641–650 of 713 posts
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unfortunately, we have capitalism. in our society, if people and their kids starving and dying, we think this ia justice.
This is childish. People are starving more in non capitalist societies.
But when we read the speeches of the Luddite leaders, more than anything else they talk about "liberty". Luddites spoke and wrote about the dangers to their liberty created by wage pressure from power looms. But much more, they spoke and wrote about the danger to their liberty posed by moving away from handloom weaving in homes and small shops towards weaving with power looms in a factory system.
What they resisted more than anything was the destruction of their autonomy, their subjection to abusive floor managers and the grinding dullness of repetitive machine labor.
Programmers have been facing this down already for some time. As full-stack engineering, excellent automation tools and powerful APIs have proliferated, we don't often get to go deep into some problem. Algorithmic design and development, which is a huge pleasure of mine has faded to the background of gaining a shallow understanding of many technologies, plumbing them and futsing with their numerous configurations. AI is already accelerating this for my work and I am struggling to find it not dismal. It is no surprise that now that the tools exist to comoditize art, the work is following a similar trajectory.
AI should be a unifying event for tech labor. Not to resist it entirely but to ensure in whatever future develops that we have some say in how work can remain enriching and dignified alongside the growth of these tools.
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What jobs have been totally replaced thus far?
First, of all, why it has to be "totally replaced"? It's enough for positions to be dramatically reduced, and most such "though workers" tasks getting done automatically, e.g. under the final supervision of much fewer people. Second, why it has to be "thus far"? If it happens in 1 or 5 or 10 years does it disqualify it? Because above you claimed it will "never take thought workers' jobs". Suddenly the goalposts moved…
I was asking a question. I don't think anyone can confidently quantify the effects of AI at this point so I was seeing if I was missing something. What I said is just some word vomit about what I'm seeing on the ground as an engineer. I'm happy to accept a refutation as we gather more concrete data. The reason I asked the question the way I did is because as I stated there is no doubt AI will impact our jobs, but I'm understandably more concerned about less jobs because of AI. I also have the experience of writing a lot of automation, and hearing this same style of rhetoric when we started doing that heavily. For all the scare around automation, it did end fact end up creating more jobs and typically made lives easier.
Jumping to "shifting goalposts" over that is pretty trash conversation.
The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While o…
I think the effect on the job market of (things like) midjourney is much more drastic and steeply immediate than that historical example (not sure if it's a true story or hypothetical? not sure if it was written by chat-gpt?). I mean, I'm sure many developers over the years have found their jobs disappear, and many contracting companies have gone out of business due to changed market. But at least through now, even w…
The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While o…
Curious - on a scale out of 10, how much of that was written by ChatGPT? No offense intended - if the answer is zero, my apologies
As for the suggestions of me asking it to write the comment from prompts, then I’m afraid that’s 100% wrong.
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Not when all the marine life dies off because the oceans are too acidic and wrecks all sorts of havoc on above land eco systems.
...how does the Marine Life die in this scenario?
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He's also angry because now his job has completely changed. He enjoyed spending his time making 3D models. Now that expectations have shifted because of these tools he has to use them. He went from making things from scratch to writing prompts instead.
Okay so? Back in the day people trained up for 2D art, and then suddenly not long after 3D graphics came around. Imagine working on Final Fantasy 6, and then being told you now have to do 3D art for Final Fantasy 7. Amazingly, despite 3D graphics, in the year 2023 there are now more employed 2D pixel artists than there were in the 90s. They are still making new games for the NES! So while I’m sad for this person’s lo…
There are probably some employed pixel artists that liked creating things pixel by pixel and are disliking the fact that their job is radically changing since these tools create an expectation for faster output.
I apologize if I came across arguing with anyone.
I just wanted to call out that to me - it doesn't seem like this person thinks they are going to lose their job. They did their job in a way that they really enjoyed. That's changed.
Does that happen all the time in other industries? Yes. Is it valid to point out that this has happened before? Yes. Will this person be able to find work? Yes.
This person is just expressing their frustration. With the way all these tools are progressing, I imagine we are going to be seeing posts like these more in the future.
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It's not just that the budgets are harder to justify; it's also that prospective clients consider themselves to be experts. Having your judgement and expertise consistently overruled is disheartening and you often end up just following instructions, sapping any joy from the (diminishing and cheaper) role. I started my web business 25 years ago. 5ish years ago I started photographing and filming travel content, primar…
No. It's that the job to be done is to sell product. Not build a handcrafted website. Not build a beautiful website. Provide something that markets and sells something to customers. And with that perspective, the client really does know better. The web is ephemeral. Will it even still exist in twenty five years after AI provides all the answers and connections (all we use the web for anyway)?
The gripes about web sites you see on HN - they're the things clients insist on.
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> AI won't take a thought workers job. I don't understand how you can hold this position considering not only where we are but also the rate of progress in AI. It has been taking thought workers job and it will increasingly do so in the future until the surplus cognitive workers offer is just so minimal that it's not worth to automate it.
What jobs have been totally replaced thus far?
Of course, having people hand knit garments used to be the only way to get a knitted garment at all.
Then we invented industrial knitting machines, and those hand knitters found their roles had changed. Instead of knitting a whole garment, they would be closing up the toe on the socks, or doing finishing work on a sweater. Of course, companies didn't need anywhere near as many knitters under this system, so a huge proportion of them lost their jobs.
Then the knitting machines got better. They could close the toes on the socks themselves, could do most of the finishing work automatically. Some of the remaining knitters became industrial knitting support workers, but most of the actual knitting jobs dried up.
But there are still professional, commercial hand knitters, even today! They test hand knitting patterns for the hobby market. Make the samples up for photographing, and make sure that all the sizes come out right.
They number... Dozens? Maybe? And most of them treat it as a side gig, despite being the absolute pinnacle of hand knitting talent, since it pays terribly.
A job doesn't have to have been totally replaced to be effectively replaced. As we find ways to hand over larger and larger pieces of the work to an automated system, the number of real roles in that field diminishes, until it eventually becomes infeasible as a career choice.
This is what a lot these digital content creation jobs are heading. Gradual obsolescence.