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AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

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Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#101

Post by generic92034 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #85
generic92034 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Production for whom, though? At least any growth paradigm immediately dies without a mass of consumers. Billionaires can only consume so much.

Well, at the moment both "growth" and "wealth" have been removed from a lot humanity, having been abstracted into a market that most people can barely, if at all, participate in, and that has nearly entirely moved away from "you're worth $x because you make x widgets". I can't image that will disappear.

Yes, but will the powers that be accept a future without growth?

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#102

Post by Moomoomoo309 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54
rchaud wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is gloomy because the American economy has largely been in a state of "jobless recovery" since thr great recession. Stock prices are up thanks to corporate tax cuts, ZIRP, AI hype etc, but discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure.

> discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure This is false. Real disposable personal income is higher today than any time before March 2020 [1]. Covid stimulus first dramatically raised (March '20 to '21) and then lowered (March '21 to June '22) that figure. But we hit a local maximum in April '25, after which r…

If you see how real disposable personal income is defined, it basically just says how much personal income in total there is - if 90% of it was in the hands of 1% of the people, it does not tell you that. It does not tell you a median either - it's just how big the pool is. Household incomes are up, but is that inflation adjusted, and how does that compare to cost of living? The conclusion you are coming to is not supported by the data you provided alone.

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#103

Post by Sateeshm »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #34
Insanity wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given a long enough timeframe, I think you're right. But I don't think that's a 'near future' state, but probably a 'in a few decades' state. More generally, I believe that eventually we'll reach a 'post-work society' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-work_society ). And that'll be interesting for humanity, as we derive at least some identity from the work we're doing.

Man, I wish I had your optimism. I can see us entering "post-work", but that's only because those who own the means of production no longer require us, and our resulting crises will be much lower on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.

Are you talking about LLMs?

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#105

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

generic92034 wrote: post #101
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at the moment both "growth" and "wealth" have been removed from a lot humanity, having been abstracted into a market that most people can barely, if at all, participate in, and that has nearly entirely moved away from "you're worth $x because you make x widgets". I can't image that will disappear.

Yes, but will the powers that be accept a future without growth?

I'm not convinced that the indicators they use for growth would stop increasing. As people are so quick to point out, most of these people's worth is in the market, and that stopped being a rational actor a long while ago.

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#106

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Sateeshm wrote: post #103
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I wish I had your optimism. I can see us entering "post-work", but that's only because those who own the means of production no longer require us, and our resulting crises will be much lower on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.

Are you talking about LLMs?

I'm talking about the belief that somehow AI will eventually do all our jobs for us. I don't personally believe that LLMs will get anywhere close to that.

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#108

Post by Insanity »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #106
Sateeshm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about LLMs?

I'm talking about the belief that somehow AI will eventually do all our jobs for us. I don't personally believe that LLMs will get anywhere close to that.

Yeah, I'm definitely agreeing with you on this. Which is why I think we're probably decades out from a post-work society. I do think it's inevitable, but in an optimistic kind of way.

My take is that an LLM is not ever going to lead to AGI, it's fundamentally the wrong paradigm to develop true intelligence.

Either way, I doubt that will happen in my lifetime and I don't spend any time worrying about it.

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#109

Post by WillPostForFood »

darth_avocado wrote: post #68
xpe wrote: post #12

How many people are just assuming the study is true or false based on what you already think is the case? Better instead to use our collective brain power for something more productive. Such as digging into the various possible causal factors and understanding if the paper properly addresses and disentangles them.

IRC section 174 was recently reversed. Its original removal was one of the big reasons for the layoffs in tech along with ZIRP ending. Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226145

That would be worth considering as a factor, but you wouldn't expect it to so disproportionately affect young workers. Also, they are showing the same trend with receptionists, translators and customer service representatives which wouldn't have had the tax effect.

Re: AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

#110

Post by BurningFrog »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
BurningFrog wrote: post #29

This will be very interesting. So far in the Industrial Revolution, automating away jobs has been how we've getting richer and richer for centuries. If AI automates away half of all jobs, and this holds we will - after an adjustment period - double GDP and collectively be twice as wealthy! If that actually happens, it solves many currently "unsolvable" societal problems. I'm pretty sure that it does, but the adjustme…

> If AI automates away half of all jobs This is a big if!

Agreed. I picked that number for the simple math.
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