21–30 of 42 posts
> "age of abundance" No such thing will come to pass in the common way you think. This is classic doublespeak. Similar to "You will own nothing and be happy". If you think hard on it, the only way that can be true is by limiting the scope of the number of people involved, and the only way to do that is if a large number of people die, and that is what they mean and intend when they do not explicitly spell out how you…
Can you honestly name a single billionaire who is going to be happy to share this supposed 'abundance'? They are going to use their capital to extract as much wealth as possible and they have no intention of letting the average person live out a comfortable life without working.
No one is going to be safe. But some jobs are safer than the others. I'd say anything physical is safer than knowledge jobs.
At the very least, they'll need contractors to take people out for dinner.
An important part of being a VC appears to be the ability to believe anything, no matter how stupid, as long as it is currently on-trend, then to abandon it as if it had never existed when fashions change (for instance, see the blockchain craze, which was shortly followed by a distinct NFT craze that was just the blockchain one resprayed). I would not take what _VCs_ say as any particular guide to reality.
> Even Bill Gates recently said we might all be out of work soon and won’t need to do anything in an "age of abundance."
This would be the same Bill Gates who was claiming in the late 90s that by the early noughties our primary means of interfacing with our computers would be by talking to them, yes? I mean, again, you've got to consider the source.
Smart companies now will hire the best of the best from a large pool of people laid off by dumb companies.
Fast forward 10 years - dumb companies are drowning in false hopes, bad staff and mess they created for themselves. While smart ones growing and replacing them.
> Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with several VCs who confidently claim that companies won’t need to hire anyone in the next year or two because AI will handle everything. An important part of being a VC appears to be the ability to believe anything, no matter how stupid, as long as it is currently on-trend, then to abandon it as if it had never existed when fashions change (for instance, see the blockchain cra…
Yes, vcs can be stupid and blind sometimes too. Just like all of us. Smart companies now will hire the best of the best from a large pool of people laid off by dumb companies. Fast forward 10 years - dumb companies are drowning in false hopes, bad staff and mess they created for themselves. While smart ones growing and replacing them.
No jobs are safe, but no skilled jobs are immediately on the chopping block either. AI will boost peoples' efficiency, such that it will take one skilled worker to do what it used to take five skilled workers to do. Law briefs, ad copy, scripting, code refactoring, engineering. Everything will use AI as a tool, but AI won't replace most people. People will instruct AIs to do sub-tasks and validate and integrate its responses. Similar to how people use computers today. Some peoples' specialized skills will be rendered obsolete, similar to what happened with secretaries, switchboard operators, elevator operators, proofreaders, etc. with computers.
I think it will change what it means to do many jobs, just like working with computers changed, for instance, accounting, or visual design. Working with specialized AI tools will become an essential part of many jobs, just like working with specialized software tools is today.
Long term, I think AI will eat further into current jobs, but I think they will be replaced with different human jobs. I think there will still be skilled careers and roles to be had, but I don't think any of us can predict what those jobs will look like.
> Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with several VCs who confidently claim that companies won’t need to hire anyone in the next year or two because AI will handle everything. An important part of being a VC appears to be the ability to believe anything, no matter how stupid, as long as it is currently on-trend, then to abandon it as if it had never existed when fashions change (for instance, see the blockchain cra…
I was sceptical about the VCs to start with but the Bill Gates quote made me really question it all! Thanks for sharing the story about him predicting voice as primary means of interfacing with computers.
Meanwhile, today, almost 30 years after Dragon NaturallySpeaking (which was kind of in the ChatGPT role; it seemed so magic that everyone thought everything was about to change), voice recognition is finally just about good enough that it can be used for unimportant things. Though personally I still wouldn't trust it to control my computer.
As someone who believes AI will completely eliminate humans I wish I was could only be worried about job security. But to answer your question, AI will ultimately eliminate every job in the sense that if you believe AI will eventually be able do any task, and do it for cheaper than a human labourer, then there would be no reason for you to ever pay a human labourer. The best analogy here is probably how the industria…