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Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

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Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#311

Post by hatch_q »

socketcluster wrote: post #203

I think my software engineering job will be safe so long as big companies keep using average code as their training set. This is because the average developer creates unnecessary complexity which creates more work for me. The way the average dev structures their code requires like 10x the number of lines as I do and at least 10x the amount of time to maintain... The interest on technical debt compounds like interest…

You're just very opinionated. Other software engineers just give you space because they don't want to confront you and they don't want any conflict with you as it's just waste of time.

6 months is also average time it takes people like you to burn out on a project. Usually starting with relatively simple change/addition requested by customer that turns into 3 month long refactor - "because architecture is wrong". And we just let you do it, because we know fighting windmills is futile.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#312

Post by tim333 »

barbazoo wrote: post #2

Engine efficiency, chess rating, AI cap ex. One example is not like the other. Is there steady progress in AI? To me it feels like it’s little progress followed by the occasional breakthrough but I might be totally off here.

Steady progress in the hardware for AI, lumpy progress in algorithms?

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#313

Post by Eisenstein »

listenallyall wrote: post #293
reeredfdfdf wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only reason to reduce headcount is to remove people who already weren’t providing much value." I wish corporations really acted this rationally. At least where I live hospitals fired most secretaries and assistants to doctors a long time ago. The end result? High-paid doctors spending significant portion of their time on administrative and bureaucratic tasks that were previously handled by those secretaries, pre…

But wouldnt these spreadsheets be tracking something like total revenue? If a doctor is spending time on admin tasks instead of revenue-generating procedures, obviously the hospital has accountants and analysts who will notice this, yes? I'll contrast your experience with a well-run (from a profitability standpoint) dentist's office, they have tons of assistants and hygienists and the dentist just goes from room-to-r…

> If a doctor is spending time on admin tasks instead of revenue-generating procedures, obviously the hospital has accountants and analysts who will notice this, yes?

I am going to assume that the Doctors are just working longer hours and/or aren't as attentive as they could be and so care quality declines but revenue doesn't. Overworking existing staff in order to make up for less staff is a tried and true play.

> I'll contrast your experience with a well-run (from a profitability standpoint) dentist's office, they have tons of assistants and hygienists and the dentist just goes from room-to-room performing high-dollar procedures, and very little "patient care." If small dentist offices have this all figured out it seems a little strange that a massive hospital does not.

By conflating 'Doctors' and 'Dentists' you are basically saying the equivalent of 'all Doctors' and 'Doctors of a certain specialty'. Dentists are 'Doctors for teeth' like a pediatrician is a 'Doctor for children' or an Ortho is a 'Doctor for bones'.

Teeth need maintenance, which is the time consuming part of most visits, and the Dentist has staff to do that part of it. That in itself makes the specialty not really that comparable to a lot of others.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#314

Post by Covenant0028 »

nopinsight wrote: post #291
reeredfdfdf wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I suspect the same will be true with this automation - if we can create and scale organisations easier and cheaper without employing all the admin staff that we currently do, then maybe we create more agile, responsive, organisations that serve their customers better." I'm not sure most of those organizations will have many customers left, if every white collar admin job has been automated away, and all those people…

AI agents might be able to automate 80% of certain jobs in a few years but that would make the remaining 20% far more valuable. The challenge is to help people rapidly retrain for new roles. Humans will continue to have certain desires far outstripping the supply we have for a long time to come. We still don’t have cures for all diseases, personal robot chefs & maids, and an ideal house for everyone, for example. Not…

> The jobs could themselves become more desirable with machines automating the boring and dangerous parts

Or, as Cory Doctorow argues, the machines could become tools to extract "efficiency" by helping the employer make their workers lives miserable. An example of this is Amazon and the way it treats its drivers and warehouse workers.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#315

Post by avereveard »

misnome wrote: post #261
avereveard wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overseeing robot is a time limited activity. Even building robot has a finite horizon. Current tech can't yet replace everything but many jobs already see the horizon or are at sunset. Last few time this happened the new tech, whether textile mills or computers, drove job creation as well as replacement. This time around some component of progress are visibile, because end of the day people can use this tech to creat…

> because end of the day people can use this tech to create wealth at unprecedented scale _Where?_ so far the only technology to have come out widespread for this is to shove a chatbot interface into every UI that never needed it. Nothing has been improved, no revelatory tech has come out (tools to let you chatbot faster don’t count).

