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Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

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Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#331

Post by insane_dreamer »

tim333 wrote: post #314
insane_dreamer wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reskill find new work except that no one has been able to articulate what "new work" might emerge and while yes, this happened before, it happened over decades, and more importantly, the new jobs were created as the old ones were being destroyed neither of these conditions are happening this time around so we have not "been there before"

One minor data point. I've got a friend who worked as a translator. That's slacked off a bit and she's retrained as a tour guide. I think there will be a trend towards humans doing more human facing work.

Yes, for sure there are transition opportunities for some. But there are limited number of spots. "tour guide" is not a _new_ job that didn't exist before. And that's really the problem. There either has to be a completely new profession -- or set of professions - to absorb all those who lose their jobs, or existing professions have to increase in demand such as they can absorb large quantities of new hires. Human facing professions will do better than machine-facing ones, but they're not going to 10x the number of hires. People will eventually pay a premium to be served by a human, but a limited number of people will be able to afford that.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#332

Post by rottingchris »

skeledrew wrote: post #275

It's interesting how people stubbornly remain locked into the existing systems. Every time something about automating jobs comes up there's the inevitable "how will people afford X??", and then one of the responses is usually "UBI" or similar. It's like people are literally unable to see beyond some system based on getting money. And AI will ultimately push the status quo beyond that. Even though UBI might be helpful…

So what would a new system based on this new reality look like?

Most people sustain themselves using the money they get in exchange for their labor. Based on history and growing income inequality, no one seems to believe the next step is a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy.

The "how will people afford X??" is an existential question. If human labor has no value and UBI is not an option, then what is going to happen to the people?

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#333

Post by kypro »

stevepotter wrote: post #273
kypro wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This time isn't different. History has repeatedly shown us isolated examples of completely replacing the need for human labour. The industrial revolution did destroy jobs, but back then labour was incomprehensibly unproductive. So much so that around 200 years ago 50% of the entire workforce worked in agriculture. This meant that although a large percentage of the total workforce was affected by the industrial revolu…

This is a good take. I’d like to know how you think this is going to shake out over the next few decades

I am a hardcore AI doomer and have been for years.

I've been actively prepping for very bad economic and political scenarios, plus some doom scenarios for about 5 years now.

My assumption is that white collar unemployment will become a serious problem by the end of the decade, but potentially as soon as 2-3 years. I believe ASI will come within 10 years and it's hard to predict past the intelligence singularity, but my assumption would be that rapid ASI-assisted robotic advancements will make the majority of humans in developed nations unemployed within a two decades. But again, I can't really predict what will happen post-ASI. I could be very wrong if just a few variables change.

The unemployment concern is the bit I'm most certain of but that also worries me the least personally, since it's by far the easiest risk to prep for. If I'm made unemployed and never find work again I'll be fine.

I'm also an accelerationist when it comes to AI-driven unemployment because I think an crisis-level unemployment spike before ASI arrives is probably our only hope at getting off the AI doom train we're on before it's too late.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#334

Post by braebo »

bodge5000 wrote: post #57

The AI industry, and arguably at this point the tech industry as a whole, isn't concerned with sustainability, as long as they can profit today tomorrow is tomorrow's problem. Who will buy the services, where will data for AI training come from, these are perfectly valid questions but they're questions that don't have an immediate effect on profit, so easier to ignore it until we can't apparently. The same could be s…

It’s not tech or AI, it’s unregulated capitalism.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#335

Post by skeledrew »

rottingchris wrote: post #332
skeledrew wrote: post #275

It's interesting how people stubbornly remain locked into the existing systems. Every time something about automating jobs comes up there's the inevitable "how will people afford X??", and then one of the responses is usually "UBI" or similar. It's like people are literally unable to see beyond some system based on getting money. And AI will ultimately push the status quo beyond that. Even though UBI might be helpful…

So what would a new system based on this new reality look like? Most people sustain themselves using the money they get in exchange for their labor. Based on history and growing income inequality, no one seems to believe the next step is a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy. The "how will people afford X??" is an existential question. If human labor has no value and UBI is not an option, then what is going to happe…

> no one seems to believe the next step is a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy

Why wouldn't it be exactly like that (without the space travel, replicators and other extremely advanced tech)? There would no longer be income, so income equality can no longer be a thing.

