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> I would wonder why you are so complacent as to think next year's models won't be able to solve domain-specific problems? If your domain is complex enough as

by wenc 1y ago

> I would wonder why you are so complacent as to think next year's models won't be able to solve domain-specific problems? If your domain is complex enough as well as have a critical people-facing component you generally still have some runway. If it’s not then it’s ripe for disruption anyway, if not by LLMs then by something else. I pivoted at age 32 because of this. I pivoted again at age 40 (I took a two level title drop (principal engineer to midlevel), but I got to learn a new domain - and got promoted back to one level below and now make more money). I always treat my marketability not as a one and done but a perishable quantity. I’ve never taken for granted that I’ll have job security if I don’t strategize — because I grew up in a time of uncertainty and in a society where a high paying job was not guaranteed (some jobs like grocery clerk were however). People talk about “job security” as an entitlement of life are the first ones to be wiped out. That said, not everyone is capable of constantly upgrading their skills and pivoting — we need some cushion for economic disruption for folks who have limited retrainability. But suspect this is not everyone — most people just haven’t had to do it so they think they can’t. Americans have not had to face this en mass in the last 30 years but many people around the world have had to. If you’ve lived in competitive societies where there is job scarcity you get quickly used to this reality. > What are people still in school right now, with dreams of being architects or lawyers or artists or writers or doctors or podcasters or youtubers, actually going to do with their lives? How will they find satisfaction in a job well done? How will they make money and feed and house themselves? I think those jobs will still exist in some form but there will be a painful period where everyone figures out how to be differentiated. I’m a hobbyist YouTuber in my free time (YouTuber was a job that didn’t exist before) and I think it’s hard to replace parasocial relationships — AI slop already exists on YouTube which gets views but few subscriptions. The scope of jobs will also shift, and we will see things moving toward realms requiring human judgment — delivering things that require interpretation. Job scopes today are actually already much more than people think. Again no guarantee against disruption but job security was always an illusion anyway and the sooner we realize this the sooner we can adopt a preparatory mindset. (In a way, Americans are actually well positioned due to our relationship with capitalism) Even the demise of radiologists has been overstated because being a radiologists is much more than just detecting disease from an image. Writers will still be around — they might not be able to charge per word, but they’ll pivot to a new model. The transactional model will be gone but I’m convince something else will replace it. I’m not sure about any of this because I can’t predict the future, but I have seen the past and the doomsday scenario doesn’t seem to me the inexorable one.

trod1234 1y ago
You should read Hazlitt. There are things being done which cannot be undone, and there are issues that were long predicted, and ignored, and the consequences are now bearing fruit. If you haven't heard a real doomsday scenario that's likely, you haven't been listening to the right people, and you rely far too much on the fallacy of survivorship bias. If you don't have a plan to replace a fundamental societal model, there are two potential outcomes, someone comes up with something because they've been working on it (and it works, which is rare), or all dependencies that rely upon that system fail, and the consequences occur. In other words, everyone starves. Think about what no exchange being possible suddenly would mean, overnight, for our supply chains with logistics delivering just in time. We've seen it, during the pandemic, but that was just a small disruption, and not a continuing one. Imagine it. Nothing on the shelves. No amount of money that will let you get what you need (toilet paper). No means that would let this occur in the short timetables of need. What happens. Prior to 2020, people would call you crazy if you said those things would happen. Bad things happen if you don't have a plan to make sure they don't happen.

by wenc 1y ago

trod1234 1y ago

You should read Hazlitt. There are things being done which cannot be undone, and there are issues that were long predicted, and ignored, and the consequences are now bearing fruit. If you haven't heard a real doomsday scenario that's likely, you haven't been listening to the right people, and you rely far too much on the fallacy of survivorship bias. If you don't have a plan to replace a fundamental societal model, there are two potential outcomes, someone comes up with something because they've been working on it (and it works, which is rare), or all dependencies that rely upon that system fail, and the consequences occur. In other words, everyone starves. Think about what no exchange being possible suddenly would mean, overnight, for our supply chains with logistics delivering just in time. We've seen it, during the pandemic, but that was just a small disruption, and not a continuing one. Imagine it. Nothing on the shelves. No amount of money that will let you get what you need (toilet paper). No means that would let this occur in the short timetables of need. What happens. Prior to 2020, people would call you crazy if you said those things would happen. Bad things happen if you don't have a plan to make sure they don't happen.