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Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

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Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#201

Post by keeda »

dhd415 wrote: post #27

I thought Gates' take on the human relational aspects of AI to be thoughtful, but I am surprised that his analysis on the economic and jobs aspect of AI offers little more than the party line. Every other technological advance that improved productivity (Industrial Revolution, etc.) has resulted in the loss of some jobs but the creation of jobs in other areas and an overall increase in the standard of living (althoug…

Gates hinted at it, but let me expand on why this time it really is different.

If you compare the broad characteristics of the new jobs created to the old jobs displaced by technology historically, they are the same every time: they required higher-level (a) cognitive (b) technical or (c) social skills.

That is it. There is no other dimension to upskill along.

And LLMs are good at all three, probably better than most people already by many metrics. (Yes even social; their infinite patience is the ultimate advantage, and while sycophancy is harmful fixing it is easy.)

Plus AI is improving extremely rapidly. Which means it is probably advancing faster than most people can upskill.

An increasingly accepted premise is that AI can displace junior employees but will need senior employees to steer it. Consider the ratio of junior to senior employees, and how long it takes for the former to grow into the latter. That is the volume of displacement and timeframe to upskill we're looking at, made worse by the fact that if juniors are not hired they likely won't get a chance to upskill at all.

Never in history have we had a technology that was so versatile and rapidly advancing that it could displace a large portion of existing jobs, as well as many new jobs that would be created.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#202

Post by UncleMeat »

shay_ker wrote: post #69

> I’m also worried about AI’s impact on education. Ironically, the same tool that will allow people to learn more than ever could also lead to many people learning less. For teachers/admins who are on HN: what has worked in a past for a "new way to educate" students to actually be implemented by educators? Does it happen through conferences? Do some states take the lead and others follow? Does it follow from private…

My wife is a professor. "Administration contracts with some company that is providing tools to improve pedagogy" is pretty universally garbage. It typically comes with mandates to be used even when it is inappropriate and faculty aren't given time to integrate these tools into their preps. This makes people reasonably skeptical.

The only thing I've ever seen work is to simply make a tool available to people while giving them meaningful resources to adopt it if they see utility in their specific situation. But admin hates this because it means that they are paying for a thing that some people aren't using and because they want to write "I've revolutionized teaching by integrating X" on their performance review and that doesn't work unless adoption is near-universal.

For AI shit in particular, the ideas have been trash. Mandatory AI summaries of course readings integrated into the discussion platform. Great, now nobody will do the reading. AI tools for "placing" you in history through image generation that constantly generate anachronisms because they are trained on fantasy art. Stuff like that.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#203

Post by psadauskas »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #163
swed420 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is akin to arguing "nothing ever changes or improves in Liberal democracies", when policy history doesn't reflect that. Ever-growing wealth disparities, eroded rights, mass enshitification in a race to the bottom, and widespread hatred of ones neighbor over fake outrage culture war propaganda disseminated from corporate media are not a trends of improvement. They are trends of decline, unless you're of the cla…

> Ever-growing wealth disparities Higher concentration of wealth is not new, it's happened many times and dissipated many times. Real-wages are still growing, which is what we care about qua improvements in our well being (and what attracts immigrants). The key risk though is regulatory capture from consolidation of tech companies (much of this "wealth" in question is stock valuation, which tends to get reinvested in…

> Higher concentration of wealth is not new, it's happened many times and dissipated many times.

That's a very clinical way to put it. Usually when its "dissipated", its through war or economic depression or both, and a great many people who never had any wealth suffer needlessly, while the wealthy rarely do.

It would be nice if we could like, _not_ do that, and try something different for once, instead of throwing up our hands and saying "well that's just how its always been!"

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#204

Post by psadauskas »

nextaccountic wrote: post #137
debo_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support UBI and wealth taxes, but I also think generally that will be a difficult transition in terms of social upheaval. There are so many people I know who are financially well-off but completely fall apart when there is no visible professional hierarchy to give them meaning. One would hope that this would still go down better than destituting large percentages of the world population, but I wonder.

