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The AI backlash is only getting started

economist.com

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Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#161

Post by dwa3592 »

tengbretson wrote: post #144
dwa3592 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. developed predictive models for health monitoring of large machines and then fraud detection in health care. Why do you ask?

Does automated fraud detection not replace the work of human auditors? Do these large machines automate tasks? If you believe automating human labor is an evil, then I hate to break it to you, your in hell's chatroom. "Software is eating the world" was published 15 years ago. What did you think that meant?

>>Does automated fraud detection not replace the work of human auditors?

No. Human auditors use our product. They still make the decision whether something is fraud or not. The product is auditing things that weren't being audited before. Why you might ask. because we didn't know we were supposed to audit that stuff. Multiple investigations revealed new patterns of healthcare fraud and we baked those into our product. Zero auditors were replaced by our product. Millions of dollars of new fraud was caught with our product.

>>Do these large machines automate tasks?

Yes they do.

You are really looking at this in a zero-sum way when it's not.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#162

Post by dofm »

justonepost2 wrote: post #154
dofm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this agricultural labour point come from? It's so common here and so obviously wobbly. That labour was displaced (and in most cases into way more gruelling and dangerous factory work). The AI pitch is that the giant superbrain will do all the knowledge work and rapidly self-improve faster than humans (and therefore, do more future jobs we could do). That is a pitch for replacing human labour. You can't sim…

As far as I can tell many people, especially tech practitioners, are as a whole desperate to believe that there is an iron law of the universe that “technological progress” is always a net good. Maybe there are some bumps along the way, but you can’t make an omelette… The next couple of years will see these people contorting themselves into increasingly complex knots to try and argue that AI is making the world a bet…

> The next couple of years will see these people contorting themselves into increasingly complex knots to try and argue that AI is making the world a better place.

I mean, if it delivers. So far we're only really f**ing ourselves in the face; outside the tech industry everyone else is figuring out how to push back on AI.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#163

Post by monocasa »

gruez wrote: post #125
dofm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tractors and looms displaced labour. Those people got other jobs. In many cases radically worse jobs for the first hundred years; living standards for those people dropped noticeably as they went into industrial mining and factory work. The pitch for AI is that it's affordable at the insane valuations because it replaces labour. It takes work out of the labour market entirely — fewer salaries means more money can be…

>In many cases radically worse jobs for the first hundred years; living standards for those people dropped noticeably as they went into industrial mining and factory work. source?

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#164

Post by shimman »

programmarchy wrote: post #50
shimman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is so useful they have to subsidize it with trillions of dollars while having no near term profit. AI is so useful that you have to threaten workers in order for them to use the tools. I'm sorry but all of this is to be determined but if the present is any indicator LLMs tend to make things distinctly worse, not better. Any areas of "potential" still rely on massive amounts of manual human labor, hardly a trillion…

Railroads had enormous subsidies, too. This is how infrastructure is built, even in "capitalist" economies because it operates at the level of national security. Even to this day, passenger rail is not profitable, although freight is very profitable. So it wouldn't be surprising if "passenger" AI remains unprofitable, while "freight" AI becomes very profitable. Pretty bold statement to say it's useless for most peopl…

I like your analogy on railroads because it leads us to the point that these tech companies should honestly be nationalized at this point as they are a danger to the country writ large.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#165

Post by LocalH »

estearum wrote: post #120
tengbretson wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that a value-judgement can be optimally made with intelligence alone.

In every sense that economically matters (i.e. in every sense that will actually attract the resources required to realize such a determination), it can be.

The problem is that the economic matters are not the only relevant issues, and I would argue they're not the most important ones either

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#166

Post by estearum »

LocalH wrote: post #165
estearum wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every sense that economically matters (i.e. in every sense that will actually attract the resources required to realize such a determination), it can be.

