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Can you design an AI agent that I own, to replace me? This is what the market really wants and is probably one of the ONLY things that doesn't exist. Just let
by chasing0entropy 10mo ago
Can you design an AI agent that I own, to replace me? This is what the market really wants and is probably one of the ONLY things that doesn't exist.
Just let me subscribe to an agent to do my work while I keep getting a paycheck.
- crackalamoo 10mo agoIsn't this kind of the same as an AI copilot, just with higher autonomy? I think the limiting factor is that the AI still isn't good enough to be fully autonomous, so it needs your input. That's why it's still in copilot form
- -_- 10mo agoThat's the premise behind Workshop Labs! https://workshoplabs.ai https://workshoplabs.ai
- IshKebab 10mo agoWhy would the market want that? Don't be stupid.
- geoffmanning 10mo agoThe world doesn't want assholes either but here we are
- georgehotz 10mo agoWho's giving you that paycheck? Why don't they just hire that AI agent themselves and cut out the middle man?
- Mtinie 10mo agoIn this scenario the person who wants to be paid owns the output of the agent. So it’s closer to a contractor and subcontractor arrangement than employment.
- georgehotz 10mo agoHow do they own it? I see two scenarios. 1. They built the agent and it's somehow competitive. If so, they shouldn't just replace their own job with it, they should replace a lot more jobs and get a lot more rich than one salary. 2. They rent the agent. If so, why would the renting company not rent directly to their boss, maybe even at a business premium? I see no scenario where there's an "agent to do my work while I keep getting a paycheck."
- dr_dshiv 10mo agoIf you know contracting, you know that’s exactly how it’s always worked.
- oarsinsync 10mo agoIt's the equivalent of outsourcing your job. People have done this before, to China, to India, etc. There are stories about the people that got caught, e.g. with China because of security concerns, and with India because they got greedy, were overemployed, and failed in their opsec. This is no different, it's just a different mechanism of outsourcing your job. And yes, if you can find a way to get AI to do 90% of your job for you, you should totally get 4 more jobs and 5x your earnings for 50% reduction in hours spent working.
- georgehotz 10mo agoMaybe a few people managed to outsource their own job and sit in the middle for a bit. But that's not the common story, the common story is that your employer cut out the middle man and outsourced all the jobs. The same thing will happen here.
- catlifeonmars 10mo agoThe trick is to register an LLC, and then get your employer to outsource the work to your consulting company. You get laid off, and then continue to work through your company. Only mild sarcasm, as this is essentially what happens.
- fijiaarone 10mo agoCan you explain why we pay Sam Altman & Elon Musk? Or Jeff Bezos & Bill Gates? They’re just middlemen collecting money for other people’s labor.
- georgehotz 10mo agoYou are welcome to try to cut them out and start your own business. But I suspect you might find it a bit harder than your employer signing up for a SaaS AI agent. Actually wait, isn't that what this website is? Does it work?
- gridspy 10mo agoThey are a bridge between those with money and those with skill. Plus they can aggregate information and act as a repository of knowledge and decision maker for their teams. These are valuable skills, though perhaps nowhere near as valuable as they end up being in a free market.
- nawgz 10mo agoA mistake lies in thinking it’s a market, but it’s egregious you’d call it free
- gridspy 10mo agoThe free market is an analyzable simplification of the real market, however I think the assumptions hold in this case. If a CEO delivers a certain advantage (a profit multiplier) it's rational that a bidding war will ensue for that CEO until they are paid the entire apparent advantage of their pretense for the company. A similar effect happens for salespeople. The key difference between free and real markets in this case is information and distortions of lobbying. That plus legal restrictions on the company. The CEO is incentivized to find ways around these issues to maximize their own pay.
- gausswho 10mo agoSounds like skills that bots already do better than humans.
- zwnow 10mo agoHow are businesses going to get money if there are no humans that are able to pay for goods? Lots of us are not cut out for blue collar work.
- macintux 10mo agoAs long as someone else is still paying their employees, it’s all good.
- vbezhenar 10mo agoSome humans will be rich and they'll buy things. For example those humans who own AI or fabs. And those humans, who serve to them (assuming that there will be services not replaced by AI, for example prostitution), will also buy things. If 99.99% of other humans will become poor and eventually die, it certainly will change economy a lot.
- ares623 10mo agoThat’s assuming a large chunk of humanity will just lay down and die off.
- lawlessone 10mo agoProbably why Elon etc want to replace militaries with drones. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2024/11/25/elon-musk-criticized-the-f-35-called-for-armed-drones-instead/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2024/11/25/elon-musk...
- ares623 10mo agoNot a lot of difference between an F-35 and a fleet of drones when it comes to it tbh. If F-35s are not enough then I don't see how drones will fare better. IMO drones are just a way for Elon to get his foot in the door.
- jmoggr 10mo agoAll they have to do is not reproduce. This is already happening.
