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Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

theguardian.com

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Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#41

Post by musicale »

gentleman11 wrote: post #10

A lot of dismissive comments in here already by people who aren’t trying to make a living doing writing, art, or voiceover. It will be music soon too. Tutoring is probably heavily affected already too “But those weren’t real jobs,” some might say. So it doesn’t count until it replaces programmer jobs? Because that’s coming soon too. Would you really encourage your kids to go into this field, expecting them to still h…

For most businesses, AI works basically the same as any other kind of automation:

1) increasing output for the same labor costs

2) reducing labor costs by replacing humans with machines or smaller numbers of humans that operate the machines

The interesting difference is that AI can automate a wide range of "creative" and "knowledge worker" jobs that formerly resisted automation, so many tech workers (and others) may have their jobs automated out of existence, much as cloud computing automated the work of human system and network administrators.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#43

Post by postalrat »

Teever wrote: post #16
constantcrying wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Working for living is a problem to be solved. I had a job where I got payed, but had no real work. It was genuinely awful.

Why was it awful? That would be my dream. The first thing I would do is enrol in online courses/ get a second job.

Free money is the dream or not working is dream?

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#44

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

subjectsigma wrote: post #5
nabla9 wrote: post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

> Working for living is a problem to be solved. I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will…

Your friends struggle because they live in a world that determines someone’s worth by their jobs. Also their ability to pay rent and food and such. So of course in such a world they would be depressed. That doesn’t mean we need some idiot with a higher rank in some office to give us meaningless tasks.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#45

Post by fragmede »

subjectsigma wrote: post #5
nabla9 wrote: post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

> Working for living is a problem to be solved. I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will…

> sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist

It is, but I'd argue that's a failure of imagination on their part to do anything else other than watch TV. There are many opportunities to volunteer somewhere and get engaged with a community, but they have to get off their couch to do it. (don't even need to get off the couch, given the right set of skills.)

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#46

Post by rayiner »

AI promises to be the antidote to the ills of the knowledge economy. Computer technology multiplied the productivity of a small class of high-IQ workers, leading to massive inequality between knowledge workers and other workers. AI, if it works, promises to level the playing field again. It’s not going to replace plumbers, nurses, and HVAC technicians. It’s going to replace the top 20% of mostly college educated knowledge workers whose incomes have grown at triple the median income over the last few decades: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-new-contract-with-the-m...

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#47

Post by paxys »

TFYS wrote: post #37
paxys wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is going to "slow down this progress"? Some mythical world government? The Illuminati? You can't legislate human thought and human ingenuity. Progress is happening, whether you like it or not. You either embrace it or get left behind.

We can't stop it, but if the leading countries regulate it progress will be slower.

If one major economy regulates and slows down AI the rest of them will ramp up their investment and gain a competitive edge. The jobs will be gone regardless, just this time to an AI company in China or India rather than the USA. That's how the world works.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

paxys wrote: post #19
gentleman11 wrote: post #10

A lot of dismissive comments in here already by people who aren’t trying to make a living doing writing, art, or voiceover. It will be music soon too. Tutoring is probably heavily affected already too “But those weren’t real jobs,” some might say. So it doesn’t count until it replaces programmer jobs? Because that’s coming soon too. Would you really encourage your kids to go into this field, expecting them to still h…

> “But those weren’t real jobs,” some might say. No one is saying that. What people are saying is that technology has routinely made certain jobs irrelevant since the beginning of human civilization, and no one can do anything about it other than accept it and move on. Soon enough new ones will spring up to take their place. Sharing and commenting on variations of the same article every single day is certainly not he…

We eventually will hit the point that technology replaces jobs and new jobs don’t popup. I hope by then we have our politics fixed enough to more equally distribute the automation bounty.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#49

Post by musicale »

subjectsigma wrote: post #5
nabla9 wrote: post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

> Working for living is a problem to be solved. I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will…

> sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will end up without work

Wall•E predicted a world of rich, fat humans amusing and eating themselves to death. It got the rich part wrong.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#50

Post by musicale »

fragmede wrote: post #45
subjectsigma wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working for living is a problem to be solved. I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will…

> sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist It is, but I'd argue that's a failure of imagination on their part to do anything else other than watch TV. There are many opportunities to volunteer somewhere and get engaged with a community, but they have to get off their couch to do it. (don't even need to get off the couch, given the right set of skills.)

When TV and virtual worlds are more appealing than the real world, which one are people going to choose?
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