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The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do. Things that giv

The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do. Things that give them meaning and many of these are tied to earning money and producing value for doing just that thing. Software/coding is once of these activities. One can do coding for fun but doing the same coding where it provides value to others/society and financial upkeep for you and your family is far more meaningful. For those who have swallowed the AI panacea hook line and sinker. Those that say it's made me more productive or that I no longer have to do the boring bits and can focus on the interesting parts of coding. I say follow your own line of reasoning through. It demonstrates that AI is not yet powerful enough to NOT need to empower you, to NOT need to make you more productive. You're only ALLOWED to do the 'interesting' parts presently because the AI is deficient. Ultimately AI aims to remove the need for any human intermediary altogether. Everything in between is just a stop along the way and so for those it empowers stop and think a little about the long term implications. It may be that for you right now it is comfortable position financially or socially but your future you in just a few short months from now may be dramatically impacted. As someone said "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes". I can well imagine the blood draining from peoples faces, the graduate coder who can no longer get on the job ladder. The law secretary whose dream job is being automated away, a dream dreamt from a young age. The journalist whose value has been substituted by a white text box connected to an AI model. I don't have any ideas as to what should be done or more importantly what can be done. Pandora's box has been opened, Humpty Dumpty has fallen and he can't be put back together again. AI feels like it has crossed the rubicon. We must all collectively await to see where the dust settles.

benlivengood 10mo ago
In the long run I think it's pretty unhealthy to make one's career a large part of one's identity. What happens during burnout or retirement or being laid off if a huge portion of one's self depends on career work? Economically it's been a mistake to let wealth get stratified so unequally; we should have and need to reintroduce high progressive tax rates on income and potentially implement wealth taxes to reduce the necessity of guessing a high-paying career over 5 years in advance. That simply won't be possible to do accurately with coming automation. But it is possible to grow social safety nets and decrease wealth disparity so that pursuing any marginally productive career is sufficient. Practically, once automation begins producing more value than 25% or so of human workers we'll have to transition to a collective ownership model and either pay dividends directly out of widget production, grant futures on the same with subsidized transport, or UBI. I tend to prefer a distribution-of-production model because it eliminates a lot of the rent-seeking risk of UBI; your landlord is not going to want 2X the number of burgers and couches you get distributed as they'd happily double rent in dollars. Once full automation hits (if it ever does; I can see augmented humans still producing up to 50% of GDP indefinitely [so far as anyone can predict anything past human-level intelligence] especially in healthcare/wellness) it's obvious that some kind of direct goods distribution is the only reasonable outcome; markets will still exist on top of this but they'll basically be optional participation for people who want to do that.
- encyclopedism 10mo ago
  I agree with much of what you say. Career being the core of one's identity is so ingrained in society. Think about how schooling is directed towards producing what 'industry' needs. Education for educations sake isn't a thing. Capitalism see's to this and ensures so many avenues are closed to people. Perhaps this will change but I fear it will be a painful transition to other modes of thinking and forming society. Another problem is hoarding. Wealth inequality is one thing but the unadulterated hoarding by the very wealthy means that wealth is unable to circulate as freely as it ought to be. This burdens a society.
  - b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
    Education for educations sake isn't a thing. It is but only for select members of society. Off the top of my head, those with benefits programs to go after that opportunity like 100% disabled veterans, or the wealthy and their families.
  - theshrike79 10mo ago
    > Career being the core of one's identity is so ingrained in society In AMERICAN society. Over there "what do you do?" is in the first 3 questions people ask each other when they meet. I've known people for 20 years and I don't have the slightest clue what they do for a living, it's never came up. We talk about other things - their profession isn't a part of their personality.
- throw1235435 10mo ago
  If we had done what you say (distribute wealth more evenly between people/corporations) more to the point I don't know if AI would of progressed as it has - companies would of been more selective with their investment money and previously AI was seen at best as a long shot bet. Most companies in the "real economy" can't afford to make too many of these kind of bets in general. The main reason for the transformer architecture, and many other AI advancements really was "big tech" has lots of cash that they don't know what to do with. It seems the US system punishes dividends as well tax wise; so companies are incentivized to become like VC's -> buy lots of opportunities hoping one makes it big even if many end up losing.
theshrike79 10mo ago
Someone smart said that AI should replace tasks, not jobs. There are infinite analogies for this whole thing, but it mostly distills down to artisans and craftsmen in my mind. Artisans build one chair to perfection, every joint is meticulously measured and uses traditional handcrafted Japanese joinery, not a single screw or nail is used unless it's absolutely necessary. It takes weeks to build one, each one is an unique work of art. It also costs 2000€ for a chair. Craftsmen optimise their process for output, instead of selling one 2000€ chair a month, they'd rather sell a hundred for 20€. They have templates for cutting every piece, jigs for quickly attaching different components, use screws and nails to speed up the process instead of meticulous handcrafted joinery. It's all about where you get your joy in "software development". Is it solving problems efficiently or crafting a beautiful elegant expressive piece of code? Neither way is bad, but pre-LLM both people could do the same tasks. I think that's coming to an end in the near future. The difference between craftsmen and artisans is becoming clearer. There is a place for people who create that beautiful hyper-optimised code, but in many (most) cases just a craftsman with an agentic LLM tool will solve the customer's problem with acceptable performance and quality in a fraction of the time.