- danenania 10mo agoA question is which side agents will achieve human-level skill at first. It wouldn’t surprise me if doing the work itself end-to-end (to a market-ready standard) remains in the uncanny valley for quite some time, while “fuzzier” roles like management can be more readily replaced. It’s like how we all once thought blue collar work would be first, but it turned out that knowledge work is much easier. Right now everyone imagines managers replacing their employees with AI, but we might have the order reversed.
- jMyles 10mo ago> This begs the question of which side agents will achieve human-level skill at first. I don't agree; it's perfectly possible, given chasing0entropy's... let's say 'feature request', that either side might gain that skill level first. > It wouldn’t surprise me if doing the work itself end-to-end (to a market-ready standard) remains in the uncanny valley for quite some time, while “fuzzier” roles like management can be more readily replaced. Agreed - and for many of us, that's exactly what seems to be happening. My agent is vaguely closer to the role that a good manager has played for me in the past than it is to the role I myself have played - it keeps better TODO lists than I can, that's for sure. :-) > It’s like how we all once thought blue collar work would be first, but it turned out that knowledge work is much easier. Right now everyone imagines managers replacing their employees with AI, but we might have the order reversed. Perfectly stated IMO.
- OtherShrezzing 10mo agoThe AI agents don’t appear to know how & where to be economically productive. That still appears to be a uniquely human domain of expertise. So the human is there to decide which job is economically productive to take on. The AI is there to execute the day-to-day tasks involved in the job. It’s symbiotic. The human doesn’t labour unnecessarily. The AI has some avenue of productive output & revenue generating opportunity for OpenAI/Anthropic/whoever.
- ruined 10mo agoi don't think you could find a single economist that believes humans know how and where to be economically productive
- OtherShrezzing 10mo agoIt’s a fundamental principle of modern economics that humans are assumed to act in their own economic interests - for which they need to know how and where to be economically productive.
- ruined 10mo agohumans are assumed to act, and some activities may generate consequences, to which a human may react somehow. certainly there is a "survivor bias" but the rationality, long-term viability, and "economic benefit" of those activities and reactions is an open question. any judgement of "economic benefit" is arbitrary and often made in aggregate after the fact. if humans knew how to create "economic benefit" in some fundamental and true way, game theory and most regulatory infrastructure would not exist, and i'm saying that as an anarchist.
- chasing0entropy 10mo agoBecause ultimately every job AI replaces will supplanted by two jonpbs - one to maintain the agent and another to maintain the infrastructure. I believe once AI scales my theory will be proven universal. My wife believes there will eventually also be a third job created to do the job.
- cyanydeez 10mo agonot unless you can afford your own super cluster. Otherwise, the AI you use will own you.
- globular-toast 10mo agoWhat would you actually do if you got that? I like watching movies and playing games, but that lifestyle quickly leads to depression. I like travelling too, but imagine if everyone could do it all the time. There's only so many good places.
- mnbpdx 10mo ago[dead]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- Teever 10mo agoI would use the AI to build a robot that could build copies of itself and then once there are a sufficient number of robots I'd use them to build more good places to go to.
- globular-toast 10mo agoWhat happens when "your" AI wants to build something where someone else's AI wants to build it? I suppose you are thinking of something like Banks's Culture? The trouble is for that we're probably going to need real AI, not just LLMs, and we have no reason to believe a real AI would actually keep us as pets like in the Culture. We have no idea what it would want to do...
- mnbpdx 10mo ago[dead]
- ErroneousBosh 10mo ago> Just let me subscribe to an agent to do my work while I keep getting a paycheck. I've already done this. It's just a Teams bot that responds to messages with: "Yeah that looks okay, but it should probably be a database rather than an Excel spreadsheet. Have you run it past the dev team? If you need anything else just raise a ticket and get Helpdesk to tag me in it" "I'm pretty sure you'll be fine with that, but check with {{ senior_manager }} first, and if you need further support just raise a ticket and Helpdesk will pass it over" "Yes, quite so, and indeed if you refer to my previous email from about six months ago you'll see I mentioned that at the time" "Okay, you should be good to go. Just remember, we have Change Management Process for a reason so the next time try to raise a CR so one of us can review it, before anyone touches anything" and then "If you've any further questions please stick them in an email and I'll look at it as a priority. Mòran taing, EB." (notice that I don't say how high a priority?) No AI needed. Just good old-fashioned scripting, and organic stupidity.
- xtracto 10mo agoReminded me of an episode of the IT Crowd where they put a recording of "Have you tried turning it off and on again? as the answering machine for an IT department.
- firefoxd 10mo agoI've replaced myself for the better part of a year now. You can too: https://getproxyai.com/ https://getproxyai.com/
- fblp 10mo agolol this also appears to be satire?
- firefoxd 10mo agoWe follow a moto in our company: > While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it.
- saaaaaam 10mo agoThis seems a frivolous attitude to something so serious. Have you considered how using a proxy could make you align your attitude better?
- saaaaaam 10mo agoTake my money!