In the backend, not directly customer facing. Coca cola is two years in running ai ads. Lovable is cash positive, and many of the builder there are too. A few creators are earning a living with suno songs. Not millions mind but they can live off their ai works.

If you dont see it happening around you, you're just not looking.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#316

Post by tim333 »

florilegiumson wrote: post #162

If AI is really likely to cause a mass extinction event, then non-proliferation becomes critical as it was in the case with nuclear weapons. Otherwise, what does it really mean for AI to "replace people" outside of people needing to retool or socially awkward people having to learn to talk to people better? AI surely will change a lot, but I don't understand the steps needed to get to the highly existential threat th…

I don't think the people will die, just have AI do the jobs. The people will probably still be there giving instructions.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#317

Post by nopinsight »

Covenant0028 wrote: post #314
nopinsight wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI agents might be able to automate 80% of certain jobs in a few years but that would make the remaining 20% far more valuable. The challenge is to help people rapidly retrain for new roles. Humans will continue to have certain desires far outstripping the supply we have for a long time to come. We still don’t have cures for all diseases, personal robot chefs & maids, and an ideal house for everyone, for example. Not…

> The jobs could themselves become more desirable with machines automating the boring and dangerous parts Or, as Cory Doctorow argues, the machines could become tools to extract "efficiency" by helping the employer make their workers lives miserable. An example of this is Amazon and the way it treats its drivers and warehouse workers.

That depends on the social contract we collectively decide (in a democracy at least). Many possibilities will emerge and people need to be aware and adapt much faster than most times in history.

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#318

Post by misnome »

avereveard wrote: post #315
misnome wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because end of the day people can use this tech to create wealth at unprecedented scale _Where?_ so far the only technology to have come out widespread for this is to shove a chatbot interface into every UI that never needed it. Nothing has been improved, no revelatory tech has come out (tools to let you chatbot faster don’t count).

In the backend, not directly customer facing. Coca cola is two years in running ai ads. Lovable is cash positive, and many of the builder there are too. A few creators are earning a living with suno songs. Not millions mind but they can live off their ai works. If you dont see it happening around you, you're just not looking.

So, a company cutting costs, a tool to let you chatbot faster, and musical slop at scale.

This doesn't sound like "creating wealth at unprecedented scale"

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#319

Post by MLgulabio »

ForHackernews wrote: post #303
zarzavat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you're content to stack shelves. AI isn't automation. It's thinking . It automates the brain out of human jobs. You can still get a job that requires a body. My job doesn't require a body, so I'm screwed. If you're say, a surgeon or a plumber, you're in a better place.

Yes, AI is automation. It automates the implementation. It doesn't (yet?) automate the hard parts around figuring out what work needs to be done and how to do it. The sad thing is that for many software devs, the implementation is the fun bit.

[dead]

Re: Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden

#320

Post by torginus »

cal_dent wrote: post #124
websiteapi wrote: post #22

funny how we have all of this progress yet things that actually matter (sorry chess fans) in the real world are more expensive: health care, housing, cars. and what meager gains there are seem to be more and more concentrated in a smaller group of people. plenty of charts you can look at - net productivity by virtually any metric vs real adjusted income. the example I like are kiosks and self checkout. who has encoun…

Housing is a funny old one and speaks to it being a human problem. One thing a lot of people dont truly engage with with the housing issue is that its a massive issue of distribution. Too many people want to live in too few places. Yes, central banks & interest rates (being too low and also now being relatively too high), nimbyism, and rent seeking play an important role too but solving the "too many people live in t…

I see the issue of housing is a combination of:

- House prices increasing while wages are stagnant

- Home loans and increasing prices mean the people going for huge leverages on their home purchases

- Supply is essentially government controlled, and dependent, and building more housing is heavily politicized

- A lot of dubious money is being created, which gets converted to good money by investing it in the housing market

- Housing is genuinely difficult to build and labor and capital intensive

> The key issue upstream is that too many good jobs are concentrated in too few places

This no longer is the case with remote work on the rise, If that were the case, housing prices would increase faster in trendy overpriced places, but the increase as of late was more uniform, with places like London growing slower (or even depreciating, relatively speaking) to less in-demand places.

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