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Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

theguardian.com

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Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#2
My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale.

Working for living is a problem to be solved.

The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time.

The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#4
post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

Good luck distributing gains justly when the masses have nothing of value to bargain with. Politics will likely continue to be co-opted by people who can pay; either directly or through other means of coercion.

There used to be a lot more horses… I’m finding 25 million in the US in 1920 compared with 3.8 million today. Of course, they can no longer occupy the niche in society they used to, and so like in nature; when the niche is removed; they can’t just find some other way to be productive or even survive. I don’t think we are so different. Based on the past, I think it’s dangerous to believe some few will keep the rest of us around. Dangerous, because unlike horses, this will cause significant unrest, and ultimately we can’t predict the outcome. My guess is ultimately, with fewer jobs, there will eventually be less people, for better or worse.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#5
post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

> Working for living is a problem to be solved.

I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will end up without work, as the average person seems to be pretty terrible at stimulating themselves intellectually.

Note that this doesn’t strictly require capitalism or a 40 hour workweek or anything like that. Since AI is so great at solving everything, maybe one day it can organize the distribution of work to keep the remaining humans busy. I don’t know.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#6
I have yet to see a single example of AI replacing someone and doing their job. The vast majority of these cases are simply companies doing layoffs and blaming it on "AI" to deflect the bad press (and of course the media is eating it up). Meanwhile everyone remaining has 2x the work load and a useless $10/mo ChatGPT subscription spitting out garbage.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#7
Seriously, who cares? It is someone who knows nothing about AI, commenting on someone who knows nothing about AI talking to someone who knows nothing about AI, but who is CEO of a company who owns part of a company which has employees who know about AI.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#8
post #6

I have yet to see a single example of AI replacing someone and doing their job. The vast majority of these cases are simply companies doing layoffs and blaming it on "AI" to deflect the bad press (and of course the media is eating it up). Meanwhile everyone remaining has 2x the work load and a useless $10/mo ChatGPT subscription spitting out garbage.

Voice acting as a profession will not exist in a couple of years.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#9
post #2

My sincere hope is that that would happen. Especially in medium and high income jobs in mass scale. Working for living is a problem to be solved. The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time. The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.

>Working for living is a problem to be solved.

I had a job where I got payed, but had no real work. It was genuinely awful.

Re: Jon Stewart on AI: It's replacing us in the workforce now

#10
A lot of dismissive comments in here already by people who aren’t trying to make a living doing writing, art, or voiceover. It will be music soon too. Tutoring is probably heavily affected already too

“But those weren’t real jobs,” some might say.

So it doesn’t count until it replaces programmer jobs? Because that’s coming soon too. Would you really encourage your kids to go into this field, expecting them to still have good prospects in 15 years?

Also, we used to have a middle class with lots of authors and musicians and artists before the internet commoditized everything

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