Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists • Hacker News Board

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#501

Post by Eliezer » Fri, May 02, 2025, 12:57 PM UTC

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #306

Eliezer wrote: post #302

Translators? Graphic artists? The omission of the most obviously impacted professions immediately identifies this as a cooked study, along with talking about LLMs as "chatbots". I wonder who paid for it.

are graphic artists actually getting replaced by AI? If so that would surprise me for as impressive as AI image generation is, very little of what it does seems like it would replace a graphic artists.

Doubling the productivity of 20% of workers, in cases where a lower price doesn't increase demand, can shift prices in the whole system as unemployed artists compete with other artists for wages. AI won't take your job, someone else unemployed by AI will take your job. (NGDPLT partially solves this but that's a higher competence level than civilization has.)

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#502

Post by bilsbie » Fri, May 02, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #331

bilsbie wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked 10+ of those jobs, guy.

Not convinced. A lot of jobs have tons of slack until something goes wrong. But even then, I'm not saying all are equally vital, I'm just saying that the statement, "most jobs are performative" doesn't even come close to being supported by "I've worked 10 performative jobs".

Work a few more jobs and you’ll change your tune.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#503

Post by solfox » Tue, May 06, 2025, 7:57 PM UTC

throwaway35364 wrote: post #225

solfox wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, much of work under capitalism is meaningless (see: The Office). The optimistic take is that many of those same paper-pushing roles could evolve into far more meaningful work—with the right training and opportunity (also AI). When the car was invented, entire industries tied to horses collapsed. But those that evolved, leveled up: Blacksmiths became auto mechanics and metalworkers, etc. As a creatively minde…

> The optimistic take is that many of those same paper-pushing roles could evolve into far more meaningful work—with the right training and opportunity (also AI). There already isn't enough meaningful work for everyone. We see people with the "right training" failing to find a job. AI is already making things worse by eliminating meaningful jobs — art, writing, music production are no longer viable career paths.

Only under the capitalistic model without basic income / social services. AI art is really fascinating, but there is something so meaningful about watching art being made by a talented artist. I don't think this will ever go away.