The problem is that the economic matters are not the only relevant issues, and I would argue they're not the most important ones either

When it comes to what actually gets encoded into reality, it certainly is the most salient factor

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#167

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

customguy wrote: post #135
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why da f*#$ do they have to continue developing a technology which they think will replace droves of people by machines?? There is nothing sexy about it. There is nothing cool about it either. This argument alone doesn't really work because literally billions of peoples jobs and livelihoods have been replaced throughout history from the explicit development of technology that replaces the need for human labor. The…

> The question should not be whether the technology replaces people by machines, it should be whether it provides a net benefit overall. That's just treating the very real, living people, who exist right now, and can read your words, as if they're already dead. > You could use this argument to say we should have never invented the printing press So, what displaced person will you swap your livelihood with? After all,…

Nowhere in my argument do I contend it may not affect myself. In fact I have basically already accepted its very likely I'll be replaced due to AI in the very near future. Thats just the unfortunate reality of things at the individual level.

So yes, I do agree it sucks for lots of people living in the moment.

I mention in some other comments that yes, AI "visionaries" make the level of replacement seem to be on a scale almost never before seen and so the "benefit" for the majority would have to be absolutely massive (however we define benefit). And currently its hard to see how it could reach that level. I was just noting we cannot "only" see it through the lens of replacement. If for example billionaires (trillionaires now?) did actually spread the benefit and we overhauled the economic systems in much of the world for humanity it _might_ actually be a benefit. Its just hard to see this ever happening given history.

I definitely have not "gotten mine" like the billionaires pushing AI. But other inventions in hindsight have very clearly benefited humanity as a whole even with the unfortunate effects on the people of the time.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#168

Post by sph »

WarmWash wrote: post #90
dwa3592 wrote: post #64

People have been made to believe by very influential people (dario, sam, elon etc) that AI will replace them. As a result people are getting angry. Who did not see this coming? Why da f*#$ do they have to continue developing a technology which they think will replace droves of people by machines?? There is nothing sexy about it. There is nothing cool about it either. Imagine a taxi driver facing his family knowing he…

>Who did not see this coming? The general vibe of the internet at least for the last 20 years has been "Work sucks, play is fun, give whatever technology minimizes my need to work and maximizes my wealth and free time" All these same guys have also talked about the need for UBI, so they basically have been promising the dream of the liberal internet: No work, free money, do whatever you want in your life. The viabili…

Are vibecoders working less? I don't think so. I've seen people with a dozen Claude windows open, and I'd rather go dig mud than working like that. There is no universe where you can call that programming despite the end product still being source code.

The people that have won are not the lazy ones. It's the preppy work-hard-not-smart guys high on ADHD medication that feel like gods having a dozen machines spew out millions of lines of code per day, instead of just sitting on a hammock and thinking the easiest way to achieve the goal, with the least amount of effort.

That said, the shift away from 'the best engineer is the lazy engineer' ethos has happened a decade+ ago.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#169

Post by tern »

blululu wrote: post #145
tern wrote: post #107

Sadly, I think this is true, and it's starting to seem like my own personal political imperative is to remind people that AI can be insanely personally empowering. Many people around me are just missing the boat, or don't care, but many are also able to finally accomplish all kinds of things they've been barred from in the past. LLMs are best seen, I think, as an imagination amplifier. If you're in the mindset of fin…

This could be true, but I think it amounts to wishful thinking. The human empowerment phase of AI is transitory and brief. Once you get into RSI and AGI the human is increasingly left out and disenfranchised. The multiplier of your personal effectiveness directly proportional to how much the AI is doing relative to you. Being 2x more effective is great - AI does half the work. 5x, 10x, 100x? When the AI does 99% of t…

Yes, I agree, but the relevant debate isn't "pro vs anti-AI." That's a fight only one side can win.

The relevant debate is: "human empowerment vs disempowerment".

It's still a long-shot, but at least there's a specific target that a majority may be able to agree on.

(Not saying you were specifically saying either.)

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#170

Post by karmakurtisaani »

I have an anecdote I'm dying to share and will be happy to have it buried here!

I was talking to an academic friend of mine who works in a CS theory group in a top university. He told me now only 2 out of 10 members of the group work on theory anymore, the rest are doing applied/industry projects. The ratio used to inverted, but now the theory people are worried AI will replace them, so they look for ways out.

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