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White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

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Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#101

Post by intellectronica »

odyssey7 wrote: post #31
intellectronica wrote: post #4

Every morning the turkey rejoiced and said to himself "oh joy, I'm such a lucky turkey, I don't have to do anything, the food is plentiful, I just eat and shoot the breeze the whole day long, what an awesome life!" Until one morning, the day before thanksgiving, the turkey rejoiced about the awesome day he's about to have ... just to be picked up 5 minutes later and dragged to the slaughterhouse.

It’s a compelling story; but what you’re describing is, to the turkey, a black swan event, rather than an obvious inevitability that all the other turkeys keep telling the turkey is going to happen.

Yeah, and the lesson is ... don't be a turkey :D

It's not a certainty, but if you're not prepared for an extreme event, it can be ouch.

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#103

Post by GeoAtreides »

rspoerri wrote: post #94
wilkystyle wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology advances quickly, but the apocalypse narrative is still bullshit. The reality is much closer to what it has always been: technological advances are a way to enhance what humans can do, not replace them. Being adaptable and adopting a spirit of learning and growth is (as it always has been) a key factor in a successful career trajectory. Through a sufficiently narrow lens, any technological advancement can…

Why is it an apocalypse if people don't have jobs anymore? Why is it an apocalypse if the most intelligent being in the world isn't a human anymore. It will be a major change, but only to people that see it as a thread to their existence - to not work anymore - are in real danger. There are tons of people in our society that are fine without working. We could tend to our children, we could tend to our elders. We coul…

> Why is it an apocalypse if people don't have jobs anymore?

because i need to pay rent? eat? not die naked in ditch when i'm old?

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#104

Post by aurareturn »

lelanthran wrote: post #93
aurareturn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever has compute, will have the power. This is why big tech is plowing $1t into data center capex in 2026. Disclaimer: I'm an AI compute investor.

> Whoever has compute, will have the power. Nonsense. There's a temporary shortage, but even with the shortage it's still a commodity.

No. There will never be an oversupply again. Tokens = work in the same way that humans = labor.

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#105

Post by lelanthran »

aurareturn wrote: post #104
lelanthran wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever has compute, will have the power. Nonsense. There's a temporary shortage, but even with the shortage it's still a commodity.

No. There will never be an oversupply again. Tokens = work in the same way that humans = labor.

> No. There will never be an oversupply again. Tokens = work in the same way that humans = labor.

So? Electricity = work as well, and yet it's a commodity.

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#106

Post by mkbkn »

faangguyindia wrote: post #9

wait what? I am in india and jobs are being lost by thousands everyday in IT field. infact, i go and implement dumb AI models in many companies and executives immediately show "how many people they can fire with this advancement".

What do you think of the Indian IT companies? Will they survive the AI onslaught? Where do you see them in the next five years?

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#107

Post by mmiliauskas »

rspoerri wrote: post #32

People tend to forget how fast technological development advances. Even if you lived trough it you tend to forget how recently the world looked very different. - before 2012 there was no smartphone - before 2001 there was no wikipedia - before 1995 less then 10 percent of the rich country home users had internet - before 2023 there was no ai available to home users. Hardware has been getting faster by a factor of 100…

No technological improvement will make the halting problem decidable.

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#108

Post by mmiliauskas »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #79
ForHackernews wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly dispute this. Compute very depreciates rapidly. Inference is cheaper than training. DeepSeek was the warning shot across their bow, but the big AI firms can't afford to change course without jeopardizing their "Wile E. Coyote off the cliff" economics. LLM performance is already plateauing; models will get more efficient. Good-enough models will be deployed on chips, the same way H.264 is a good-enough video…

More than your points, I'm very curious how these AI companies are going to turn profit without making using AI insanely expensive. Some time ago, each prompt was highly subsidized, I doubt the picture has changed much. Edit: maybe the model efficiency you mentioned is the key, we'll see.

Supposedly they could make money, if they wouldn't have to burn a lot on the research. There was an interview with Dario where he stated this and hinted to the fact that a monopoly would not have the research problem, and thus could start making money.

Re: White-collar AI apocalypse narrative is just another bullshit

#109

Post by mmiliauskas »

bluegatty wrote: post #3

It's already been an apocalypse for some jobs, and that will continue on. But probably not broadly.

Yes indeed, there is an ongoing apocalypse for Food & Serving jobs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPFOPRSE. It is one of the most AI-proof professions according to Anthropic.
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