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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#401

Post by epolanski »

There is one major difference from previous technological advancements: AI is going to hit many if not most sectors at the same time.

And it's not like hitting just one sector has ever been gentle: machines entering manufacturing caused an 80 years slump in British occupation rates and salaries.

Machines entering agricultural fields by the end of 1800s caused a similar slump in work conditions in Europe that really ended by the 1960s/1970s (depending on the country).

Automation + AI will keep taking more blue collar jobs at speed while also taking more and more knowledge workers out of jobs.

Seriously, at no point in history we've seen a single technology threatening so many sectors at the same time.

And people telling you "but the workers always recovered" keep ignoring that those recoveries sound good when they were not the ones impacted, and that these recoveries can take a lifetime.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#402

Post by [deleted] »

bjt12345 wrote: post #260
RobinL wrote: post #248

I've often felt my job as a programmer has often been to automate myself (and others) out of my job. But I've always felt in control of that. I suppose there's some cosmic justice to the fact that it's now being done to me.

Serious question though - how are they going with that? In reality, I see a lot of the current unhappiness in the Tech industry is being triggered by their pointy haired bosses wasting millions on their failed AI strategies only to embark on more failing AI strategies.

[deleted]

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#403

Post by lotsofpulp »

RivieraKid wrote: post #338
pixelready wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is always the one we don’t want to talk about: a robust public safety net. This is the balance to “move fast and break shit” technological disruption. It’s great to have an adaptive overall system, but disruption has a human cost. If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down. If instead we stick our…

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working. I w…

>UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work.

That is what earned income tax, payroll taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes are.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#404

Post by ben_w »

fitzroy wrote: post #398
neetle wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - “look at how effective AI is, it’s made everyone realise their career is for nothing!”

Timeless tactic! "The Power Mac G4 is so fast that it is classified as a supercomputer by the US government, and we are prohibited from exporting it to over 50 nations worldwide," Jobs said the Apple Expo, CNN reported in September 1999. (edit: added link) https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-steve-jobs-us-export-c...

I remember that. It was export banned, wasn't it? A gigaflop being enough for a cruise missile visual guidance or something like that?

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#405

Post by KaiserPro »

Animats wrote: post #222

Addressing the question in the title, "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers", look at what happened to printers. That was a good skilled trade for centuries. Then it just went away. Phototypesetting took the high volume end. Desktop publishing took the low end. Computer-controlled presses took press operators. And then the newspaper business died. I've heard homeless former printers…

In the UK as weaving was mechanised it lead to huge upheavals and only narrowly avoided civil war. It changed the face of the country completely.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#406

Post by austin-cheney »

Just as a reminder this subject of AI replacing developers come up all the time but it has not happened yet.

People want to focus on AI but the same problem has always been there for 2-4 decades. Software, as a profession, has no credentials, no common elevation path, no common training criteria. You just show up and everyone is super insecure. AI just provides a name to identify that insecurity. Nothing else has changed.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#407

Post by ben_w »

RivieraKid wrote: post #338
pixelready wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is always the one we don’t want to talk about: a robust public safety net. This is the balance to “move fast and break shit” technological disruption. It’s great to have an adaptive overall system, but disruption has a human cost. If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down. If instead we stick our…

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working. I w…

> If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working.

This is, IMO, why UBI has to be timed almost perfectly for when the AI is ready to be the one who does the work.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#408

Post by jackvalentine »

kilroy123 wrote: post #386
bojan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I still think that the only way forward is that the EU becomes a country of its own. I'm aware that's deeply unpopular, partially due to The forrogn influence, but thr alternative is catastrophic - stagnation and letting US, China and Russia dictate our way of life.

I, too, have come to this realization. But boy, oh boy, do Europeans get disgusted by the idea. (My partner is European)

I’ve never even thought about this - what does the EU get as a country that it can’t get with its current structure?

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#409

Post by ben_w »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #403
RivieraKid wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working. I w…

>UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That is what earned income tax, payroll taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes are.

Your list is the "from" part, UBI could be the "to" depending on how people choose to live when they don't need to work.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#410

Post by mrguyorama »

ang_cire wrote: post #329
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because we watched our careers go from being in service of an industry of tinkerers and designers, to being in service of the worst people attempting to maximize wealth extraction no matter the human cost? And this is different than other industries how? Everything from electricity to the railroad to trucking to finance to environmentalism has had this arc from wild west to establishment.

I agree about what happened, but I think the timescale is different. Railroads were the tools of robber-barons even in the 1800s. Electricity was captured by the major electric companies before most millennials were born. Finance was a stodgy-suit-wearing-white-guy's game when my dad got into it in the 1970s. I knew that's what "finance jobs" meant back when I was a kid building fan pages on GeoCities. But GeoCities…

>If our boomer parents had warned us about crapitalism as kids

All of American society tried to warn boomers about this their whole lives, and they consciously rejected it in favor of a movie star who promised the economy would magically be amazing if only we didn't allow the government to have any say in how business works.

"Hey, don't let industries conglomerate because they will do bad things to customers and in general it's pretty inefficient for the economy" was known when Railroads did it two hundred years ago. But that didn't stop Reagan insisting that letting businesses buy up all their competition would magically make prices fall, and it didn't stop the american public from consuming that bullshit with abandon.

Like, I don't know what more you want. My social studies textbooks were pretty clear about the times we had to break up monopolies, why we had to do it, and how it had clear benefits.

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