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ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

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Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#431

Post by kulahan »

csto12 wrote: post #420
kulahan wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely untrustworthy, so eventually we'll hit an inflection point where we discover that we either cannot use AI anywhere we need trust, or we'll put a human middleman in there. The latter sounds much more realistic. There will be plenty of jobs. We've spent over 300 years doing the Luddite song and dance. To be clear, I have no problem with Luddites and do not view them negatively, but to imply that this pr…

Im not sure we want to live in a world where no one works. Maybe I’m wrong, and I certainly have no studies backing up my feelings, but not having to work seems like it would be a massive psychological disaster. Having external reasons to get up in the morning (providing for your family, being apart of some organization, etc) feel really important.

I don't disagree with this. I just think it's more likely people will continue finding ways to make life easier, rather than us collectively agreeing to like... stop at some point.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#432

Post by withinboredom »

sssilver wrote: post #312
mullingitover wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should one child get an LLM teacher or doctor while others get individualized attention by a skilled human being? Is the value in the outcome of receiving medical advice and care, and becoming educated, or is the value just in the co-opting of another human being's attention? If the value is in the outcome, the means to achieving that aren't of much consequence.

The supply/demand picture here is more complicated than it looks. If AI displaces human educators, yes, their supply shrinks -- but we can't assume what direction its demand will go. We've seen this pattern before: as recorded music became free, live performance got more expensive, and therefore much less accessible than it used to be. What's likely to happen is that "worse" (read: AI) education will become much chea…

And AI is stuck in the past. As we prepare to launch a new product… people using AI won’t know about it for months or years, potentially. This will make startups have to seed the planet with text so an AI learns about it, not to mention normal SEO and other shit. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before you can pay to inject your product into the models so it knows about it faster, but incumbent companies will pay more to make sure they don’t.

The future is going to suck.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#433

Post by aidenn0 »

dmazzoni wrote: post #283
ahartmetz wrote: post #7

I do not get what's special about banking apps as opposed to online banking. I've been doing online banking in the browser on a PC since before apps and I'm still doing it because dealing with data on a phone is painful compared to a PC. Is an app really that much easier to use?

I think mobile deposit by scanning a check with your smartphone camera is one piece of it? I've never seen a bank offer that feature via their website.

USAA used to offer that (scanning via a java applet), but sunsetted it in favor of using the app.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#434

Post by aidenn0 »

jldugger wrote: post #208
ahartmetz wrote: post #7

I do not get what's special about banking apps as opposed to online banking. I've been doing online banking in the browser on a PC since before apps and I'm still doing it because dealing with data on a phone is painful compared to a PC. Is an app really that much easier to use?

Ever deposit a check via PC browser?

Not OP, but I have.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#435

Post by pastel8739 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #379
whatisthiseven wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But will it? My prediction is no, because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy. For example, ATMs being automated did cause a negative drop in teller jobs, but fast money any time does increase the velocity of money in the economy. It decreases savings rate and encourages spending among the class of people whose money imparts the highest multiplier. AI does not. All t…

At some point we're gonna have to abolish the economy itself. We need to transition to a post-scarcity society where everything is abundant and there's no need to economize.

Is AI helping us get there? I don’t think AI has done anything to reduce the scarcity of food, shelter, physical goods—things that people actually use money for

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#436

Post by pastel8739 »

im3w1l wrote: post #390
whatisthiseven wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But will it? My prediction is no, because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy. For example, ATMs being automated did cause a negative drop in teller jobs, but fast money any time does increase the velocity of money in the economy. It decreases savings rate and encourages spending among the class of people whose money imparts the highest multiplier. AI does not. All t…

In my humble opinion, money is a distraction most of the time when trying to understand economic matters. Instead it's better to take opposite view: looking at the flow of goods and services. AI will allow higher production of goods and services. If producing goods and services becomes cheap enough (and it's looking like it will become dirt cheap), then it will not take much redistribution for it to reach the masses.…

> and it's looking like it will become dirt cheap

Why do you say this? How does AI helping us lower prices of goods?

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#437

Post by citizenpaul »

lchengify wrote: post #196

Two anecdotes I'll share: First: Most people believe it was Netflix that killed Blockbuster, but that's not strictly correct. It was the combination of Netflix and Redbox that really sealed the deal for Blockbuster (and video rental generally). It normally takes not one, but at least two things to really fill the full functionality of a old paradigm. Also it's human nature to focus heavily on one thing (Blockbuster w…

>most people belive

Instead of chastising people with another guess you could find the source. The founders of blockbuster knew it would eventually fail. Short version, they knew once people watched the huge initial backlog revenues would plummet. The plan was to build everywhere and capture that initial high income. Afterwords, well whatever.

Built to Fail: The Inside Story of Blockbuster's Inevitable Bust

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#438

Post by jopsen »

whatisthiseven wrote: post #302
wagwang wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy by this logic, the invention of mechanized farm equipment, which displaced farm labor, didnt increase productivity

On the contrary, humanity spent nearly its entire existence calorically deficit, and until mechanized farming did we finally see health outcomes improve, height increase, IQ increase, and populations explode. Productivity gains in the case of mechanized labor got everyone out of subsistence farming and into factories. AI gets everyone out of every job and into nothing.

> AI gets everyone out of every job and into nothing.

Why is mechanized thinking going to do that? When mechanized labor didn't?

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#439

Post by friendzis »

mullingitover wrote: post #211
bwestergard wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Baumol's cost disease hurts the lower classes by restricting their access to services like health care and education, and LLMs/agents make it possible to increase productivity in these areas in ways which were once unimaginable." You've expressed very clearly what LLMs would have to do in order to be economically transformative. "If you can get high quality medical advice for effectively nothing, if you can get high…

> Why should one child get an LLM teacher or doctor while others get individualized attention by a skilled human being? Is the value in the outcome of receiving medical advice and care, and becoming educated, or is the value just in the co-opting of another human being's attention? If the value is in the outcome, the means to achieving that aren't of much consequence.

The value is in the signature and the power of the legal department your insurance provider employs.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#440

Post by friendzis »

withinboredom wrote: post #432
sssilver wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply/demand picture here is more complicated than it looks. If AI displaces human educators, yes, their supply shrinks -- but we can't assume what direction its demand will go. We've seen this pattern before: as recorded music became free, live performance got more expensive, and therefore much less accessible than it used to be. What's likely to happen is that "worse" (read: AI) education will become much chea…

And AI is stuck in the past. As we prepare to launch a new product… people using AI won’t know about it for months or years, potentially. This will make startups have to seed the planet with text so an AI learns about it, not to mention normal SEO and other shit. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before you can pay to inject your product into the models so it knows about it faster, but incumbent companies will pay…

> I’m sure it is only a matter of time before you can pay to inject your product into the models so it knows about it faster, but incumbent companies will pay more to make sure they don’t.

You have just discovered the fully enshittified version of the business model ai companies hope to reach.

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