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> What I see is a future where AI handles the grunt work, freeing us up to focus on the truly human part of creation: the next step, the novel idea, the new inv

> What I see is a future where AI handles the grunt work, freeing us up to focus on the truly human part of creation: the next step, the novel idea, the new invention. If we don’t have to spend five years of our early careers doing repetitive tasks, that isn’t a threat, it’s a massive opportunity. It’s an acceleration of our potential. Yeah, no that is always promised but historically this has never been true. On the contrary. Every technical revolution ever has brought great short term suffering to the majority and in the long term served to alienate people from their work. It has been creative people, translator, writers, editor, artists, musicians who most fear to lose their jobs due to generative AI. What is more fulfilling? Creating had crafted items or just being a cog in the assembly line? Writing your own code or micromanaging an AI? Doesn't mean that progress is inherently bad but that it is a political question. Will the productivity gains allow us to work less and enjoy life more or will they make rich people more rich? Currently rich people are winning but the wind can change.

cherryteastain 1y ago
If we followed this logic every time we got a labour saving innovation, we'd be still living in the stone ages. Using a bow and arrow to kill an antelope from afar is more efficient, but nothing gives the artisanal flavour of meat developed by hours of persistence hunting.
- cardanome 1y ago
  Yeah that is why I wrote: > Doesn't mean that progress is inherently bad Progress is inevitable. And while it leads to short term suffering it does also lead to higher standards of living or at least it can. Still, the claim that tech would safe us from the "mundane" tasks and would allow us to focus more and more on creative and fun work is often claimed but never fulfilled. Especially we software devs seem to be complete suckers for that kind of thinking always searching for that silver bullet, the new hot framework, the new language, the new way to deploy servers, the complete rewrite that will make everything better. No, it wont.
  - kiba 1y ago
    Progress isn't inevitable. It's the hard work of million of people exerting effort everyday. Look at space. We had suffered stagnation for a while. Even newspace companies aren't necessarily better, just new entrants. We had widely divergent outcomes for "new" companies that are more than two decades old. At least it only take one to have massive success.
thenthenthen 1y ago
I think creative ppl dont worry so much. For repetitive tasks, like write 200 line of css, llms are great. For creative work not so much.
- OJFord 1y ago
  Have you never tried generating an image with one?
  - thenthenthen 1y ago
    Sure, why you ask? Edit: sorry, asking questions is humans greatest power I think. Thanks for asking! Yes I have generated some images. They were not really useful in production or even proposals (to illustrate creative ideas to partners). The only use I have seen is a very modernist take, using the imagery to critique its very existence. ‘Computer vision’-like tasks are also interesting. I spend months on a CV problem that traditional tools could not solve. AI tools seem to do a little bit better at first but on ‘real’ data the false positives are kinda wild. Regardless, playing realtime generated gta like game in my browser obviously blows my mind: https://demo.dynamicslab.ai/chaos https://demo.dynamicslab.ai/chaos To what end tho?
kiba 1y ago
Socialism and Georgism are a response and reaction to the industrial revolution more than a hundred of years ago. They're even more relevant today even if you disagree with their proposed solution. It's not some inevitable fate or destiny that all automation will ever does is alienate people.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  The words of Rosa Luxemburg ring truer today than ever. Socialism or Barbarism, there is no other option.
jajko 1y ago
This push is nothing new, since the need is there probably since 80s, definitely 90s. Visual programming in its myriad implementations, various DSLs, everything you can do to just stay away from that ugly low level hard code that does grunt of the work. Managers and analysts becoming 'devs' when needed. Suffice to say the wheel turned one more time. Now its more shiny than ever and I can see some real uses for it for ie smarter embedded machines or home appliances or spying and ranking of whole global population easier than ever, but very, very little on top of that. That huge hype wave that every second person keeps mentioning is out of touch with reality and mostly annoying or dysfunctional use cases people experience (and continuous costs of those). Look , I get it, tons of eager folks also here looking for ways to earn their first million before 30-35 or whatever is their inner goal they think will finally lead to life satisfaction (it won't). I may be fired one day (in fact any day is a good day, part of this job since day 1) but in next 10 years the reason won't be an LLM doing what I do better. And last point - that dream of working less generally is a proper pipe dream. You earn more but raising kids is a nightmare also from cost point. Prices of properties are skyrocketing everywhere. This rat race has also its own wheel that keeps spinning. The max most folks can dream of is either work 80% 4 days a week or something akin to what I currently have - 90% contract, working 5 days a week, but having cca 50 paid vacation days yearly. The real financial hit is somewhere around 6-7% after taxes and social payments, I'd say a good deal (while it lasts).
an0malous 1y ago
> historically this has never been true What examples do you have besides for generative AI? Also generative AI has not replaced any creative work yet. The last decades of the computing industry automated things like boilerplate tasks, resource management, and infra/scaling. Before that a lot of factory automation was removing the need for repetitive labor. Historically it’s been exactly like OP has said, automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time for creative ones.
samdoesnothing 1y ago
> Every technical revolution ever has brought great short term suffering to the majority This is absurdly incorrect.
- weakfish 1y ago
  Can you elaborate? Please provide evidence instead of just blanket refutation
  - qwerpy 1y ago
    Grandparent made a blanket statement without evidence, so parent made a blanket refutation without evidence.
  - samdoesnothing 1y ago
    [dead]

