. Artists didn't see the point in painting what the camera could render perfectly. So instead, we got Impressionism, and everything that grew out of it. There will always be room in art to do something different, something "out of distribution," so to speak. Great artists will still surprise us. Average ones can still have fun. Crappy ones will just have to find something else to do. Life will go on. As for the notion of a "creativity equalizer", that's laughable. It would take a god to do that, not a computer. AI is a tool, and some people will always be better than others at using the available tools. Those are the ones we will continue to call "artists," "musicians," and "writers."
jimbokun 2y ago
Our ancestors didn't have machines on pace to surpass human productive capabilities on every axis. So if AI reaches that point in the next few years, machines will replace humans for all productive work.

ada1981 2y ago

Seems silly that we would boycott a technology so we can make busy work for ourselves.

transcriptase 2y ago
Exactly. Being a lamplighter at the time when cities were illuminated by gas street lamps that needed to be lit, fuelled, and extinguished manually was once a stable and respectable career. Wherever cities began transitioning to electric lighting which was far more reliable and brighter the role of the lamplighter became obsolete. They organized protests, strikes, and sabotaged the electrical systems because their livelihood was threatened by a given tech.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

wincy 2y ago

I guess I’ll just keep working in construction. The arrogance of people who think the value of most human work is done hunched over a computer is staggering.

hirvi74 2y ago
I concur. I work hunched over a computer, but I have realized over the years how hollow it all is internally. Most people do not only have no conception of what I actually do, but also, most people will never see it, use it, etc.. My work brings no pleasure to people and is confined to live on a bunch of NAND gates and across various wires. I think it hurt me most when I realized, on days when I have been really productive, if I just turn my computer off and look around me, then I have absolutely nothing to show for it.
- wincy 2y ago
  I feel you, I had this problem when I worked making marketing websites for a really scummy company and realized I wasn’t making the world a better place. I got burnt out. I got a new job, I do websites and CRUD apps still, but it’s in service of a large multinational construction company, and seeing engineers and the actual boots on the ground doing construction work really makes me feel like the stuff I’m making means something. We get an opportunity to go out in the field sometimes and it was an eye opener, a “small” construction site may employee 800 people and have people working round the clock. There are ways to make this work meaningful, you just have to seek it out. Wish you all the best.

daedrdev 2y ago

A boycott is voluntary. Presumably not everyone will follow, and those who still use it will be more productive which you say is bad. Do you mean we should ban it? That itself seems impossible to do considering its a program running on a PC.

dartos 2y ago

> I have a solid understanding of AI > and it will destroy the value of most human work From my view, as someone studying and working with ML and AI since 2017, these two statements seem in conflict. Either you’re overestimating what AI actually provides, you’re understanding of what “most human work” is skewed by the field you work in, or you’re underestimating the value of human labor. We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.