I did not anticipate this much traffic, working on restoring it right now
Curious about your hosting stack? I'm always curious if a jam stack site can handle these big surges better. Or is this just a single VPS?
AI is making us work more
51–60 of 270 posts
Re: AI is making us work more
#52I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…
Automation is a broad topic. At home I save time because my dishwasher automates washing my dishes. The clothes washer and dryer are a lot easier than doing it by hand. The fruit and vegetable at the grocery store are a lot cheaper than they would be without automation. I think individuals who get comfortable in their jobs don’t like automation arriving at their station because it upends the order of things just as t…
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Re: AI is making us work more
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain how AI is going to make energy, water, food, and shelter cheaper ?
The only time I've seen "too cheap to meter" actually happen was the city water in Chicago, and even they are adding or have added meters now even though they have effectively infinite fresh water from Lake Michigan. Cheap raw materials does not affect the cost of everything else that must be done to prepare and deliver the product to the end user.
> they have effectively infinite fresh water from Lake Michigan.
While the total volume of the great lakes is appropriately great, the areal recharge rate is much lower than one might expect. IIRC about half of its recharge is from groundwater, and so competes with aquifer withdrawals elsewhere.
Overuse is still a concern.
Re: AI is making us work more
#54More AI = more efficiency = more time saved = more meetings = less efficiency. #andRepeat
You're confusing system efficiency and individual efficiency.
Re: AI is making us work more
#55I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…
Automation is a broad topic. At home I save time because my dishwasher automates washing my dishes. The clothes washer and dryer are a lot easier than doing it by hand. The fruit and vegetable at the grocery store are a lot cheaper than they would be without automation. I think individuals who get comfortable in their jobs don’t like automation arriving at their station because it upends the order of things just as t…
I think "bottom up" or worker led automation works far, far better than top down. Leadership always comes up with "efficiency" ideas for automation without ever spending a day in the life of the people who will use the automation. And they almost always fail to realize any gains but disrupt everyone's workflow.
Re: AI is making us work more
#56Re: AI is making us work more
#57Page doesn't load for me. I'm in the UK, not sure if geoblocked. But a response to the title: "_buzzword tech_ is making us work more" - it's rarely the tech making us work more, it's normally the behaviour and attitude of businesses trying to profit from the tech that makes life hard for everyone.
It does just seem to be "down".
But such is that state of the UK that I had simply assumed the government had censored it. Remarkable how quickly expectations have shifted.
Re: AI is making us work more
#58I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…
This is just empirically not true. Increase in productivity has lead to broad increase in prosperity (with one relatively recent but currently very important caveat, the housing market).
Now, if what you actually want is to be relatively more prosperous and have more status that's a game you can keep playing forever. But you really don't have to, to simply be better off than all people in the past with far less work.
Re: AI is making us work more
#59Site is down to me, but I agree with the argument. I speak for myself: I think AI has removed a lot of small barriers that would naturally slow my work down, increasing dissatisfaction and stress with it. Without barriers, productivity increases and with it, work satisfaction. It's just nice to get things done(tm) faster and at a lower effort due to the quality of the virtual assistant.
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Re: AI is making us work more
#60I was never excited for automation. Automation doesn't mean we do less. It means that we do as much work, and now also the work has a higher complexity ceiling; you need to understand the systems that are being automated, and need to maintain the automation. More things are possible, but everything is more complex, and of course, you still need to work 40 hours a week. Products don't get better either, but that's mor…
Automation is a broad topic. At home I save time because my dishwasher automates washing my dishes. The clothes washer and dryer are a lot easier than doing it by hand. The fruit and vegetable at the grocery store are a lot cheaper than they would be without automation. I think individuals who get comfortable in their jobs don’t like automation arriving at their station because it upends the order of things just as t…
It's an interesting analogy. But one difference between dishwashers and LLMs is that you don't need to check the dishes afterward (if you maintain and use it properly).