Any inequality caused by ownership of the means of production would disappear because there would be no value in "owning" (ie maintaining exclusive access to) anything beyond personal items. With everything automated, there would quite literally no longer be scarcity of anything that people need to survive and live a decent life.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#336

Post by sethammons »

maxerickson wrote: post #216
emehex wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand UBI. Let's say a burger costs $10. Then UBI is implemented. But not just like $1K/month UBI... $1M/year UBI... for everyone! There's no way that the burger is still $10 now. Right? Won't the economy just soak up all the extra UBI money? So a burger will cost $1000 in world where everyone gets $1M/year? And like $20 when everyone gets $1K/month? Isn't it all just a wash?

Markets have a bid and an ask. If you have robust supply and real competition, the ask should trend towards cost plus some profit, not whatever maximum price people will pay out of desperation.

what does robust supply and real competition look like when everyone gets a million a year? If everyone makes a million a year, you need a lot more than what we pay today to convince people to come into work. If you want to sell a burger, you have to sell it at a profit. Ergo, you must pay more for a burger if everyone makes a million a year. You have to convince the whole supply chain to keep working. The only way we know how to do that at scale, outside of force, is money.

Now the burger cost goes up, and working people have even more money than "normie" millionaires. I imagine people are going to be more free with their money, so they pay more for the burger. And this will settle, per the law of supply and demand.

That part is obvious.

What is not clear to me is how the new price would work out. Maybe it would work out to pretty much the same relative cost it is today, but in inflated dollars. And the rest of the market is doing the same thing. And landlords know you have the money. The squeeze comes back. Cue Econ 101/102.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#337

Post by pjmorris »

bodge5000 wrote: post #57

The AI industry, and arguably at this point the tech industry as a whole, isn't concerned with sustainability, as long as they can profit today tomorrow is tomorrow's problem. Who will buy the services, where will data for AI training come from, these are perfectly valid questions but they're questions that don't have an immediate effect on profit, so easier to ignore it until we can't apparently. The same could be s…

"I'll be gone, you'll be gone" - Wall Street phrase.

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” - J.M. Keynes

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#338

Post by maxerickson »

sethammons wrote: post #336
maxerickson wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets have a bid and an ask. If you have robust supply and real competition, the ask should trend towards cost plus some profit, not whatever maximum price people will pay out of desperation.

what does robust supply and real competition look like when everyone gets a million a year? If everyone makes a million a year, you need a lot more than what we pay today to convince people to come into work. If you want to sell a burger, you have to sell it at a profit. Ergo, you must pay more for a burger if everyone makes a million a year. You have to convince the whole supply chain to keep working. The only way w…

This discussion sort of involves magic AI doing a lot of the work. That should be cheap.

Tight control of scarce resources is certainly something that would still be an issue. Hopefully we find ways to solve it with politics instead of violence.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#339

Post by sp527 »

bensyverson wrote: post #234
sp527 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound blissfully ignorant. I'd honestly advise staying that way. The alternative is depressing af.

My bröther, I am burning so many tokens it is unimaginable. I do not think human employees are anywhere near becoming obsolete.

Depends on the "human employee." If you're burning an "unimaginable" number of tokens, you're already in the top decile of employees, at least. Will the top decile not become obsolete? Maybe. I certainly hope so, just out of sheer survival instinct. But I shudder to contemplate what will be inflicted on everyone else.

Re: Who will buy your services if you fire us all?

#340

Post by skeledrew »

rottingchris wrote: post #332
skeledrew wrote: post #275

It's interesting how people stubbornly remain locked into the existing systems. Every time something about automating jobs comes up there's the inevitable "how will people afford X??", and then one of the responses is usually "UBI" or similar. It's like people are literally unable to see beyond some system based on getting money. And AI will ultimately push the status quo beyond that. Even though UBI might be helpful…

So what would a new system based on this new reality look like? Most people sustain themselves using the money they get in exchange for their labor. Based on history and growing income inequality, no one seems to believe the next step is a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy. The "how will people afford X??" is an existential question. If human labor has no value and UBI is not an option, then what is going to happe…

Everyone necessarily will have access to robots that produce X, which means their "ownership" will have to disappear. Of course there will be a huge upheaval with the change to the system, but there isn't another outcome ultimately.
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