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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

#271

Post by avereveard »

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…

Do you happen to know what messages are gonna get dropped by the client if the conversation becomes too long?

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

#273

Post by gavinhoward »

pixl97 wrote: post #21
gavinhoward wrote: post #13

I completely disagree. I'm building a business, and this business will be based on excellent software and excellent support for that software. I will refuse to use AI. But instead of AI users taking my job, I'm sure that refusing to use AI will become my differentiator as every AI user becomes more and more like each other. You may think that good AI users will not become so bland, but they will. Human laziness will…

"Instead of using a motor vehicle, I will deliver all packages by hand" I mean, yea, in places it would succeed as a boutique business, but you're not building the next Amazon that way either.

Who needs to build the next Amazon?

I want a business that feeds my wife and me, with maybe a little extra. I don't need to be rich.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] »

thriftwy wrote: post #234
davisoneee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent's point is the exact opposite of what you have argued against. The author is saying they are afraid 'robots' will come for the fun stuff, rather than only being a tool for the menial labour. Think of the recent generative AI artwork...rather than drawing, and creating, (some/most?) artists fear just being prompt-carvers. The fun of the art has been replaced with menial labour of crafting prompts.

You can't expect to be paid for fun stuff if it's done by robots better, until you are looking for artisanal craft career. Artsy types doing art using basic tools such as brushes will be the same as handicrafted assembly in programming. Rarely needed and not much people are hired to do so.

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by BeefWellington »

jmfldn wrote: post #44
gavinhoward wrote: post #13

I completely disagree. I'm building a business, and this business will be based on excellent software and excellent support for that software. I will refuse to use AI. But instead of AI users taking my job, I'm sure that refusing to use AI will become my differentiator as every AI user becomes more and more like each other. You may think that good AI users will not become so bland, but they will. Human laziness will…

I think the zero sum, "use AI everywhere" vs "don't use it at all" are both to be avoided. The wise path is somewhere in the middle. On avoiding it, if your competitors are getting massive productivity gains from AI tools, your hand-crafted, artisanal code is going to be expensive and your customers will vote with their wallets.

> I think the zero sum, "use AI everywhere" vs "don't use it at all" are both to be avoided. The wise path is somewhere in the middle.

I suspect this is one of those tech Pandora's box moments where it's largely irrelevant what actual tech people think about this; executives will be swayed to the "use AI everywhere" side of things purely as a cost-cutting measure. Any productivity gained via the use of AI will be leveraged not to improve overall productivity (in the medium to long term) but instead leveraged against employees to to shed salaries.

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

#276

Post by rob74 »

dahart wrote: post #207
ajmurmann wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, it’s not a perfect analogy, but from the perspective of a business owner, the choice is to put money into something expensive like local human labor, or something cheaper whether it’s remote labor or automation of some kind. Lots of tools have been accused of stealing jobs over the years, from factory machines to vehicles to computers. In that sense, I’m only borrowing an analogy with a long rich tradition. The…

Why don't we first automate the jobs that need to be done, but nobody wants to do anymore? One example: sorting mixed garbage and filtering out recyclable plastics (of various types), cans, paper etc. would be a great application for AI, wouldn't take away anyone's job (at least not in developed countries), and would be good for the environment.

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

#277

Post by gavinhoward »

shadowgovt wrote: post #55
gavinhoward wrote: post #13

I completely disagree. I'm building a business, and this business will be based on excellent software and excellent support for that software. I will refuse to use AI. But instead of AI users taking my job, I'm sure that refusing to use AI will become my differentiator as every AI user becomes more and more like each other. You may think that good AI users will not become so bland, but they will. Human laziness will…

Possibly. This is certainly a pattern that works in other industries. I am aware of a local glass company with about 50 years of operation under its belt. They have tooling, but the process is heavily manual; no aspect of it is end-to-end automated. Their primary customers are those requiring high precision for industrial applications (electrical, aeronautics). They are forever capacity-capped because their model doe…

Yes, exactly.

I don't want a business to make me filthy rich. I want a business that will feed my wife and me.

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

#278

Post by livelielife »

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…

> without much worry about the consequences

disagree, but the consequences I'm imagining are the consequences of loosing money due to not making those kinds of decisions.

the consequences for the decision makers are very different, the incentives which surround them and the consequences they'll face are not what you seem to think they are.

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

#279

Post by fnovd »

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…

I'm sure that all was very rewarding for you. I'm not sure how it translates into a business. We don't want to teach accountants to deploy their own calculator from the command line and we don't want pilots to do math while they're flying.

You act like encouraging people not to think is a problem. Thing is, you'd be wrong. We want people not just to think, but to focus. If I'm a pilot and I have to worry about the runtime environment of the command-line calculator I use to hand-calculate my route and cockpit configuration, is that a good use of my focus? I think most people would say no. We definitely want to discourage the pilot from actively thinking about that kind of stuff. Should they have a grasp of the basics in case of emergency? Sure. Do we have a sustainable and efficient system of transportation if that's how our pilots spend their time? No.

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

#280

Post by nomy99 »

Interesting anecdote: I was interviewing a full stack developer, and I asked him to build a simple react UI. He was allowed to use google, but couldn't come up with a solution. He then said if he had access to chatGPT, he could've solved it..We didn't hire him, but should that be an expectation? Can you use chatGPT on an interview?
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