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What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves

wsj.com

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

#201

Post by Epa095 »

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…

Progressive taxes hit wage earners, while its the owners who will reap the benefits of AI. We won't get a share of the fruits without solving how to properly tax wealth(in a world where money is power, and its trivial for rich people to move to a different tax regime), which unfortunately seems tabu in large parts of the western world.

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

#202

Post by blitzar »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #135

Summary of article: in an uncertain job market, some young people are going into blue collar trades. Others are starting startups. Others are powering through. Journalist says some words about "AI" being the cause of all this uncertainty.

Your role writing these summaries could be outsourced to Ai if you don't improve your productivity.

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

#203

Post by casey2 »

I like the choice of firefighter. Though it is a super tough and physically demanding job. When there is lots of uncertainty jobs like these increase certainty. On the west coast more people taking these jobs will more than pay for themselves due to depressing insurance premiums.

We need lots of firefighters on call when landowners do control burns for example. It's a short window.

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

#204

Post by Epa095 »

baxtr wrote: post #168
laughing_man wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may very well end up with similar prices, a few stupendously wealthy people, and the rest of us living on the dole.

I wouldn’t say it’s impossible but I’d argue from all we know now highly unlikely. Why? Assume a company has a high margin because they used AI and reduced their workforce by 10x. What usually happens is that a new competitor comes in and offers the same for half the price. Since AI is lowering the bar for entry this process should be even faster than previously.

What usually happens is that that competitors then gets disappeared. Either by a happy ending (it gets bought up), or it gets squeezed out.

Monopolies arise naturally unless we work hard to avoid them.

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

#205

Post by bandrami »

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…

As of now, at least, nobody is actually seeing an increase of productivity from AI that shows up in any measurements anybody is making. So some of this talk is really getting ahead of the facts on the ground.

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

cal_dent wrote: post #48

I still don't understand the logic that any job is safe from ai (if it lives up to expectations). Sure, it might not be directly impacted by ai but why is there this expectation that the excess labour from those directly impacted doesnt act to suppress the earning power of other jobs? Especially considering that the implication is that humans just become a pair of hands with opposable thumbs?. Take the electrician in…

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by hithre »

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…

Yes. Though it won’t be a small class of rich, it will be a couple of overpowerful families only. I don’t think we have any examples to compare too.

Also, If you control the AI, but there is no middle class to consume its product, everyone is poor and controlling the AI doesn’t bring that much.

There is still some products much more important and stable: food, water and therefore land control.

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

#208

Post by charcircuit »

rootusrootus wrote: post #68
cal_dent wrote: post #48

I still don't understand the logic that any job is safe from ai (if it lives up to expectations). Sure, it might not be directly impacted by ai but why is there this expectation that the excess labour from those directly impacted doesnt act to suppress the earning power of other jobs? Especially considering that the implication is that humans just become a pair of hands with opposable thumbs?. Take the electrician in…

Agreed, there would definitely be knock-on effects. If a bunch of people who were otherwise going to be software developers decide to focus their career on the trades, then the wages for trades jobs will drop.

>then the wages for trades jobs will drop.

This does not seem like a straightforward conclusion. It could instead result in more physical projects being able to be done as it removes bottlenecks due to limitations of laborers. There is not a fixed amount of work that needs to be done in the world, humans can make up new work they want done.

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

#209

Post by theobreuerweil »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #198
KellyCriterion wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lowering the cost of travel to 0 would mean implementing a technology by which anyone can simply desire to be somewhere else, and they will instantly teleport to that new location. returnInfinity is simply lying about not doing double (or more!) the amount of travel in that case.

I’m sure that he/she would ride a lot more if it cost nothing, but I think the point is valid: even if Uber could 10x or 100x productivity, they could not do the same with income, because there is a limit to how much people actually need to go places.

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

#210

Post by Animats »

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…

That's a generic problem with oil states. Or, more generally, where most income is generated by some centralized industry with strong government involvement. See "Dutch disease".[1] It's a strange situation in which having high income from valuable resources ends up making a state less industrial, and usually both more corrupt and poorer.

Is AI going to do this? Quite possibly. One of the symptoms is most investment capital being sucked up by the extractive industry. We're there now with AI. The current US situation is that the economy is flat except for AI companies and data centers, which are booming and are sucking up vast resources.

Most of OPEC has been through this cycle. Venezuela, Egypt, Iran, Iraq - lots of oil, but it didn't make the countries rich.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

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