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AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

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Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#111

Post by MichaelZuo »

Animats wrote: post #105
MichaelZuo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote doesn’t make sense, labor is pretty much a commodity for the vast vast majority of people. Almost by definition. I would say at most 1 out of 50 are genuinely really unique in some way, and that’s being generous, the rest of the population are just regular average Joes or not too far off.

So much labor history has been forgotten. Here's the founding document of the International Labor Organization.[1] This was, when it was founded, on a par with the World Trade Organization. The ILO position, mainstream at the time, was that wages are an output, not an input. The purpose of economic activity is to maximize worker wages. Not return on capital. That few people today even know this was once mainstream is…

I know the history, it still doesn’t make sense.

e.g. Wages can be both inputs and outputs. Because there’s no ultimate judge deciding how these things should be considered.

Millions of writers can write billions of words about it one way or the other, but at the end of the day they don’t count for anything, when compared to 8 billion lives worth of daily decisions.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#112

Post by pksebben »

Everyone seems to be asking how AI is going to fit in the current paradigm - creating or destroying jobs and so forth - but I don't see a ton of folks talking about something I feel is patently obvious; that the most relevant applications of this stuff are going to exist outside the "company hire people to make product / give service and sell service" cycle.

Yes, AI will lower the barrier for entry level positions (IMO a good thing; more chances for smart creative people to get in the game who may have been failed by more traditional systems). But it will also allow the creation of projects by much smaller teams, who no longer need to stress the details and have a focus on making a thing just to try it out.

Individuals will be able to get much more experimental and iterate way faster; if the amount of investment to build an MVP is less than the investment to research and assess all that crap that usually has to go into a commercial product (market fit, funding, marketing, sales, etc.) then you can just make the damn thing and see if the pasta sticks to the wall. This could be a really great environment for testing out weird ideas, some of which might be completely novel and break the mold in ways that are simply not feasible if you have to manage all that other stuff.

I'm also excited to see what new stuff pops into the OSS space as a result of devs-with-jobs being able to hack out a proof of concept in a couple hours and smacking some stuff together over weekends.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#114

Post by golergka »

pydry wrote: post #96
golergka wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't have income and other taxable economic activity in the country.

If they have any interest in the country, they have taxable activity. Whether the government wants to tax it is a different question. Usually they do not.

That's how you make people lose interest in the country — exactly what OP is complaining about. If you want to stop brain and capital drain, taxation should be the last thing on your mind.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#115

Post by 2devnull »

pksebben wrote: post #112

Everyone seems to be asking how AI is going to fit in the current paradigm - creating or destroying jobs and so forth - but I don't see a ton of folks talking about something I feel is patently obvious; that the most relevant applications of this stuff are going to exist outside the "company hire people to make product / give service and sell service" cycle. Yes, AI will lower the barrier for entry level positions (I…

“AI will lower the barrier for entry level position”

No. Empirically, has it?

It will do the opposite. It removes trust, therefore making existing powers more powerful. Ain’t going to democratize anything but cybercrime.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#116

Post by 2devnull »

asdff wrote: post #73
d--b wrote: post #19

This person assumes AI is going to stay in its current form: a technology that requires an expert operator to help accomplish tasks. Most people are afraid of “next-level” AI, where no operator is required. If trucks can be moved without anyone at the wheel, truck driving is a job that won’t exist anymore. As simple as that. Whether trucks can be 100% autonomous remains to see.

On the other hand, offshoring of manufacturing and the emergence of computers should have reduced the workforce but we saw the opposite happen. There might not be truck drivers in the future but maybe those people will just be working different jobs, like how I am not a blacksmith making horseshoes today.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Offshoring didn’t increase jobs. That’s absurd.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#117

Post by pksebben »

2devnull wrote: post #115
pksebben wrote: post #112

Everyone seems to be asking how AI is going to fit in the current paradigm - creating or destroying jobs and so forth - but I don't see a ton of folks talking about something I feel is patently obvious; that the most relevant applications of this stuff are going to exist outside the "company hire people to make product / give service and sell service" cycle. Yes, AI will lower the barrier for entry level positions (I…

“AI will lower the barrier for entry level position” No. Empirically, has it? It will do the opposite. It removes trust, therefore making existing powers more powerful. Ain’t going to democratize anything but cybercrime.

Not sure I follow you. Do you mean that the existence of AI will undermine trust that applicants know what they're doing?

It hasn't really been around long enough for an empirical analysis of effects. It's also incredibly hard to measure effects with the systems themselves being in such flux.

For what it's worth, I think categorical statements of any stripe are a little premature. Even the EA folks speak in probabilistic margins.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#118

Post by bumby »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #106
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every single high school graduate then got a bachelors degree, would their median earnings match the median earnings of the of the bachelors degree group now? It doesn't seem likely. Otherwise we can just mail every single person a bachelors degree certificate in the mail and watch the salaries increase, productivity sore, the economy on permanent boom!

The bachelors degree is not a piece of paper in the same way that a long resume is not the same as experience gained. Either is useless if they are not representative of an underlying truth. The point of the experience is that it allows you to produce more value with the same inputs. To wit: nations with higher educational attainment do not see the averaging that you suggest, instead they see rather remarkable standa…

I think the real question is: how much of the degree is a signal and how much is an actual increase in knowledge/ability? I know since economists have done work on this and, to my memory, it’s split about 50/50.

If it slides too far to the signal side, it becomes a bad proxy. Considering grade inflation is a thing, I wonder how much of that relationship gets eroded

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#119

Post by asdff »

2devnull wrote: post #116
asdff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, offshoring of manufacturing and the emergence of computers should have reduced the workforce but we saw the opposite happen. There might not be truck drivers in the future but maybe those people will just be working different jobs, like how I am not a blacksmith making horseshoes today.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Offshoring didn’t increase jobs. That’s absurd.

Higher population and 4% unemployment would suggest jobs have increased since

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#120

Post by cyanydeez »

fny wrote: post #5

"air traffic controllers were paid a median annual salary of $132,250 in 2022, or nearly four times the $33,380 median annual pay of crossing guards" It's not quite "expertise" that justifies the wage gap, it's supply and demand. Almost anyone can be a crossing guard--not everyone can be an air traffic controller. If AI theoretically could make anyone an air traffic controller, one would expect the salary to collapse…

We could easily bring back the middle class by.capping public corporation CEO pays.

We choose yo ignore wealth ineqaulty for delusional reasons

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