171–180 of 238 posts
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what part is not clear to you?
well, for one, "datacenters instead of paychecks" is nonsensical. openai doesn't operate their own datacenters, they in fact write checks to people who do, who in turn write their own checks to their employees. it sounds like you don't believe datacenters are "useful", either. that's a pretty hot take IMO.
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Automating software development is not unethical. The unethical bit is allowing resource flow default to those who own the means of production. As a software developer, when I automate someone's job, say of a cashier, I do not start to get paid their salary - my salary stays the same. This is different for capital investors and shareholders. They keep the cashier's salary (not directly but ultimately). This results i…
In that case pretty much any automation is unethical, isn't it?
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It's not irony so much as it is brazenly criminal. No one should be in a position of training someone else's AI to replace their job function without consenting to it and without being compensated. The most valuable thing AI can do right now is write code, and it couldn't do that without thousands of StackOverflow volunteers.
Wouldn't the language / frameworks documentation be sufficient?
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Then go weld. There are still some positions for humans.
Tons of welding and other manufacturing jobs in the northeast— they’ll even apprentice you into positions with no existing knowledge and larger companies (like General Dynamics) will even pay for your job-related degrees, sometimes being able to take the classes on the clock or get a stipend. They have to do this because the industry has basically been kicking the aging-workforce can down the road for a few decades s…
I've watched my cousin weld on a horse trailer overhead in 105F Texas heat, would be interesting to see the typical SWE step away from an Xbox and do that.
How many jobs have they actually 'eaten'? For now, we mostly have AI labs and those in proximity claiming some number of jobs will be obsolete, but the actual job loss has yet to manifest.
To think the same isn't happening all over the place and will only continue is ignoring just how powerful this tech is.
Either I am mistaken that Walmart was offering store associate type jobs or the author doesn't realize Walmart has software engineering teams. Quite a few non-tech companies have very hip, modern, and high-power tech teams behind them. https://github.com/walmartlabs Walmart has been doing this level of work since at least 2013/2014 to my knowledge so it's not something new. Getting a job on the Walmart engineering te…
It was a major advantage over any other store who didn't have such data and would be out of inventory in the hot region while the same items were on markdown sale a few states over. Walmart maximized profits while the blind competitors bump along with losses.
I love it when companies do something and at the same time say, that they cannot do anything about it. Like Microsoft recently firing tons of people while posting record profits and making up some lame excuse about things being the way they are.
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well, for one, "datacenters instead of paychecks" is nonsensical. openai doesn't operate their own datacenters, they in fact write checks to people who do, who in turn write their own checks to their employees. it sounds like you don't believe datacenters are "useful", either. that's a pretty hot take IMO.
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Replacing jobs is not an ethical issue. Automation and technology has been replacing jobs for well over a century, almost always to better outcomes for society. If it were an ethical issue, then it would be unethical not to do it. In any case, which jobs have been replaced by LLMs? Most of the actual ones I know were BS jobs to begin with - jobs I wish had not existed to begin with. The rest of the ones are where CEO…
Artists generally? Translators? People at various bureaucratic positions doing more menial white collar work? And tons more. That you specifically wish for them to not even exist is your own internal problem and actually pretty horrible thing to say all things considered. People had/have decent livehoods from those, I know a few. If they could easily got better jobs they would go for them. Egos here sometimes are qui…
Which artists have lost their jobs?
But I am willing to grant you that. From a big picture society perspective, if it means that ordinary people like me who cannot afford to pay an artist can now create art sufficiently good for my needs, then this is a net win. I just made an AI song a week ago that got mildly popular, and just got a request to use it at a conference. No one is losing their job because of me. I wouldn't have had the money to pay an artist to create it, and nor would the conference organizers. Yet, society is clearly benefiting.
The same goes for translators (I'm not actually aware that they're losing jobs in a significant way, but I'll accept the premise). Even before LLMs, the fact that I could use Babelfish to translate was fantastic - LLMs are merely an incremental improvement over it.
To me, arguing we shouldn't have AI translators is not really different from arguing we shouldn't have Babelfish/Google Translate. Likely 99% of the people who will benefit from it couldn't afford a professional translator.
(I have, BTW, used a professional translator to get some document translated - his work isn't going away, because organizations need a certified translator).
> People at various bureaucratic positions doing more menial white collar work?
"Menial white collar work" sounds like a good thing to eliminate. Do you want to go back to the days where word processors were not a thing and you had to pay someone to type things up?
> People had/have decent livehoods from those, I know a few. If they could easily got better jobs they would go for them.
I'll admit I spoke somewhat insensitively - yes, even I know people who had good careers with some of them, but again: Look to the past and think of how many technologies have replaced people, and do you wish those technologies did not replace people?
Do you want to deal with switchboard operators every time you make a call?
Do you want to have to deal with a stock broker every time you want to buy/sell?
Do you want to pay a professional every time you want to print a simple thing?
Do you want to go back to snail mail?
Do you want to do all your shopping in person or via a physical catalog?
The list goes on. All of these involved replacing jobs where people earned honest money.
Everything I've listed above has been a bigger disruption than LLMs (so far - things may change in a few years).
> Egos here sometimes are quite a thing to see. Maybe its good that chops are coming also for this privileged groups, a bit of humility never hurts.
Actually, I would expect the SW industry to be amongst the most impacted, given a recent report showing which industries actually use LLMs the most (I think usage was SW was greater than all other industries combined).
As both an engineer and a programmer, who makes a living via programming, I am not opposed to LLMs, even if my job is at risk. And no, I'm not sitting on a pile of $$$ that I can retire on any time soon.
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It's not a comment on the ethics of replacing jobs but the hypocrisy of companies using "ethics" as reasoning for restricting content. They are pursuing profits. Their ethical focus is essentially a form of theater.
Replacing jobs is not an ethical issue. Automation and technology has been replacing jobs for well over a century, almost always to better outcomes for society. If it were an ethical issue, then it would be unethical not to do it. In any case, which jobs have been replaced by LLMs? Most of the actual ones I know were BS jobs to begin with - jobs I wish had not existed to begin with. The rest of the ones are where CEO…
I cannot edit my original comment, so I'll address this here:
Yes, I admit some legitimate jobs may have been lost (and if not yet, likely will be). When I spoke of BS jobs, I was referring to things like people being paid to ghostwrite rich college students' essays. That's really the only significant market I know to have been impacted. And good riddance.