Let me guess which co-founder. Yep.
DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
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Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#12More than a year into ChatGPT and… unemployment is at historic lows. I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where…
Here are a few jobs that I'm aware of, which are already well on their way out:
- Language translators.
- Video annotation, summary, transcription.
- Voiceover artists.
- Graphic designers.
- Warehouse inventory work.
- Personal tutors.
- Junior software engineers.
There will still be openings for these roles in the future, just as there are still openings for Personal Assistants (secretaries, which were once as abundant as teachers and truck drivers), and maybe even the occasional Draftsman.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#13I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unempl…
>wages are growing fast
We clearly live in different countries.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#14Let me guess which co-founder. Yep.
What's your point? Is he wrong?
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#15I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unempl…
We've gone from a single person being able to buy a house and feed a family, to two salaries in many cases not being sufficient in the past 50 years. While you're right that mass unemployment didn't happen, wage stagnation certainly did.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#16Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#17I consulted for three different large organisations over the last 14 months. All of them chose to let their workforce know that the management are "looking into using AI". In all three cases one of the first questions during all-hands town halls was "are we getting replaced by AI?" People are freaking out and managers are loving it, because they have shifted people's attention from how little they are getting paid to…
My townhalls have been very different. My company introduced a harsh policy against AI, even local LLMs. The main fears were leaking IP & confidential information and contamination of code bases with poor or copyrighted code. That policy may loosen in future but I think it was the right move.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#18I consulted for three different large organisations over the last 14 months. All of them chose to let their workforce know that the management are "looking into using AI". In all three cases one of the first questions during all-hands town halls was "are we getting replaced by AI?" People are freaking out and managers are loving it, because they have shifted people's attention from how little they are getting paid to…
I think in the short term that definitely makes sense, but long term… I think we’ll see more and more jobs be automated away. Look at what Amazon is doing with their new wheelhouse robots. In 2 to 5 years that’s going to become mainstream. Maybe sooner.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#19I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unempl…
Wages may be growing… but buying power is definitely declining.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always wondering when people speak about (un)employment. Like ok non-farm payroll numbers may look good but what kind of jobs, for what kind of pay? Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worse at the same time? Is there somewhere more specific data? Other than that, I think I remember an article claiming that the introduction of thr personnal computers led companies to be ab…
>Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worde at the same time? Yes it can and yes it is. I'm also baffled by people keep pointing out low unemployment like it's the be all end all of all arguments for economic prosperity. Obviously sky high unemployment like in the great depression isn't great either but just because people are forced to accept any one of the abundant gig econom…
So true. And unemployment doesn’t take into account disenfranchised workers, which is significantly higher than it has been in recent history.