cherryteastain 1y ago

If we followed this logic every time we got a labour saving innovation, we'd be still living in the stone ages. Using a bow and arrow to kill an antelope from afar is more efficient, but nothing gives the artisanal flavour of meat developed by hours of persistence hunting.

cardanome 1y ago
Yeah that is why I wrote: > Doesn't mean that progress is inherently bad Progress is inevitable. And while it leads to short term suffering it does also lead to higher standards of living or at least it can. Still, the claim that tech would safe us from the "mundane" tasks and would allow us to focus more and more on creative and fun work is often claimed but never fulfilled. Especially we software devs seem to be complete suckers for that kind of thinking always searching for that silver bullet, the new hot framework, the new language, the new way to deploy servers, the complete rewrite that will make everything better. No, it wont.
- kiba 1y ago
  Progress isn't inevitable. It's the hard work of million of people exerting effort everyday. Look at space. We had suffered stagnation for a while. Even newspace companies aren't necessarily better, just new entrants. We had widely divergent outcomes for "new" companies that are more than two decades old. At least it only take one to have massive success.

thenthenthen 1y ago

I think creative ppl dont worry so much. For repetitive tasks, like write 200 line of css, llms are great. For creative work not so much.

OJFord 1y ago
Have you never tried generating an image with one?
- thenthenthen 1y ago
  Sure, why you ask? Edit: sorry, asking questions is humans greatest power I think. Thanks for asking! Yes I have generated some images. They were not really useful in production or even proposals (to illustrate creative ideas to partners). The only use I have seen is a very modernist take, using the imagery to critique its very existence. ‘Computer vision’-like tasks are also interesting. I spend months on a CV problem that traditional tools could not solve. AI tools seem to do a little bit better at first but on ‘real’ data the false positives are kinda wild. Regardless, playing realtime generated gta like game in my browser obviously blows my mind: https://demo.dynamicslab.ai/chaos https://demo.dynamicslab.ai/chaos To what end tho?

kiba 1y ago

Socialism and Georgism are a response and reaction to the industrial revolution more than a hundred of years ago. They're even more relevant today even if you disagree with their proposed solution. It's not some inevitable fate or destiny that all automation will ever does is alienate people.

saubeidl 1y ago
The words of Rosa Luxemburg ring truer today than ever. Socialism or Barbarism, there is no other option.

jajko 1y ago

This push is nothing new, since the need is there probably since 80s, definitely 90s. Visual programming in its myriad implementations, various DSLs, everything you can do to just stay away from that ugly low level hard code that does grunt of the work. Managers and analysts becoming 'devs' when needed. Suffice to say the wheel turned one more time. Now its more shiny than ever and I can see some real uses for it for ie smarter embedded machines or home appliances or spying and ranking of whole global population easier than ever, but very, very little on top of that. That huge hype wave that every second person keeps mentioning is out of touch with reality and mostly annoying or dysfunctional use cases people experience (and continuous costs of those). Look , I get it, tons of eager folks also here looking for ways to earn their first million before 30-35 or whatever is their inner goal they think will finally lead to life satisfaction (it won't). I may be fired one day (in fact any day is a good day, part of this job since day 1) but in next 10 years the reason won't be an LLM doing what I do better. And last point - that dream of working less generally is a proper pipe dream. You earn more but raising kids is a nightmare also from cost point. Prices of properties are skyrocketing everywhere. This rat race has also its own wheel that keeps spinning. The max most folks can dream of is either work 80% 4 days a week or something akin to what I currently have - 90% contract, working 5 days a week, but having cca 50 paid vacation days yearly. The real financial hit is somewhere around 6-7% after taxes and social payments, I'd say a good deal (while it lasts).

an0malous 1y ago

> historically this has never been true What examples do you have besides for generative AI? Also generative AI has not replaced any creative work yet. The last decades of the computing industry automated things like boilerplate tasks, resource management, and infra/scaling. Before that a lot of factory automation was removing the need for repetitive labor. Historically it’s been exactly like OP has said, automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time for creative ones.

samdoesnothing 1y ago

> Every technical revolution ever has brought great short term suffering to the majority This is absurdly incorrect.

weakfish 1y ago
Can you elaborate? Please provide evidence instead of just blanket refutation
- qwerpy 1y ago
  Grandparent made a blanket statement without evidence, so parent made a blanket refutation without evidence.
- samdoesnothing 1y ago
  [dead]