> I know who are financially well-off but completely fall apart when there is no visible professional hierarchy to give them meaning. This reminds me of white people in the American south that didn't personally own slaves, but fought in the civil war anyway to maintain their place in the social hierarchy https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/67fvaf/comme... https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f9…

And that hasn't changed at all:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

― Lyndon B. Johnson

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#205

Post by watwut »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #163
swed420 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is akin to arguing "nothing ever changes or improves in Liberal democracies", when policy history doesn't reflect that. Ever-growing wealth disparities, eroded rights, mass enshitification in a race to the bottom, and widespread hatred of ones neighbor over fake outrage culture war propaganda disseminated from corporate media are not a trends of improvement. They are trends of decline, unless you're of the cla…

> Ever-growing wealth disparities Higher concentration of wealth is not new, it's happened many times and dissipated many times. Real-wages are still growing, which is what we care about qua improvements in our well being (and what attracts immigrants). The key risk though is regulatory capture from consolidation of tech companies (much of this "wealth" in question is stock valuation, which tends to get reinvested in…

> Based on polling, the most salient issues seem to reflect economic anxieties. Even stances on immigration are really about that.

Meh, the economic anxiety voters are systematically voting for economically worst performing parties. They may say "it is economy" in polls, but it is hardly believable.

The difference between men and women in voting patterns is not about economy.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#206

Post by Zylokloto »

HNPedoLovers wrote: post #179
Zylokloto wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So first of, there is no proof of him having had sex with a minor/kid on that island. It might be a lot stronger of an evidence from others but i was not able to find anything. And secondly, if you follow bill gates, you will realise that with his philanthropic side, he did quite a lot of good in the world. For sure not as a young bill gates but he has changed for sure. And thirdly, you can think of people whatever y…

[flagged]

Is there any particular reason why you respond like this?

Do you think this adds anything to this discussion at all?

Did you even take the time and effort to read my comment?

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#207

Post by swed420 »

Gud wrote: post #198
swed420 wrote: post #12

> Instead, solutions should be developed through a public democratic process that includes elected officials, policymakers, educators, health workers, local officials, and community leaders. Millions of people will have their lives disrupted, and we’ll need a stronger, more flexible social safety net to help them manage the transition. Local communities are already raising concerns about the energy and water needed f…

Not everywhere. Switzerland has a direct democracy, which should be emulated by the rest of the world. https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin.ch/en/direct-democrac... FWIW I am not from Switzerland, I only live there. Direct democracy works great.

There's nothing convincing in your link.

More importantly, even if it did contain the solution, there is no obvious way for a country with an already corrupt government to transition to such a thing.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#208

Post by tim333 »

swed420 wrote: post #12

> Instead, solutions should be developed through a public democratic process that includes elected officials, policymakers, educators, health workers, local officials, and community leaders. Millions of people will have their lives disrupted, and we’ll need a stronger, more flexible social safety net to help them manage the transition. Local communities are already raising concerns about the energy and water needed f…

Democracy is clunky but sort of works. Say UBI looks necessary it may be both parties adopt it so it gets done in spite of the uniparty issue.

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#209

Post by dgllghr »

Zylokloto wrote: post #162
dgllghr wrote: post #84

And why should we listen to this pedophile who never once considered how the good outweighed the bad while running his company?

So first of, there is no proof of him having had sex with a minor/kid on that island. It might be a lot stronger of an evidence from others but i was not able to find anything. And secondly, if you follow bill gates, you will realise that with his philanthropic side, he did quite a lot of good in the world. For sure not as a young bill gates but he has changed for sure. And thirdly, you can think of people whatever y…

You fell right into his marketing trap

Re: Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

#210

Post by anon7725 »

foobarian wrote: post #181
debo_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support UBI and wealth taxes, but I also think generally that will be a difficult transition in terms of social upheaval. There are so many people I know who are financially well-off but completely fall apart when there is no visible professional hierarchy to give them meaning. One would hope that this would still go down better than destituting large percentages of the world population, but I wonder.

Wonder if there should be a "UBI reservation" set up where everyone gets it, and very basic needs like housing and food are taken care of in a self-sustaining manner with machines. (which is the whole premise, everything is automated so nobody needs to work). Then people who don't like the freeloading can opt out and live as usual, and those who like it can move to the reservation.

Perhaps some kind of camp where such people can be concentrated?
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