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What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

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Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#171

Post by dandanua »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #129
galaxyLogic wrote: post #125

So a lot of people might lose their jobs because of AI, right? But the same amount of economic output, probably more, will be produced because of AI. By whom will that output then be consumed? If people don't have jobs they don't have money to buy and therefore ... prices will have to come down! Society as a whole will be better off because there is more output, better quality output. Then it's for us to vote in a go…

I agree completely, but you forget that another option is that the powerful will use these tools to make us suffer and we will be powerless to stop them.

That's the default option. Power seeks only more power, sharing is worthless to it, except as a temporary instrument. And AI is a perfect tool to concentrate even more power in tiny hands.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#172

Post by matheweis »

zarzavat wrote: post #148
galaxyLogic wrote: post #125

So a lot of people might lose their jobs because of AI, right? But the same amount of economic output, probably more, will be produced because of AI. By whom will that output then be consumed? If people don't have jobs they don't have money to buy and therefore ... prices will have to come down! Society as a whole will be better off because there is more output, better quality output. Then it's for us to vote in a go…

> prices will have to come down Prices of services will come down. Prices of things that require natural resources will go up. In a hypothetical world where let's say we have AIs that can do any human job more effectively than a human, rich people who can afford to control the AIs will control society and poor people who have nothing to offer economically will live in poverty. A good proxy for our future is Angola: a…

> Prices of things that require natural resources will go up.

This suggests a potential equilibrium sooner rather than later .. few modern technological advances have been as resource hungry as AI

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#173

Post by HNisCIS »

laughing_man wrote: post #167

I'm not convinced the current job market turbulence, at least in the US, has anything to do with LLMs. It's just as likely companies are blaming "AI", which has a sort of inevitable feel to it, while they outsource jobs to lower cost countries.

The admin is doing everything in its power to cause everyone heartburn and the billionaire class is just running around trying to double down on all the damage the admin is doing. During "good" times I think people would have an easier time looking at AI and seeing it as just another random tool rather than the end of days, but when everything looks like the end of days...

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#174

Post by [deleted] »

tavavex wrote: post #151
stephen_cagle wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark thoughts... Imagine a future where most human beings are just overseered by an LLM and we are just wearing AR work glasses. Barely aware of what (physical) work we are doing as we overlay our hands within the projections of our AR glasses. Every task is decomposed into a set of small physical steps, you don't even think about what you are trying to actually accomplish, just follow the steps one at a time. I wond…

Why have fast food restaurants at all at that point? Just have everyone eat the same mass-produced, nutritionally-optimized substance, and use the AR vision to superimpose pretty pictures over that food. Varied meals are for the rich.

[deleted]

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#175

Post by ardeaver »

I've always felt that AI's main contribution to eliminating jobs is giving CEOs the ability to do layoffs while trying to both separate themselves from the current economic uncertainty and imply that they are an AI company.

Companies do this all the time. A CEO's job is to convince investors that their company stands to win in whatever the current hot trend is. During bitcoin's crazy run in like 2022 or whatever, a ton of tech companies were hopping on the bandwagon and branding themselves as a blockchain company. Look at Block/Square. The current trend is that AI is hot and the economy isn't. Therefore, it's beneficial to the stock price to tell your investors that you're laying off 50% of your staff because you're AI-powered. Just look at Block/Square. My experience has been that most companies have an incredibly patchwork implementation of AI, and that most of the work that they do (particularly larger companies) isn't made more efficient by using AI.

In a few years, there will be some new hotness, and all companies will be saying that the DNA of their company is whatever that is.

