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What will be left for us to work on
- Cloudly 1mo agoVideo recording from ICML up from Arvind Narayanan
- reasonableklout 1mo agoThe author has a blog post mirroring their talk in writing: https://www.normaltech.ai/p/what-will-be-left-for-us-to-work https://www.normaltech.ai/p/what-will-be-left-for-us-to-work
- mohsen1 1mo agoI have a question about “domain expertise” as a component of future knowledge worker requirements. How does one gain such expertise in a context where thinking is expected to be delegated to AI (shifting from problem solving to question asking, as noted in this paper)? How does one learn to pose the right questions when basic ones are rarely “manually” answered? that is, without an AI assistant’s help This pattern appears in schools, where AI interferes with human development that typically demands long and difficult effort of actually answering questions
- 317070 1mo agoHow do you become a baker, in a world of bread factories. I think the answer lies in baking the good old fashioned way and ignoring the factories.
- zabriel_goss 1mo agoFor certain functionality, we import libraries. For others, we've handwritten solutions. Even so — sometimes we have to crack open the repo for a library to really dig in to what's going on. That seems to go for domain experts as well. I think we've always been working with the scenarios of what's solved for us and what we need to solve manually. AI is certainly not an abstraction layer, but there are ways to use it where you are still driving, learning, and shipping.
- thefz 1mo agoI can't even trust a chatbot with internet search. You guys use it for research?
- chermi 1mo agoThen don't trust a chatbot for internet search. There's much more to llms than chat bots
- dyauspitr 1mo agoYes you can. This comment might have made sense in early 2025.
- chneu 1mo agoLol no you can't. I had one give me blatantly incorrect information just a bit ago. The first result after the AI version had the correct info. No idea how it got it so wrong.
- thangalin 1mo agohttps://autonoma.ca/model.png https://autonoma.ca/model.png Thoughts?
- hello_dang_ 1mo ago[dead]
- gus_massa 1mo ago1) I guess the robots extract the metal too? 2) The system has determined that you need 10% calories if you sit on a bench all day instead of playing football. 3) The system has determined you don't need to watch TV/YouTube/Netflix, so that energy will be redirected for more food production. [You still get 90% anyway.] 4) Distribute (step 6) is not necessary. Please go to the queue for the two daily meals. [Estimated time, 6 hours each.]
- jujube3 1mo agoMaybe work on a larger font size, pal.
- josefritzishere 1mo agoIt seems likely there will be much work in the area of fixing the slop code that proves to be unmaintainable. Companies right now are racing to push the lowest quality code into prod with no way to even QA it. If you have the skills, it'll be top dollar to bail these people out.
- panny 1mo ago> I argue that there will be plenty for us to work on, grounded in the “AI as normal technology” thesis There is no doubt that AI is creating more work than it produces. Every single line it writes has to be reviewed by someone because AI cannot take responsibility. And it can spew out decades worth of written code every day. Every line is untrustworthy and must be manually verified. The problem is I don't want to do this work. You don't either. Everyone I've seen using AI to write code does not do this work. Anyone who says they do this work is lying, to you or themselves or a little of both. People just YOLO and ship it. If that is the only work left to do when using AI, I'll just do it the old way. If that's not good enough to stay employeed, then I'll just find a new career.
- copperx 1mo agoProgramming is a vocation. It became a career because of sheer luck.
- r_lee 1mo agowhat makes you think companies will do it the "old way" when the new way is much more economically viable? I'm not saying this as in I love it but I just don't see how we'd go back
- sublinear 1mo agoThis is exactly correct. The whole point of software is to precisely build what is intended. The perception of the quality of the result is relative to the original requirements and expectations. It shouldn't be surprising that people who are ignorant of industry specs and who have very low standards are impressed. They've always been impressed by any software at all if it scratches their immediate itch. The bigger threat to employment is the same as it's always been: the employer's wishes. Many of those wishes are not out of the kindness of their heart. They are forced by regulations and contractual obligation. What we actually saw was an initial dismissal of how deep that specification can/should go. I'm expecting there to be a wave of people pushing for reform instead when they realize LLMs aren't moving the needle much. That's good. That's where all this energy belongs. We always want better ideas. It doesn't change the fact that humans still need to implement the new specs when they're new. Ah, you say, then the bots take over? No. As ever, that's just packaged as a standard library. There's always another new layer to think about integrating it with which again requires a human in the loop. What's most surprising isn't the AI, but all the profound ignorance that exists out there, even from big shot execs! All work works like this. If it didn't, the economy would have collapsed during every technological milestone in human history.
- QuantumNoodle 1mo agoThere are three parts of this talk, the last part (~last 15mins) bluntly address the question "how human roles shift in a world with advanced AI?" My main takeaways from the speaker's position are: purely technical skills will get devalued because they tend to be verifiable tasks and AI will get better. Also effort will shift from building to evaluation of AI and systems. Speaker also mentioned that more of our time will go to decision making while AI takes over delivering on decisions. I found many arguments to be at odds with one another bc the speaker does not address how someone can gain understanding without accumulating purely technical skills. It simply does not add up that someone who lacks purely technical skills in an area can make good decisions. Experience is often a by product of accumulating technical acumine in a particular problem area.
- copperx 1mo agoNobody has good answers for any of these things. It's a folly to think someone else has it figured out.
- noncoml 1mo ago> Nobody has good answers for any of these things. It's a folly to think someone else has it figured out. We don’t know that. Only history will tell us who figured it out and why. What I don’t understand is why there is a clear decision between decisions and delivering on decision, other than the artificial need to retain control. I don’t see a real roadblock that will prevent AI making better devisions than humans.
- hackable_sand 1mo ago"better" is a qualifier
- QuantumNoodle 1mo agoI was wondering that too. I suppose if we take it to the extreme end of the spectrum, "end world hunger" is a great decision but how to actually realize it is another problem.
- deadbabe 1mo agoHere’s an idea: reversing climate change. That should keep you busy for the rest of your life.
- cindyllm 1mo ago[dead]
- ErystelaThevale 1mo agoAI won’t function unless you give it a purpose (at least for now). Isn’t it crucial, then, that we define that purpose as specifically as possible? Both AI and humans make mistakes. What they have in common is that review is necessary.
- PeterStuer 1mo agoMany people still 'work-out' at the gym while their 'real' working lives involve close to zero physical effort. Many people 'go for walks' when a motorcycle could have gotten there faster and with less effort. The utilitarian view of mental 'work' might shift in the same way. Deliberately opting for mental excersize not because of nescessity but for mental health and enjoyment. Just like in the physical case, there will be widespread mental obesity because many will not.