[dead]
The safest job from AI may be writing
161–170 of 223 posts
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#162I strongly disagree, for reasons that are different from what's discussed in the thread. It doesn't matter if LLMs can't hold a candle to some of the finest human writing. What matters is that before you become a world-renowned writer, you need to pay your bills, often for a long time. And that's what LLMs take away. All the mundane literature-adjacent works: journalism, translations, technical writing / corporate co…
AI will definitely not take over translation for a long time. Machine translation has improved to the point it's mostly no longer incoherent, but for non-formulaic content it's still very hit-and-miss, not that much better compared to 10-20 years ago. For example, something they still struggle with is consistently translating terms coined within the text with consistent phrases. >A budding painter or a musician could…
But what share of translation dollars are non-formulaic content? To me it seems that there are tons of manuals for dishwasher and such to translate (where from my experience quality basically doesn't matter) and only a limited amount of diplomatic communiques.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#163This argument can be applied to anything AI does. AI can do bad writing, bad code, bad graphics and bad music. But AI cannot (yet?) do the job of a skilled writer, coder, graphical artist and musician. And it is the same problem every time, LLMs lack intention. That's essentially what the article is about, writers choose every word because they have something to convey. Something complex, deliberate, that can't fit i…
Also, a huge area that AI seems to thrive in is cybersecurity, which almost by definition involves errors that the original programmer failed to think of or catch.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#164I think writing will go the way of software development. Really good writers and devs will probably thrive with AI but most of us do fairly mundane, repetitive work that will get done by AI.
I remember, when I used ChatGPT the first time to write some E-mails and other documents, I suddenly realized that I sound exactly like corporate communications or most tech writers. That made me realize that these guys are also working off templates and basically produce variations of the same thing. Same as developers do.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#165The safest jobs are the ones that can't be done behind a screen. I'm a technician and there's no robot that could replace me and there won't be for a long time.
Except that in the worst-case AI scenarios where a huge portion of the professionals who work "behind a screen" lose their jobs, the entire labor market will have to deal with that. There's so much focus in the US on vocations but Americans have no idea how little mechanics, plumbers, etc. in other countries make. There are a variety of reasons for this but one of the biggest is that you can't charge $200/hour to fix…
If white collar workers get laid off tradesmen are not going to be able to charge much any more either. Not to mention the price pressure that will accompany the increased supply of workers.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have worked in the publishing industry, translation and editing (got out to a more dependable career just in time), and what is astonishing is how even "load-bearing" text is not safe from the cost-cutting pressures. That is, even some respectable publishers for the last several years will publish a book one is expected to pay good money for, with minimal editing and proofreading compared to the old days, and if it…
I've got some heavy reader friends and they keep complaining that many of Spains's fantasy book translations are ridiculously bad and blatantly machine translated now: Senseless terms that require looking up the original to understand, e.g. "fall" translated as in falling when it meant autumn; proper nouns, including character names, sometimes translated sometimes not; and many sentences that mix up the grammatical g…
How is it possible? Even if you just put text to ChatGPT it'll translate it much better than that. And with actually decent harness, the translation should be quite good. Do they even save on tokens by choosing cheapest model or something?
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI will definitely not take over translation for a long time. Machine translation has improved to the point it's mostly no longer incoherent, but for non-formulaic content it's still very hit-and-miss, not that much better compared to 10-20 years ago. For example, something they still struggle with is consistently translating terms coined within the text with consistent phrases. >A budding painter or a musician could…
But what share of translation dollars are non-formulaic content? To me it seems that there are tons of manuals for dishwasher and such to translate (where from my experience quality basically doesn't matter) and only a limited amount of diplomatic communiques.
Manuals have been machine-translated for ages, well before algorithms were anywhere close to ready for the task. No change there.
>a limited amount of diplomatic communiques
With zero data to support it, I'd bet good money the vast majority of semi-professional translators (that is, those not employed by publishers but still making some money off of their work) work on fiction, translating comics, subtitles, etc.
Actually, come to think of it, mixed media like those will be the last where machine translation will be able to fully take over humans, just because the text doesn't contain the entire relevant context for the job.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#168I strongly disagree, for reasons that are different from what's discussed in the thread. It doesn't matter if LLMs can't hold a candle to some of the finest human writing. What matters is that before you become a world-renowned writer, you need to pay your bills, often for a long time. And that's what LLMs take away. All the mundane literature-adjacent works: journalism, translations, technical writing / corporate co…
I also disagree with the author. The first careers I witnessed being negatively impacted by AI coming onto the scene .. just a couple years ago .. was tech writers. Source: my personal network of tech writer colleagues.
Yeah not seeing it for technical writing. Especially in industries with even a hint of regulatory compliance, the imprecision is too significant. It's not for lack of trying or wishful thinking.
Either your colleagues are facing stiffer competition off-shore (not LLM driven) or their jobs were more about organizing, checking and sorting topics and data (LLMs can take that away)
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#169I strongly disagree, for reasons that are different from what's discussed in the thread. It doesn't matter if LLMs can't hold a candle to some of the finest human writing. What matters is that before you become a world-renowned writer, you need to pay your bills, often for a long time. And that's what LLMs take away. All the mundane literature-adjacent works: journalism, translations, technical writing / corporate co…
AI will definitely not take over translation for a long time. Machine translation has improved to the point it's mostly no longer incoherent, but for non-formulaic content it's still very hit-and-miss, not that much better compared to 10-20 years ago. For example, something they still struggle with is consistently translating terms coined within the text with consistent phrases. >A budding painter or a musician could…
There's another translation use case worth considering. For non-native English speakers, AI can help express ideas they already have in a language they're less comfortable with.
Especially on forums like HN, the AI isn't generating the person's views - it's helping them say that what they already mean more clearly in English.
Re: The safest job from AI may be writing
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI will definitely not take over translation for a long time. Machine translation has improved to the point it's mostly no longer incoherent, but for non-formulaic content it's still very hit-and-miss, not that much better compared to 10-20 years ago. For example, something they still struggle with is consistently translating terms coined within the text with consistent phrases. >A budding painter or a musician could…
There's another translation use case worth considering. For non-native English speakers, AI can help express ideas they already have in a language they're less comfortable with. Especially on forums like HN, the AI isn't generating the person's views - it's helping them say that what they already mean more clearly in English.
Those people were never going to pay a human translator, though.