I don't find the argument that advanced AI will leave 20% of society permanently unemployed particularly compelling
Wait until you're in that 20%.
Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
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Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#22I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thu…
Who's going to buy the results of that extra output while most people are laid off? Where is the growth going to actually come from?
Even before LLMs, the cost of living and finding a job that left any disposal income were major societal issues.
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#23> males who come from narrow Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) backgrounds I see, so women from narrow Stem backgrounds would totally handle these issues differently, got it.
I think you left this off.
> the main reason is that they are, overwhelmingly, males
Was that intentional? Do you disagree that tech is overwhelmingly male?
Do you happen to be someone who believes in differences in the sexes? Just curious.
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#24I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thu…
I don't broadly disagree and see AI opening up opportunities that didn't exist before but with respect to companies hiring large numbers of people I wonder what the people will be doing? Come to think of it, I sort of wonder what many people with office jobs now are doing.
trying to reify the proposed efficiency gains they have been told are just out of reach
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#25I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thu…
5 to 10 years of 20% unemployment could be verydangerous in places like the us
You think? Here's the U.S. unemployment rate during the great depression
1929: 3.2%
1930: 8.7%
1931: 15.9%
1932: 23.6%
1933: 24.9% (Peak of the Great Depression)
1934: 21.7%
1935: 20.1%
1936: 16.9%
1937: 14.3%
1938: 19.0% (Economic recession during the Depression)
1939: 17.2%
1940: 14.6%Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#26I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thu…
I don't broadly disagree and see AI opening up opportunities that didn't exist before but with respect to companies hiring large numbers of people I wonder what the people will be doing? Come to think of it, I sort of wonder what many people with office jobs now are doing.
The same thing they are already doing? Being a companion for someone who doesn't want to be alone.
The human touch, if you will, is hard to replicate. Even where AI can convincingly act human, that often isn't enough to satisfy what people feel. Just look at the HN guidelines as a perfect example. "HN is for conversation between humans." If it were about the content then any suitable content would be welcome, regardless of the origin, but people are here under the belief that they are making a connection with other people.
Maybe someday AI will replace the business owners and managers too, but so as long as humans control the resources, they will choose to surround themselves with other humans by expending some of those resources towards those other humans.
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#27Rather ironically you spend time outside Silicon Valley it would appear those most at risk of “mass unemployment” are the folks full-press pushing AI.
It’s “cool” and the tech is here to stay, but we appear light years away from anything like what was promised from materializing.
The current hype cycle is clearly barreling toward the “trough of disillusionment” phase of the Gartner hype cycle.
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#28I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true. The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people. This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thu…
I don't broadly disagree and see AI opening up opportunities that didn't exist before but with respect to companies hiring large numbers of people I wonder what the people will be doing? Come to think of it, I sort of wonder what many people with office jobs now are doing.
One sickening idea I had is even more bureaucracy. You know how any big infra project now has tens of thousand of pages of impact reports, studies and so on. With AI it can be easily scaled to millions if not more. Lots of words that then will be ingested by other AIs. All happily burning electricity in the process.
So more documentation that no one will ever read... Both generated and summarised multiple times by AI...
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#29> males who come from narrow Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) backgrounds I see, so women from narrow Stem backgrounds would totally handle these issues differently, got it.
I think you left this off. > the main reason is that they are, overwhelmingly, males Was that intentional? Do you disagree that tech is overwhelmingly male? Do you happen to be someone who believes in differences in the sexes? Just curious.
The article clearly implies that one of the reasons why they "talk such nonsense" is because they are male, but no explanation is given - bog standard misandry that I take umbrage with.
Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else
#30i dont know anyone who wants AI only use case i see, is ... helping disabled people
Maybe you - as in, whoever says that - should go first talk to them, because I don't know any disabled people wanting AI (data set of one).