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AI Won't Cause Unemployment

pmarca.substack.com

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Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#101

Post by _448 »

This claim that AI won't cause unemployment baffles me. I understand the argument being made that new types of jobs will be created, but what the people making that argument miss is the massive level of up-skilling/re-skilling that is required of the population whose jobs are replaced. This has not worked out well. Just look at the communities in some poorer parts of the UK, who were relying on coal, mining and steam locomotive(yes, for that many generations the effects of job losses are felt). These communities have not yet recovered.

The challenge with AI is that it is going to touch every spectrum of the jobs, and the people required for the available jobs will be far less and require very niche skills.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#102

Post by john_the_writer »

phillipcarter wrote: post #12
idopmstuff wrote: post #8

I can't help but think Andreesen's gone off the deep end a bit, especially after he started gushing over Adam Neumann's second run at a real estate company (“We think it is natural that for his first venture since WeWork, Adam returns to the theme of connecting people through transforming their physical spaces and building communities where people spend the most time: their homes.”). > AI is simply already illegal ac…

Yeah, his whole post is thinly veiled anti-regulations blather. I suppose it’s a nice break from his web3 nonsense and his deranged anti-“woke” posting.

Got to admit, the break from web3 was nice.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#103

Post by john_the_writer »

idopmstuff wrote: post #62
twelve40 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no special love for this guy as he said some stuff that pissed me off in the past, but what is your specific argument against this post right here? > Hospital services? AI is clearly going to be involved, at least in things like radiology This is very far from the main point: accuracy of the claim that AI will wipe out (in this case health-related) jobs (and/or make health-related services cheaper). "involved"…

> This is very far from the main point: accuracy of the claim that AI will wipe out (in this case health-related) jobs (and/or make health-related services cheaper). "involved" here is so vague as to be meaningless. Let me rephrase: AI is better at human beings at the sort of pattern-matching work that radiology entails, so the majority of radiologists will be unemployed (I'll say in 20 years, if you want to check ba…

I find any time someone uses the word obviously they're either trying to force an opinion, or insulting you.

If it is obvious to all, then the word is meant to point out how stupid the listener is.

If it's not obvious to all then the speaker is just trying to shut down a conversation.

Clearly I'm right about this. It's obvious.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#104

Post by janalsncm »

> The jobs apocalypse is always right around the corner; just ask the Luddites.

The obvious yet unaddressed point here is that automation was bad for the Luddites. They lost their jobs to machines. The implied retort is that people can and should be reskilled, but as people like Andrew Yang have said many times, reskilling has mixed results.

It seems very weird that I, as a moderately knowledgeable layperson, should be able to have 3 or 4 steps of conversation into this topic that Marc simply does not acknowledge. I can only imagine how insulting it would be to an economist or social scientist who has seriously studied this stuff. This essay pretends we know nothing at all about automation.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#105

Post by usgroup »

So one counter example falsifies this argument right?

Marketing agencies are already shedding copywriters in favour of ChatGPT written content.

Therefore AI is causing unemployment.

Therefore “AI won’t cause unemployment” is false.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#106

Post by usgroup »

janalsncm wrote: post #104

> The jobs apocalypse is always right around the corner; just ask the Luddites. The obvious yet unaddressed point here is that automation was bad for the Luddites. They lost their jobs to machines. The implied retort is that people can and should be reskilled, but as people like Andrew Yang have said many times, reskilling has mixed results. It seems very weird that I, as a moderately knowledgeable layperson, should…

And reskilling makes much more sense when you’re replacing manual labour. Less sense when you’re replacing brains.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#107

Post by pythonaut_16 »

LeonB wrote: post #95
twelve40 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no special love for this guy as he said some stuff that pissed me off in the past, but what is your specific argument against this post right here? > Hospital services? AI is clearly going to be involved, at least in things like radiology This is very far from the main point: accuracy of the claim that AI will wipe out (in this case health-related) jobs (and/or make health-related services cheaper). "involved"…

When the television first arrived any TV optimist would’ve said: “clearly TV is going to open up educational opportunities in a way that brings the costs way down” … and that is exactly what happened. Since 1960 every kid in the world “clearly” gets the absolute best education imaginable thanks to the economy of scale afforded by TV broadcasting. It’s basic economics. Oh wait.

And yet the proliferation of screens capable of displaying information and graphics has been an absolute boon to education.

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#108

Post by usgroup »

stult wrote: post #55

What an incredibly, idiotically reductionist interpretation of cherry-picked data this is. First of all, he selected a fairly random, non-representative set of goods and services. I can immediately think of a glaringly obvious counter-example that his dataset excludes: energy. It's one of the most highly regulated industries in the US and yet energy inflation has been barely positive over the last 20 years ( https://…

I’d imagine finance to be another one wherein presumably transactional costs have decreased for B2C?

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#109

Post by quijoteuniv »

john_the_writer wrote: post #103
idopmstuff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very far from the main point: accuracy of the claim that AI will wipe out (in this case health-related) jobs (and/or make health-related services cheaper). "involved" here is so vague as to be meaningless. Let me rephrase: AI is better at human beings at the sort of pattern-matching work that radiology entails, so the majority of radiologists will be unemployed (I'll say in 20 years, if you want to check ba…

I find any time someone uses the word obviously they're either trying to force an opinion, or insulting you. If it is obvious to all, then the word is meant to point out how stupid the listener is. If it's not obvious to all then the speaker is just trying to shut down a conversation. Clearly I'm right about this. It's obvious.

That is common sense and standard practice

Re: AI Won't Cause Unemployment

#110

Post by rgmerk »

29athrowaway wrote: post #91

College textbooks are expensive simply because it's a cartel. A textbook could simply be a file that is copied infinitely for free.

And who’s going to write and update that textbook?

If your answer is “the professor teaching the course”, that’s cost-shifting and in many cases less efficient than having one textbook author write a textbook used in many places.

If your further suggestion is that LLMs will generate college textbooks, that seems like a gross overestimate of their current capabilities.

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