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Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

observer.co.uk

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Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#31

Post by Tade0 »

alansaber wrote: post #6

I don't find the argument that advanced AI will leave 20% of society permanently unemployed particularly compelling

Fortunately it's extremely unlikely.

There was a change in the world, which went largely unnoticed - sometime in 2013-2017 the global number of infants peaked, never to recover.

Those 20% would just figure that there's no need to have children when you can just focus on yourself and go largely extinct within a generation, replaced with some people from the higher tiers, but not nearly enough to make up for those who weren't born.

This actually has been happening without AI for a while now, but I imagine technology would accelerate the process.

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#32

Post by Espressosaurus »

amykhar wrote: post #19
_fat_santa wrote: post #10

I 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…

Even before AI, there was a serious hiring problem in the United States. Companies seem hell bent on not hiring full time employees at a livable wage. I don't blame the technology, but I do blame the greed of business owners and investors. While its easy to look at the big picture and long term and say everything will all work out, there are so many individuals who are being hurt because of layoffs, reduced hiring, e…

In the long term the sun will go red giant and all life on earth will die.

In the short term I still need to eat, and tech integration that takes 20 years in the economy might leave me totally fucked!

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#33

Post by sublinear »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #16
_fat_santa wrote: post #10

I 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…

The economics of AI investment don't make sense without the promise of vast displacement of labor. There's a ceiling on how much value can be created for a company simply by them using AI to crank out a higher throughput of TPS reports.

Yes, the value of TPS reports diminishes with throughput.

That's why Jevon's Paradox is the dumbest meme we've had this year. The parent concept of marginal utility describes why AI isn't that useful.

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#35

Post by throwfaraway4 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #10

I 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…

Using AI as leverage for labor is myopic. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that use it to automate and allow its employees to go deeper and innovate. The fish can rot from the head or not.

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#36

Post by gaigalas »

grokcodec wrote: post #17

> 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.

Unironically, yes. It would be totally different.

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#38

Post by mythrwy »

win311fwg wrote: post #26
mythrwy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, regardl…

So the tendency to hire friends and "cool looking" people instead of smart talented people will get even worse?

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#39

Post by freeplay »

_fat_santa wrote: post #10

I 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…

This makes the assumption that humans are needed to drive these AI assisted workflows. I don't think that's going to be the case at all.

The majority of office jobs are comprised of many simple tasks that current and, to an even greater extent, future, models can handle with ease.

Not all companies are looking for 10x productivity gains. I assume most of them probably just want to do exactly what they are doing now but with lower costs.

Re: Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else

#40

Post by altcognito »

grokcodec wrote: post #29
altcognito wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm going to assume you left it off intentionally if you can't even address it.

Read it again. They narrow it two ways in addition to being male:

"0. but the main reason is that they are, overwhelmingly, males 1. who come from narrow Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) backgrounds 2. and are trapped in a particular mindset that the technology writer Evgeny Morozov called “solutionism”.

It's not that they are male, it males who come from Stem with a particular solution oriented mindset. I think in a different context you would be less offended. We are talking about driven, solution oriented people. It's a bias. Biases are fine, we all have them, this article is just talking about it.

I could ask again, would you agree that there are differences in the sexes? A different set of biases even?

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