It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#101

Post by tavavex » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

dan_i wrote: post #29

broken_clock wrote: post #6

IDK why you needed AI to write the little blurbs, it's not really a lot of text. Like if you feel it's not important enough to write yourself, just don't put anything there?

A lot of people who believed the hype are now actually dependent on LLMs for day-to-day tasks. They have genuinely been conditioned out of being able to write a sentence without the help of their thinking machines.

It's gotten so bad that I feel that the majority of HN blog posts on the topic of AI are partially or fully AI-generated. Even the ones that are highly critical of the AI industry. People have just spent so much time next to AI, soaking it in, that they're becoming dependent on it - either because they actually can't write for themselves anymore, or because they care about a topic so little that they can only squeeze out a short paragraph and then ask their LLM to fill in the blanks for what were supposed to be their thoughts. For AI boosters it's somehow even worse.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#102

Post by tavavex » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

suddenlybananas wrote: post #33

overgard wrote: post #12

I'm having a hard time understanding what the writer is trying to accomplish with this (weird) post, especially the "IQ" part on the side (wtf?). Yes, the goal posts change as the technology changes (this is true of ALL technology), and it turns out that people keep underestimating with each release of this technology what it would actually take to replace a job.

What on earth does "IQ: Yes" mean at the end??

It's a common joke to reply to something with 'yes' that doesn't make sense for the question asked. When used in place of a number, it just means extremely high, as high as it will go, that no matter what number you need it's a 'yes', and so on.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#103

Post by suddenlybananas » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #97

suddenlybananas wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a there exists problem, then it was solved by ELIZA in the 60s.

I think your post is a very good example of goal post moving. We currently have debates around whether content online is human or ai generated and instead of acknowledging the milesetone we have a post essentially claiming "the turing test was passed long ago, it's worthless".

How am I moving the goal post by pointing out that, by their definition, the goal "was scored" in the 1960s.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#104

Post by malnourish » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #76

danelski wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the capital-enabled won't abolish us for trying to do so?

They will certainly try, but they don't have the capability yet It's probably a really bad idea to keep building them autonomous killing machines though

Hyper proliferation of drones seems to end in a state of mutually assured destruction, from my armchair.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#105

Post by tavavex » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

captainbland wrote: post #38

cwbuilds wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even ride a bike so I got AGI'd about a decade ago

Yeah this idea that the unique value proposition of humans is now our motor capabilities rather than our cognition is unnerving as someone with dyspraxia. Like, oh good, they've figured out how to convert it into a much more limiting disability by commoditising apparently most knowledge work. Great.

If all the AI booster dreams come true with nothing slowing them down, the value proposition for an average human will change to, in this order:

1. At least humans can still do highly specialized physical work

2. At least humans are cheap to run on low-value hard labor tasks

3. At least humans are desperate and highly expendable, in some types of work it's cheaper to 'use one up' and replace them with another than to run and constantly repair robots

4. Humans are useless for all work and therefore have no value

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#106

Post by ofjcihen » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

Ukv wrote: post #99

ofjcihen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh machine learning has been useful for measuring deterministic and non deterministic outputs for a long time. But that’s not the argument here, is it? So the question still stands.

My understanding of your argument is (paraphrasing): > > People try to excuse AI issues/failure modes by saying humans have them too, but even if they're equally bad then what would be the whole point of replacing a human worker with AI? To which my response is that speed and cost are also important factors, which can often give AI the edge in considerations when quality/error rate is equal. If you meant something ot…

Sure, let me be blunt.

Speed and cost are nothing without quality and quality is partially a product of accountability (not even considering the technical or logistical issues this is enough on its own.

An AI cannot be held accountable. It does not desire to feed its family.

Your counter argument was outside the context of this articles claims, specifically that programmers and other knowledge workers can be replaced by LLMs.

Equating simple yes/no outcomes generated by vision based machine learning is quite different than “build me a product people will be happy with” being asked of a non-deterministic machine.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#107

Post by andrewinardeer » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

When AI takes my job, I'm dealing illicit contraband to feed my family. There will always be a demand for that.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#108

Post by blooalien » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:10 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #14

blooalien wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Well, I can still ride a unicycle blindfolded better than a robot so it's not AGI." Can you though? I've seen some videos recently of some pretty darn scary Chinese robots that I suspect might already be capable of riding a unicycle blindfolded if someone set 'em on that task. ;)

Can you link those videos? What I have seen was impressive but far from "riding a unicycle blindfolded". But with time can be surely done. Also yes, there are likely not many humans who can do it, but most could learn it.

Here's one from a few months ago -> Kungfu robots (o.o) https://youtu.be/UKLvMLtNXpE

You can search and find tons more like that on your favorite YouTube frontend. :)

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#109

Post by sph » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

ofjcihen wrote: post #25

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m unaware of any humans that don’t have this error method also.

This argument style is always humorous. The intention is something like “so humans are as bad as AI” when the original question boils down to something like “why would I replace humans with AI?”.

We must give this fallacy a name. It’s the facile way out of the argument used by boosters whenever one dares to criticize LLMs.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#110

Post by Ukv » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

ofjcihen wrote: post #106

Ukv wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of your argument is (paraphrasing): > > People try to excuse AI issues/failure modes by saying humans have them too, but even if they're equally bad then what would be the whole point of replacing a human worker with AI? To which my response is that speed and cost are also important factors, which can often give AI the edge in considerations when quality/error rate is equal. If you meant something ot…

Sure, let me be blunt. Speed and cost are nothing without quality and quality is partially a product of accountability (not even considering the technical or logistical issues this is enough on its own. An AI cannot be held accountable. It does not desire to feed its family. Your counter argument was outside the context of this articles claims, specifically that programmers and other knowledge workers can be replaced…

> Speed and cost are nothing without quality

Quality was what the hypothetical was assuming had reached parity, no? ("humans are as bad as AI", "If AI really is at human level quality/error rate", etc.)

> accountability

Why could the company not still take accountability? That's already the case for non-ML automated systems, some with high failure rates. As a customer I rarely if ever care about blame being pinned on a specific employee.

> Your counter argument was outside the context of this articles claims, specifically that programmers and other knowledge workers can be replaced by LLMs.

AndrewKemendo's comment and your reply ("any humans", "replace humans") seemed to generalize, but speed and cost being important factors is still true for knowledge work. For some given level of quality, a web developer offering a lower quote with shorter turnaround time will be preferred to one offering a higher quote with longer turnaround time.