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AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

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Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#11

Post by mewpmewp2 »

I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills".

But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income.

Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the produced value.

But the answer to that in my view is that we should rather do work to be able reach a society where this value will be shared, and not rely on "jobs" being the key thing ultimately.

If I could choose, I would rather not work, and just do what I want to do all day, stress free, for the rest of my life. Also what is the point of doing the same jobs generation after generation? Most of the jobs in modern world aren't really what fit our evolutionary primitive desires in the first place, and it's forced stress.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#15

Post by parpfish »

LilBytes wrote: post #2

Quotes from the article: 'Work as Identity: The Foundation' Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. For a cognitive professional, expertise is not only an activity. It is a large part of the self. A data scientist who has spent a decade building statistical judgment does not experience that judgment as a detachable tool. It is closer to a personality trait. When…

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Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#16

Post by moron4hire »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #11

I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills". But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income. Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the…

If the US did not spend more than ever Western country combined on "Defense", and stuck to just, IDK, 75% of every Western country combined, we could do it today. At a bare minimum, we could eliminate homelessness and starvation, today. But we live in a society that believes cronie capitalism for capitalism's sake is more important than people's lives, because of the off chance some of them might be "lazy". UBI is never going to happen.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#17

Post by agumonkey »

harvey9 wrote: post #5
LilBytes wrote: post #2

Quotes from the article: 'Work as Identity: The Foundation' Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. For a cognitive professional, expertise is not only an activity. It is a large part of the self. A data scientist who has spent a decade building statistical judgment does not experience that judgment as a detachable tool. It is closer to a personality trait. When…

The idea that skilled people who work with their hands don't identify with their work is laughable.

One tiny nanoscopic nitpick, because i agree with you mostly, programming is often creating wider things (abstractions, frameworks). I think it hits a different part compared to most jobs. Maybe... i'm not sure, but that's how i feel compared to other manual occupations that i loved too.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#18

Post by simonw »

wiseowise wrote: post #13
saaaaaam wrote: post #12

How utterly pointless. AI slop posing as “commentary” on the AI crisis.

> How utterly pointless. What would make it less pointless in your opinion?

If someone had written it. It's well curated slop, but it's still slop. Consider this bit:

> A profession does not need to be eliminated to be mourned. It is enough for its center to fall out, leaving the people who built careers in that center with credentials that no longer map to a stable role. When AI threatens the work, it threatens the self, which is why the response looks less like ordinary job-loss fear and more like a form of bereavement.

I'm certain that section was mostly constructed by an LLM. It reads well, but when you actually focus on what it's saying there's nothing there.

I was not enlightened by reading that. No human sat thinking deeply about the situation, constructed their own mental model of what was happening, then put effort into transferring that mental model into my brain so I could be similarly enlightened. They had Claude (probably) express a conclusion that was attached to nothing more than what would statistically sound "deep".

Hacker News is surprisingly tolerant of slop these days. I expect to be downvoted for this, because comments highlighting slop are usually downvoted. So it goes.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#19

Post by ashd157 »

simonw wrote: post #8

I've been calling it Deep Blue: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/deep-blue/

So you are saying in the end of that piece that chess players came out stronger?

You know how? Because AI is forbidden in tournaments and there are plenty of idle rich sponsors in Chess (it is popular among autocrats).

So you are envisioning a future of software development where we have coding competitions sponsored by MBS where AI is forbidden?

Like your Pelican meme, which is designed to cutify AI, this is propaganda of the highest order.

Re: AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers

#20

Post by mewpmewp2 »

moron4hire wrote: post #16
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #11

I am probably different to most people, but I always have trouble understanding why people want to have jobs so much. The obvious and direct answer immediately of course is "to be able to pay the bills". But of course if we automated those jobs with AI, we could direct AI produced value into universal basic income so people wouldn't lose their income. Then the concern is of course, that the owners will not share the…

If the US did not spend more than ever Western country combined on "Defense", and stuck to just, IDK, 75% of every Western country combined, we could do it today. At a bare minimum, we could eliminate homelessness and starvation, today. But we live in a society that believes cronie capitalism for capitalism's sake is more important than people's lives, because of the off chance some of them might be "lazy". UBI is ne…

I'm not from the US, but the reason to want to have jobs is disbelief that UBI could not happen then? If there was a way to make grounds to get to UBI, would it be fine?
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