benlivengood 10mo ago

In the long run I think it's pretty unhealthy to make one's career a large part of one's identity. What happens during burnout or retirement or being laid off if a huge portion of one's self depends on career work? Economically it's been a mistake to let wealth get stratified so unequally; we should have and need to reintroduce high progressive tax rates on income and potentially implement wealth taxes to reduce the necessity of guessing a high-paying career over 5 years in advance. That simply won't be possible to do accurately with coming automation. But it is possible to grow social safety nets and decrease wealth disparity so that pursuing any marginally productive career is sufficient. Practically, once automation begins producing more value than 25% or so of human workers we'll have to transition to a collective ownership model and either pay dividends directly out of widget production, grant futures on the same with subsidized transport, or UBI. I tend to prefer a distribution-of-production model because it eliminates a lot of the rent-seeking risk of UBI; your landlord is not going to want 2X the number of burgers and couches you get distributed as they'd happily double rent in dollars. Once full automation hits (if it ever does; I can see augmented humans still producing up to 50% of GDP indefinitely [so far as anyone can predict anything past human-level intelligence] especially in healthcare/wellness) it's obvious that some kind of direct goods distribution is the only reasonable outcome; markets will still exist on top of this but they'll basically be optional participation for people who want to do that.

encyclopedism 10mo ago
I agree with much of what you say. Career being the core of one's identity is so ingrained in society. Think about how schooling is directed towards producing what 'industry' needs. Education for educations sake isn't a thing. Capitalism see's to this and ensures so many avenues are closed to people. Perhaps this will change but I fear it will be a painful transition to other modes of thinking and forming society. Another problem is hoarding. Wealth inequality is one thing but the unadulterated hoarding by the very wealthy means that wealth is unable to circulate as freely as it ought to be. This burdens a society.
- b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
  Education for educations sake isn't a thing. It is but only for select members of society. Off the top of my head, those with benefits programs to go after that opportunity like 100% disabled veterans, or the wealthy and their families.
- theshrike79 10mo ago
  > Career being the core of one's identity is so ingrained in society In AMERICAN society. Over there "what do you do?" is in the first 3 questions people ask each other when they meet. I've known people for 20 years and I don't have the slightest clue what they do for a living, it's never came up. We talk about other things - their profession isn't a part of their personality.
throw1235435 10mo ago
If we had done what you say (distribute wealth more evenly between people/corporations) more to the point I don't know if AI would of progressed as it has - companies would of been more selective with their investment money and previously AI was seen at best as a long shot bet. Most companies in the "real economy" can't afford to make too many of these kind of bets in general. The main reason for the transformer architecture, and many other AI advancements really was "big tech" has lots of cash that they don't know what to do with. It seems the US system punishes dividends as well tax wise; so companies are incentivized to become like VC's -> buy lots of opportunities hoping one makes it big even if many end up losing.

theshrike79 10mo ago

Someone smart said that AI should replace tasks, not jobs. There are infinite analogies for this whole thing, but it mostly distills down to artisans and craftsmen in my mind. Artisans build one chair to perfection, every joint is meticulously measured and uses traditional handcrafted Japanese joinery, not a single screw or nail is used unless it's absolutely necessary. It takes weeks to build one, each one is an unique work of art. It also costs 2000€ for a chair. Craftsmen optimise their process for output, instead of selling one 2000€ chair a month, they'd rather sell a hundred for 20€. They have templates for cutting every piece, jigs for quickly attaching different components, use screws and nails to speed up the process instead of meticulous handcrafted joinery. It's all about where you get your joy in "software development". Is it solving problems efficiently or crafting a beautiful elegant expressive piece of code? Neither way is bad, but pre-LLM both people could do the same tasks. I think that's coming to an end in the near future. The difference between craftsmen and artisans is becoming clearer. There is a place for people who create that beautiful hyper-optimised code, but in many (most) cases just a craftsman with an agentic LLM tool will solve the customer's problem with acceptable performance and quality in a fraction of the time.