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The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

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Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#111

Post by JKCalhoun »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #93

Imagine you had a crystal ball that lets you look 10 years into the future, and you asked it about whether we underestimate or overestimate how many jobs AI will replace in the future. It flickers for a moment, then it either says "In 2025, mankind vastly underestimated the amount of jobs AI can do in 2035" or "In 2025, mankind vastly overestimated the amount of jobs AI can do in 2035" How would you use that informat…

I'm already assuming the first answer but nonetheless have absolutely no idea how I would use that to make a guess about the stock market.

So it's index funds (as always) with me anyway.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#112

Post by [deleted] »

michaeldoron wrote: post #78

Every time an analyst gives the current state of AI-based tools as evidence supporting AI disruption being just a hype, I think of skeptics who dismissed the exponential growth of covid19 cases due to their initial low numbers. Putting that aside, how is this article called an analysis and not an opinion piece? The only analysis done here is asking a labor economist what conditions would allow this claim to hold, and…

[deleted]

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#113

Post by bgwalter »

michaeldoron wrote: post #78

Every time an analyst gives the current state of AI-based tools as evidence supporting AI disruption being just a hype, I think of skeptics who dismissed the exponential growth of covid19 cases due to their initial low numbers. Putting that aside, how is this article called an analysis and not an opinion piece? The only analysis done here is asking a labor economist what conditions would allow this claim to hold, and…

Why not use the promised exponential growth of home ownership that led to the catastrophic real estate bubble that burst in 2008 as an example?

We are still dealing with the aftereffects, which led to the elimination of any working class representation in politics and suppression of real protests like Occupy Wall Street.

When this bubble bursts, the IT industry will collapse for some years like in 2000.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#115

Post by ryandrake »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #92
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers? All the entrepreneurs, gig workers, black market workers, etc? It's easy to imagine a world in which there are way less white collar workers and everything else is pretty much the same. It's also easy to imagine a world in which you sell less stuff but your margins increase, and overall you're bett…

> All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers? You forgot the born-wealthy. I feel increasingly like a rube for having not made my little entrepreneurial side-gigs focused strictly on the ultra-wealthy. I used to sell tube amplifier kits, for example, so you and I could have a really high-end audio experience with a very modest outlay of cash (maybe $300). Instead I should have sold the same amp…

This is the real answer. Eventually, when 95% of us have no jobs because AI and robotics are doing everything, then the rich will just buy and sell from each other. The other 7 billion people are not economically relevant and will just barely participate in the economy. It'll be like the movie Elysium.

I briefly did a startup that was kind of a side-project of a guy whose main business was building yachts. Why was he OK with a market that just consisted of rich people? "Because rich people have the money!"

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#116

Post by JKCalhoun »

bachmeier wrote: post #89

> AI is starting to get better than humans at almost all intellectual tasks "Starting" is doing a hell of lot of work in that sentence. I'm starting to become a billionaire and Nobel Prize winner. Anyway, I agree with Mark Cuban's statement in the article. The most likely scenario is that we become more productive as AI complements humans. Yesterday I made this comment on another HN story: "Copilot told me it's there…

> I'm starting to become a billionaire

Suggests you are accumulating money, not losing it. That I think is the point of the original comment: AI is getting better, not worse. (Or humans are getting worse? Ha ha, not ha ha.)

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#117

Post by ryandrake »

trealira wrote: post #81
darth_avocado wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers If people don’t have jobs, government doesn’t have taxes to employ other people. If CEOs are salivating at the thought of replacing white collar workers, there is no reason to think next step of AI augmented with robotics won’t replace blue collar workers as well.

> If CEOs are salivating at the thought of replacing white collar workers, there is no reason to think next step of AI augmented with robotics won’t replace blue collar workers as well. Robotics seems harder, though, and has been around for longer than LLMs. Robotic automation can replace blue collar factory workers, but I struggle to imagine it replacing a plumber who comes to your house and fixes your pipes, or a w…

> I struggle to imagine it replacing a plumber who comes to your house and fixes your pipes, or a waiter serving food at a restaurant, or someone who restocks shelves at grocery stores, that kind of thing.

These are three totally different jobs requiring different kinds of skills, but they will all be replaced with automation.

1. Plumber is a skilled trade, but the "skilled" parts will eventually be replaced with 'smart' tools. You'll still need to hire a minimum wage person to actually go into each unique home and find the plumbing, but the tools will do all the work and will not require an expensive tradesman's skills to work.

2. Waiter serving food, already being replaced with kiosks, and quite a bit of the "back of the house" cooking areas are already automated. It will only take a slow cultural shift towards ordering food through technology-at-the-table, and robots wheeling your food out to you. We've already accepted kiosks in fast food and self-checkout in grocery stores. Waiters are going bye-bye.

3. Shelf restocking, very easy to imagine automating this with robotics. Picking a product and packing it into a destination will be solved very soon, and there are probably hundreds of companies working on the problem.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#118

Post by neutronicus »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #22
darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

> If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers? All the entrepreneurs, gig workers, black market workers, etc? It's easy to imagine a world in which there are way less white collar workers and everything else is pretty much the same. It's also easy to imagine a world in which you sell less stuff but your margins increase, and overall you're bett…

There are also blue- and pink-collar industries that we all tacitly agree are crazy understaffed right now because of brutal work conditions and low pay (health care, child care, K-12, elder care), with low quality-of-service a concern across the board, and with many job functions that seem very difficult to replace with AI (assuming liability for preventing children and elderly adults from physically injuring themselves and others).

If you, a CEO, eliminate a bunch of white-collar workers, presumably you drive your former employees into all these jobs they weren't willing to do before, and hey, you make more profits, your kids and aging parents are better-taken-care-of.

Seems like winning in the fundamental game of society - maneuvering everyone else into being your domestic servants.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#119

Post by SoftTalker »

bachmeier wrote: post #89

> AI is starting to get better than humans at almost all intellectual tasks "Starting" is doing a hell of lot of work in that sentence. I'm starting to become a billionaire and Nobel Prize winner. Anyway, I agree with Mark Cuban's statement in the article. The most likely scenario is that we become more productive as AI complements humans. Yesterday I made this comment on another HN story: "Copilot told me it's there…

It it sustainable? I know when I program, it's sometimes nice to get to something that's easy, even if it's tedious and repetitive. It's like stopping to walk for a bit when you're on a run. You're still moving, but you can catch your breath and recharge.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#120

Post by BigJono »

fny wrote: post #50

I think everyone is missing the bigger picture. This is not a matter of whether AI will replace humans whole sale. There are two more predominant effects: 1. You’ll need fewer humans to do the same task. In other forms of automation, this has led to a decrease in employment. 2. The supply of capable humans increases dramatically. 3. Expertise is no longer a perfect moat. I’ve seen 2. My sister nearly flunked a coding…

> I became proficient in Rust in a week, and I picked up Svelte in a day. I’ve written a few shaders too! The code I’ve written is pristine. All those conversations about “should I learn X to be employed” are totally moot.

fucking lmao

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