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AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

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Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#251

Post by luckylion »

ajmurmann wrote: post #189
dahart wrote: post #84

At some level it’s tautological. Initially I had a similar negative reaction other commenters had, but I think I’m deciding I like the people framing. Obviously this is not an either-or. It’s not a question of AI vs people, it’s both AI+people. But only people are making the choices. People are building AI, people who can use AI will choose to use it, and people who run businesses will choose to allow it and/or incor…

Comparing to outsourcing or, even less fitting, immigration is a terrible analogy. Those jobs and their income go to other humans. Other humans who will consume goods and services, this is especially true for immigration. I'd also argue that offshoring is morally positive because it moves the work and associated income to where people need it more, that's why the labor is cheaper there Both automation and global move…

> However, automation allows for the owner of the goods of production to retain much more of the value created.

It also massively lowers the cost of the product in general, and makes it a commodity. Yeah, automation might allow some company to keep more of each sale, but unless they're a monopoly, the price will plummet.

Consider buying a pair of handmade leather shoes vs buying some factory made leather shoes. The factory might have a higher margin than the craftsman, but suddenly leather shoes are very affordable.

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#252

Post by ProllyInfamous »

kneebonian wrote: post #175
tobr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. People using AI to take other people’s jobs, because they’re afraid AI will take their jobs.

I'm in this boat. I was worried about AI for a while then I realized I have to figure out how to use it or get left behind. The problem is I am still having difficulty understanding how to use the tool effectively. Any advice would be much appreciated.

My late-January 2023 prediction, perhaps mimicking the still-then-growing trend:

2023 will be the year that leaves the majority of humans behind.

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#253

Post by the_doctah »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #196
the_doctah wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you haven't used it enough. ChatGPT is wrong all the time for me, sometimes insultingly wrong. The confidence in it's incorrect answers just makes it that much worse. I can't buy any of this hype for a "word-putting-together" algorithm. It's not real intelligence.

Please give some examples then. I've found the GPT-4 version to be remarkably accurate, and when it makes mistakes it's not hard to spot them. For example, I commented last week that I've found ChatGPT to be a great tool for managing my task list, and for whatever reason the "verbal" back-and-forth works much better for my brain than a simple checklist-based todo app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35390644 . B…

For a time, I was attempting to use it for game advice during my recent playthrough of Demon's Souls remake (What's the best build for X? What's the best weapon for X?). I asked ChatGPT where to find the NPC The Filthy Woman in a certain level. ChatGPT answered that that NPC doesn't exist, and perhaps I had the wrong game? That NPC most certainly does exist.

I was also using it to generate some Java code for a bit. That is, until it started giving me maven dependencies that didn't exist, and classes that didn't exist, but definitely looked like they would at first glance.

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#254

Post by gpanders »

gspencley wrote: post #225

I'm not as worried about AI "stealing" my job as I am worried that it's going to make my job unappealing. As a software engineer, what motivates me most is the creative aspect of it. I like building and designing things. I like thinking about every line of code that I write. If people start outsourcing their coding to generative AI, and if I find myself feeling pressured to follow suit in order to keep up, then every…

I completely agree. Many of the recent articles and blog posts written by AI enthusiasts giving examples of how AI makes their job "easier" or "more productive" just demonstrates this to me even further. What they call "more productive" looks to me like "incredibly boring".

In addition, another point I don't often see mentioned is the alarmingly likely possibility that all AI-enhanced software engineering will go through these tools that are owned by 1 or 2 (American) tech companies. Are people really excited about a future where you can't even perform the basics of your skillset without depending on a Microsoft service? We are rapidly advancing toward a future where a single company owns the most popular text editor, the most popular code hosting platform, (one of) the most used cloud infrastructure platforms, and soon, if the AI enthusiasts have it right, the tool that will be a "necessity" to even write code at all.

If that future unfolds, I will leave software voluntarily long before I get "replaced".

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#255

Post by pzo »

tobr wrote: post #8
buf wrote: post #2

There are two types of people: 1. People afraid AI will take their jobs 2. People using AI to take people's jobs

3. People using AI to take other people’s jobs, because they’re afraid AI will take their jobs.

4. People downplaying AI and ignoring AI completely.

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#256

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #194
marginalia_nu wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've changed collective human behavior before though, outlawed slavery etc.

And yet, even in countries where slavery is outlawed, it's still done - sometimes out in the open, sometimes behind closed doors. e.g. the US, where people in jail are exempt from all our progressive slave labor laws.

[deleted]

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#257

Post by softwaredoug »

Everyone’s worried about AI taking their software jobs, yet humanity faces existential problems around climate change, poverty, failed states, etc. And huge opportunities like space exploration and better health care.

Maybe this has more to do with our ego - losing perceived status as masters of the universe, when in reality hard, intractable problems exist more than ever. Why aren’t we changing to work on them?

Maybe the cost of software development has been actually a barrier to solving many of these problems, and society may be better off without that cost?

Are we the baddies?

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#258

Post by throwaway5371 »

gavinhoward wrote: post #242
lolsowrong wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re an inspiration. I’m going to open an accounting firm and refuse to use calculators.

Username checks out because you missed the point. Yes, I know calculators can encourage people to not think; I should know because I wrote one. [1] But the current "AI" tech is so much worse on that front. It's a difference of degree, and that degree does matter. By the way, when I was learning to fly helicopters [2], I used my calculator to calculate weight and balances, but I also did it by hand! [1]: https://git.g…

thats a weird flex

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#259

Post by bradjohnson »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #215
lolsowrong wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go type .1*.2 into any JavaScript console. Edit: slapping a few more in here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/... https://daviddeley.com/pentbug/index.htm

The answer in the Javascript console is still a correct answer. The user did not specify a level of precision, and web browsers are programmed to use a precision level which is reasonable under most circumstances. If the user needs a higher level of precision, he or she needs to specify that as part of the question (such as by not using floating point numbers). I don't mean to be pedantic. I teach coding to elementar…

>The answer in the Javascript console is still a correct answer.

It's wrong in the same way that saying 1/1 = 1.0004 is wrong. It's not a matter of chosen precision in that it doesn't make the answer correct when you increase the number of zeros between 1 and 4.

Re: AI won't steal your job, people leveraging AI will

#260

Post by ModernMech »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #215
lolsowrong wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go type .1*.2 into any JavaScript console. Edit: slapping a few more in here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/... https://daviddeley.com/pentbug/index.htm

The answer in the Javascript console is still a correct answer. The user did not specify a level of precision, and web browsers are programmed to use a precision level which is reasonable under most circumstances. If the user needs a higher level of precision, he or she needs to specify that as part of the question (such as by not using floating point numbers). I don't mean to be pedantic. I teach coding to elementar…

> I don't mean to be pedantic.

I'm sorry in advance, but this reply is just to meet pedantry with pedantry.

> A computer will always do what you tell it to do.

This is the Bohr model of computers. It's the kind of thing you tell elementary school students because it's conceptually simple and mostly right, but I think we know better here on HN. Pedantically, computers don't always do what you tell them to, because the don't always hear what you tell them, and what you tell them can be corrupted even when they do hear it.

For instance, random particles from outer space can cause a computer to behave quite randomly: https://www.thegamer.com/how-ionizing-particle-outer-space-h...

  why was nobody able to pull it off, even when replicating exactly the inputs that DOTA_Teabag had used? Simple: this glitch requires a phenomenon known as a single-event upset, which is very much out of any player's control.
I don't think we can reasonably say that in this instance, the computer behaved according to what the user told it to do. In fact, it responded to the user and the environment.
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