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Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

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Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#31

Post by cornholio »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15

My primary worry since the start has been not that it would "replace workers", but that it can destroy value of entire sectors. Think of resume-sending. Once both sides are automated, the practice is actually superfluous. The concept of "posting" and "applying" to jobs has to go. So any infrastructure supporting it has to go. At no point did it successfully "do a job", but the injury to the signal to noise ratio wipe…

Probably the first significant hit are going to be drivers, delivery men, truckers etc. a demographic of 5 million jobs in US and double that in EU, with ripple effects costing other millions of jobs in industries such as roadside diners and hotels.

The general tone of this study seems to be "It's 1995, and this thing called the Internet has not made TV obsolete"; same for the Acemoglu piece linked elsewhere in the. Well, no, it doesn't work like that, it first comes for your Blockbuster, your local shops and newspaper and so on, and transforms those middle class jobs vulnerable to automation into minimum wages in some Amazon warehouse. Similarly, AI won't come for lawyers and programmers first, even if some fear it.

The overarching theme is that the benefits of automation flow to those who have the bleeding edge technological capital. Historically, labor has managed to close the gap, especially trough public education; it remains to be seen if this process can continue, since eventually we're bound to hit the "hardware" limits of our wetware, whereas automation continues to accelerate.

So at some point, if the economic paradigm is not changed, human capital loses and the owners of the technological capital transition into feudal lords.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#32

Post by pydry »

mg wrote: post #18

One thing nobody seems to discuss is: In the future, we will do a lot more. In other terms: There will be a lot more work. So even if robots do 80% of it, if we do 10x more - the amount of work we need humans to do will double. We will write more software, build more houses, build more cars, planes and everything down the supply chain to make these things. When you look at planet earth, it is basically empty. While r…

Planet earth is still resource constrained. This is easy to forget when skills availability is more frequently the bottleneck and you live in a society that for the time being has fairly easy access to raw materials.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#33

Post by WillAdams »

mg wrote: post #25
10729287 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that some places are empty.

Would you be ok if instead of 97% of earth being empty 94% is empty and your rent is cut in half? Another plus point of the future: An electric autonomous bus is at your disposal every 5 minutes, bringing you to whatever nice lonely place you wish.

How will this 3% be selected?

Which of the few remaining wild creatures will be displaced?

https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/catastrophic-73...

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#34

Post by bambax »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15

My primary worry since the start has been not that it would "replace workers", but that it can destroy value of entire sectors. Think of resume-sending. Once both sides are automated, the practice is actually superfluous. The concept of "posting" and "applying" to jobs has to go. So any infrastructure supporting it has to go. At no point did it successfully "do a job", but the injury to the signal to noise ratio wipe…

> This is what happened to Google Search

This is completely untrue. Google Search still works, wonderfully. It works even better than other attempts at search by the same Google. For example, there are many videos that you will NEVER find on Youtube search that come up as the first results on Google Search. Same for maps: it's much easier to find businesses on Google Search than on maps. And it's even more true for non-google websites; searching Stack Overflow questions on SO itself is an exercice in frustration. Etc.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#35

Post by benterix »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15

My primary worry since the start has been not that it would "replace workers", but that it can destroy value of entire sectors. Think of resume-sending. Once both sides are automated, the practice is actually superfluous. The concept of "posting" and "applying" to jobs has to go. So any infrastructure supporting it has to go. At no point did it successfully "do a job", but the injury to the signal to noise ratio wipe…

GenAI is like plastic surgery for people who want to look better - looks good only if you can do it in a way it doesn't show it's plastic surgery.

Resume filtering by AI can work well on the first line (if implemented well). However, once we get to the the real interview rounds and I see the CV is full of AI slop, it immediately suggests the candidate will have a loose attitude to checking the work generated by LLMs. This is a problem already.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#36

Post by pydry »

cornholio wrote: post #31
thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15

My primary worry since the start has been not that it would "replace workers", but that it can destroy value of entire sectors. Think of resume-sending. Once both sides are automated, the practice is actually superfluous. The concept of "posting" and "applying" to jobs has to go. So any infrastructure supporting it has to go. At no point did it successfully "do a job", but the injury to the signal to noise ratio wipe…

Probably the first significant hit are going to be drivers, delivery men, truckers etc. a demographic of 5 million jobs in US and double that in EU, with ripple effects costing other millions of jobs in industries such as roadside diners and hotels. The general tone of this study seems to be "It's 1995, and this thing called the Internet has not made TV obsolete"; same for the Acemoglu piece linked elsewhere in the.…

Given that the world is fast deglobalizing there will be a flood of factory work being reshored in the next 10 years.

There's also going to be a shrinkage in the workforce caused by demographics (not enough kids to replace existing workers).

At the same time education costs have been artificially skyrocketed.

Personally the only scenario I see mass unemployment happening is under a "Russia-in-the-90s" style collapse caused by an industrial rugpull (supply chains being cut off way before we are capable of domestically substituting them) and/or the continuation of policies designed to make wealth inequality even worse.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#37

Post by cornholio »

pydry wrote: post #36
cornholio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the first significant hit are going to be drivers, delivery men, truckers etc. a demographic of 5 million jobs in US and double that in EU, with ripple effects costing other millions of jobs in industries such as roadside diners and hotels. The general tone of this study seems to be "It's 1995, and this thing called the Internet has not made TV obsolete"; same for the Acemoglu piece linked elsewhere in the.…

Given that the world is fast deglobalizing there will be a flood of factory work being reshored in the next 10 years. There's also going to be a shrinkage in the workforce caused by demographics (not enough kids to replace existing workers). At the same time education costs have been artificially skyrocketed. Personally the only scenario I see mass unemployment happening is under a "Russia-in-the-90s" style collapse…

The world is not deglobalizing, US is.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#38

Post by patapong »

mg wrote: post #18

One thing nobody seems to discuss is: In the future, we will do a lot more. In other terms: There will be a lot more work. So even if robots do 80% of it, if we do 10x more - the amount of work we need humans to do will double. We will write more software, build more houses, build more cars, planes and everything down the supply chain to make these things. When you look at planet earth, it is basically empty. While r…

I agree! People will become more productive, meaning fewer people can do more work. That said, I hope this does not result in the production of evermore things at the cost of nature!

I think we are at a crossroads as to what this will result in, however. In one case, the benefits will accrue at the top, with corporations earning greater profits while employing less people, leaving a large part of the population without jobs.

In the second case, we manage to capture these benefits, and confer them not just on the corporations but also the public good. People could work less, leaving more time for community enhancing activities. There are also many areas where society is currently underserved which could benefit from freed up workforce, such as schooling, elderly care, house building and maintenance etc etc.

I hope we can work toward the latter rather than the former.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#40

Post by clarionbell »

cornholio wrote: post #37
pydry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the world is fast deglobalizing there will be a flood of factory work being reshored in the next 10 years. There's also going to be a shrinkage in the workforce caused by demographics (not enough kids to replace existing workers). At the same time education costs have been artificially skyrocketed. Personally the only scenario I see mass unemployment happening is under a "Russia-in-the-90s" style collapse…

The world is not deglobalizing, US is.

The world is deglobalizing. EU has been cutting off from Russia since the war started, and forcing medical industries to reshore since covid. At the same time it has begun drive to remilitarize itself. This means more heavy industry and all of it local.

There is brewing conflict across continents. India and Pakistan, Red sea region, South China sea. The list goes on and on. It's time to accept it. The world has moved on.

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