As for the current uncertainty in the job market, when you randomly have 50% tariffs slapped on goods you need and can't readily find available in the US for the same price and find that 20% of the world's oil supply is cut off, you tend to not want to invest in the future. Talking about AI is cheap. Tariffs are expensive.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#176

Post by HNisCIS »

lasky wrote: post #153

Other forces that contribute to the "AI is taking our jobs" narrative: - Layoffs due to insufficient demand in uncertain economic times - Companies selling AI need to claim "we are so great with AI we don't need as many people." Layoffs unlock AI budgets. - It justifies all the capital allocation into AI. - Companies in the AI industry shock the government into learned helplessness, so they can write policy that is o…

Yeah if anything this recession feels demand driven rather than labor replacement driven. Nobody wants to do capex or buy things when everyone is telling them they're going to get replaced with jpeg-for-text so they aren't. As a result most of the economy isn't moving particularly fast with the exception of people buying up the entire worlds supply of silicon and driving up prices on increasingly essential hardware. So we have stagnation and inflation all in one but from the dumbest possible source.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#177

Post by KellyCriterion »

returnInfinity wrote: post #170
Moto7451 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes-Anding you, if one developer is suddenly 3x more productive and does 40 hours of work in 15 with AI tools, any reasonable manager would still want the same three people to keep working at 3x productivity. I don’t see Keynes’ theory we would all be working drastically fewer hours per week suddenly materializing due to AI. As always we’re just going to try to output more in the same time. The fact I, a manager, can…

Lets take the example of Uber. If Uber ships 10x the code and features, I will still not 2x my rides. Even if Uber makes the cost of travel to 0, I will still not 2x my rides.

How would they lower the prices to 0 in this scenario, if they have to keep operating their AI-driver-army?

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#178

Post by ghaff »

returnInfinity wrote: post #170
Moto7451 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes-Anding you, if one developer is suddenly 3x more productive and does 40 hours of work in 15 with AI tools, any reasonable manager would still want the same three people to keep working at 3x productivity. I don’t see Keynes’ theory we would all be working drastically fewer hours per week suddenly materializing due to AI. As always we’re just going to try to output more in the same time. The fact I, a manager, can…

Lets take the example of Uber. If Uber ships 10x the code and features, I will still not 2x my rides. Even if Uber makes the cost of travel to 0, I will still not 2x my rides.

0, yes you will. Or at least most would unless piblic transit were a genuinely better way to get around. But it won’t be zero as it’s bounded by the base cost of operating the vehicle.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#179

Post by CalRobert »

justonepost2 wrote: post #84
ctoth wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What should kids be aiming for according to you? Computer Scientist? Biologist? Finance? Construction? Can you sit down with an unfamiliar domain and develop enough genuine curiosity to get good at it, without a syllabus or a credential dangling in front of you? The kids who'll do well in a world where the field-to-security mapping keeps shifting are the ones who can self-direct — not the ones who picked the right…

> Although full disclosure I'm short humans and very long paperclips. What a ludicrous world we live in where this is a socially acceptable view to hold.

Reality doesn’t give a shit about your beliefs, as the saying goes.

Re: What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

#180

Post by ehnto »

returnInfinity wrote: post #170
Moto7451 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes-Anding you, if one developer is suddenly 3x more productive and does 40 hours of work in 15 with AI tools, any reasonable manager would still want the same three people to keep working at 3x productivity. I don’t see Keynes’ theory we would all be working drastically fewer hours per week suddenly materializing due to AI. As always we’re just going to try to output more in the same time. The fact I, a manager, can…

Lets take the example of Uber. If Uber ships 10x the code and features, I will still not 2x my rides. Even if Uber makes the cost of travel to 0, I will still not 2x my rides.

Uber needs to prove that they are growing though to validate their stock value, one of the tricks used to be increasing headcount to show growth.

But other tricks include new ventures, essentially public companies and VC companies have an almost unlimited appetite for new ventures, as that is how they keep validating their future growth and stock prices.

Currently financial realities are forcing layoffs, and the AI story is covering for the "growth" validation to keep stock prices going up.

But what's next? After you've fired everyone, what's the next growth story? They'll start hiring again, for new projects, even if AI can handle the coding there is still gobs of work surrounding building a software business or department that needs meat moving it forward.

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