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Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

noahpinion.blog

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Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#21

Noah's post always remind me of this quote: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

Is being seen as a fool that bad? Note that there is another saying, “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#22

Noah's post always remind me of this quote: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

Scientific Process is nothing but Newton's Method of Numerical Approximation.

And in Newton's method we always have an initial guess or starting point. It's good to have starting points and then refine iteratively

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#23

Key point: > If you can create more compute by simply putting more energy into the process, it could make economic sense to starve human beings in order to generate more and more AI... most governments seem likely to limit AI’s ability to hog energy This is the most likely scenario, and indeed in that scenario saving humans from starvation requires government action. Some governments will do it, some won't. Those tha…

Too many unknowns to be predictable.

We've got loads of machine labour already, we don't yet plug AI into it everywhere because humans are much better at avoiding accidents (not immune, but much better). Get AI good enough, the mining equipment, the delivery trucks, the factories, can all be fully automated (bits of each already are). You're now limited by how fast (and how far) your robotic workforce can increase it's own size.

How fast is unknown until we do it, but it wouldn't be particularly surprising if a group of robots could double their number in 6 months. How far is also unknown until we do it, my guess is that there are loads of limits to growth we've just not bothered thinking about yet because we don't need to. On the one hand: I'd be surprised if it worked out as less than one humanoid robot per capita using only things found on Earth; on the other: I expect it to vary by country.

Even "just" one per person is enough for everyone to have a life of luxury. (But of course, by medieval standards, I could say that about "clean indoor plumbing" and "bedrooms").

But if we're never limited by trace elements, then the upper limit is a paperclip maximiser (in the bad ending) or a Dyson swarm (in the good ending).

Both endings can (in principle and if I ignore all the unknowns) be reached in my lifetime.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#24
> The dystopian outcome where a few people own everything and everyone else dies is always fun to trot out in Econ 101 classes, but in reality, societies seem not to allow this.

Companies are granted rights by the state for their duty to employ people.

No human employees, no need for special rights such as tax deductions.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#25
There’s another reason AI won’t eliminate jobs. People like to hire people who are like them (also who like them, and who they like).

The only people who AIs are like are AI engineers (more broadly, engineers, scientists, etc). For an AI engineer “hiring” an AI is natural. Nearly every other normal person on the planet would rather hire another person they can easily relate to, regardless of that person’s comparative or competitive advantage.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#26

Key point: > If you can create more compute by simply putting more energy into the process, it could make economic sense to starve human beings in order to generate more and more AI... most governments seem likely to limit AI’s ability to hog energy This is the most likely scenario, and indeed in that scenario saving humans from starvation requires government action. Some governments will do it, some won't. Those tha…

Could you provide some examples of what you think these hypothetical AI’s are going to give/grant/allow these hypothetical governments that warrants the usage of enough energy they’ll actually starve people to achieve? What “competition” are these governments going to be in to necessitate this?

Comments like this are becoming far more common it seems amongst the tech community, to me anyway, that I really want an answer of what this hypothetical god-like entity is going to enable that also somehow will only be limited to a select group of people/nation/whatever and not spread throughout the rest of the world. It’s a weird dichotomy wherein “AGI” will somehow solve climate change, enable cold fusion, end human aging, spread us to the stars, but also inflict mass death, use all of the global energy if unchecked, and now, starve humans to achieve those things.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#27

There’s another reason AI won’t eliminate jobs. People like to hire people who are like them (also who like them, and who they like). The only people who AIs are like are AI engineers (more broadly, engineers, scientists, etc). For an AI engineer “hiring” an AI is natural. Nearly every other normal person on the planet would rather hire another person they can easily relate to, regardless of that person’s comparative…

What about buying? The buyer only has to really like the seller. And if they provide service generated by AI that is enough. The seller can eliminate lot of people that do actual work. And instead just have thin layer of prompters...

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#28
post #26

Key point: > If you can create more compute by simply putting more energy into the process, it could make economic sense to starve human beings in order to generate more and more AI... most governments seem likely to limit AI’s ability to hog energy This is the most likely scenario, and indeed in that scenario saving humans from starvation requires government action. Some governments will do it, some won't. Those tha…

Could you provide some examples of what you think these hypothetical AI’s are going to give/grant/allow these hypothetical governments that warrants the usage of enough energy they’ll actually starve people to achieve? What “competition” are these governments going to be in to necessitate this? Comments like this are becoming far more common it seems amongst the tech community, to me anyway, that I really want an ans…

Some people's definition of intelligence is like that. They speak of how a more powerful version of themselves would behave.

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#29
post #24

> The dystopian outcome where a few people own everything and everyone else dies is always fun to trot out in Econ 101 classes, but in reality, societies seem not to allow this. Companies are granted rights by the state for their duty to employ people. No human employees, no need for special rights such as tax deductions.

How does regulatory capture factor into this? This article is primarily about historical wages but does touch on wealth:

> If real per capita GDP goes to $10 million (in 2024 dollars), rich people aren’t going to think twice about shelling out $300 for a haircut or $2,000 for a doctor’s appointment. So wherever humans’ comparative advantage does happen to lie, it’s likely that in a society made super-rich by AI, it’ll be pretty well-paid.

The first chart of historical wealth trends shows the opposite: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-wealth-distribution-in...

Will there be enough "rich people [that] aren’t going to think twice about shelling out $300 for a haircut" to bouy wages and wealth?

That sounds like trickle down economics which has not been found to work that well (or so I have heard.)

Re: Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

#30
The author points out that plenty of societies have starved and killed their population en masse because cash crops were more valuable.

Then he states that he doesn’t believe that societies will starve out their population en masse to bid up energy for AI because it’s never happened before.

What.

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