No labor saving device ever has. It's how we got into this mess.
ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
591–600 of 607 posts
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I should have noted. I haven't installed any apps from banks, FB, Amazon, ebay, credit card companies, reward programs or anything like that on my cell. Sure, there are apps in my cell that I basically can't uninstall that track. Just not one's I've installed myself.
I can understand FB and rewards programmes, but can I ask what level of privacy you believe you're achieving by logging into your bank on your laptop instead of your phone? Same for Amazon, eBay, credit cards. You can choose to not allow location tracking on those apps if that's your concern.
That's true, but can we really trust those settings? As for my laptop, like my desktop, it stays home where if/when it's tracked, it shows I'm not on the move. The above apps you mentioned are not on my cell so I don't use it for those apps, ever. I realize by using those apps, only at home, I am giving up some of my privacy, I just don't give it up with my cell.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#593Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
More subtly, what is an education? What is care? As you point out, the LLMs are (or probably will become) perfectly good at the measurable parts of those services; but I think the residual edge of “good” education/care is more than just the other human’s co-opted attention. How many of us have a reminiscence that starts “looking back, the most life-changing part of my primary or secondary education was ________,” whe…
> How many of us have a reminiscence that starts “looking back, the most life-changing part of my primary or secondary education was ________,” For me it was a website with turotirals on how to make flash games. It literally launched my career and improved the quality of life for my whole family by an order of magnitude. I am primarily the naysayer of AI but I admit that current LLMs could have easily replicated the…
I love, love that. And if even one of my weird little side projects—including the ones I build with AI-powered tools—connects with a young person like that, I’ll be satisfied.
To me it’s not the “how” so much as the “what,” though.
I can only speak to my own experience with that sort of thing, but how much of what moved you was the invisible authorial hand behind the tutorials—deciding what’s fun to them to write about, and how to talk about it in a way that clicked with a young you?
I guess, what’s the difference between that website, the official docs for the language in question, the formal spec for the language, the .h files themselves that mechanically define the engine that compiles the language, a big pile of examples of working code in the language…
For that matter what’s the difference between what’s fun to do in the language and what’s boring?
I would grant that LLM tech would probably shine at the grunt work part of “please translate these docs into a grade-school-pitched, engaging, example-driven tutorial website; make it dinosaur themed.” But equally it could pitch it for a billion other audiences, and most will not bear fruit without guidance and refinement. And LLM frontends are already same-y, what will distinguish it to your young eyes? Knowing (or finding out) what’s worth doing is the tricky part—and that’s hard to separate from the humans on the receiving end.
I think about when tiktok made it “easy” to recut songs and memes, and to do basic compositing effects. The “how” required specialized software and serious skill for a long time, then suddenly it didn’t. But when it comes to the “what,” there are still people who are good at using the tools and ones who are bad—ones who make good content and ones who make bad ones… and the difference seems to cleave along the normal human lines: innate talent + practice + persistence.
As the old saw goes, contemporary art: “But I could do that!” “Yeah, but you didn’t.”
Alternatively, as the fox said, “C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante”…
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#595Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why use AI to build software for automating specific tasks, when you can just have the AI automate those tasks directly? Speed, cost, security, job/task management Next question
> Speed, cost, security, job/task management All of that will inevitably be solved. 50 years ago, using a personal computer was an extravagant luxury. Until it wasn't. 30 years ago, carrying a powerful computer in your pocket was unthinkable. Until it wasn't. Right now, it's cheaper to run your accounting math on dedicated adder hardware. But Llms will only get cheaper. When you can run massive LLMs locally on your p…
This is not about cost. It is about the fundamental nature of LLMs.
There are several human activities where allucinations can cost lives. We can't use LLMs for everything.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really the case for much of the midwest. These are low crime areas generally. Working class population is not nearly so rent burdened so less pressure towards making ends meet in other ways. Gang activity is effectively nill unlike placed where you find ms13 written on walls. Homeless people amount to probably a small few dozen visibly homeless if that, and you really need to look to find them.
I gather that such places do exist it would help if you gave an example. When I did travel to middle america there seemed to be a general drug problem and associated thefts. Perhaps there could be a copper theft map which could be used as a proxy for crime.
Three Cs. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Pittsburg. Not gary IN.
The thing is with these sorts of midwestern cities. The nicest neighborhood in the area, you know the one with the 5 bed ornate 100 year old mansions with the nicest school district, you can get one of those for barely half mill maybe even less.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if you have perfect medical information and advice through an LLM, can you perform surgery on yourself? Can you prescribe yourself whatever medication you think you need? For education, if you know as much as the average Harvard grad, can you give yourself a Harvard degree that will be as readily accepted in a job application or raising funds for a new business?
A robotic surgeon can use the data from the LLM to perform the appropriate surgery for you. Ditto for the automated pharmacy kiosk. That Harvard degree will be irrelevant since no one will be hiring humans.
Maybe soon but not yet.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many of us have a reminiscence that starts “looking back, the most life-changing part of my primary or secondary education was ________,” For me it was a website with turotirals on how to make flash games. It literally launched my career and improved the quality of life for my whole family by an order of magnitude. I am primarily the naysayer of AI but I admit that current LLMs could have easily replicated the…
I love, love that. And if even one of my weird little side projects—including the ones I build with AI-powered tools—connects with a young person like that, I’ll be satisfied. To me it’s not the “how” so much as the “what,” though. I can only speak to my own experience with that sort of thing, but how much of what moved you was the invisible authorial hand behind the tutorials—deciding what’s fun to them to write abo…
After reading your comment I take back my last sentence. I dont think the LLM would have been able to create that website becaue what LLM would have created would have been an uninspiring husk of tutorials. The website had a certain personality to it with the choice of games he would make and the "interesting" problems he would demonstrate and give solutions to.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And 60x the population. OK, let's assume that oil is the only relevant resource, and population is the other relevant factor, and there's no efficiencies of scale or exceptional American ingenuity that can be discovered. 30x the resources combined with 60 times the population would mean we should be able to provide at least half the floor that Norway does, right? Does that mean if we discover another resource the U…
What's your explanation for why SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Walmart, etc., are American companies, and not Norwegian?
That's an interesting question. And to the extent that we're shifting discussion from "taxes are terrible mistreatment of the hyperwealthy" to "taxes might make national business/economic development less robust", OK.
Worth noting that GDP per capita of Norway and Iceland are pretty close to the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Using general stats like that helps avoid sharpshooter fallacies that could be hazards in picking a list of high profile successes.
Still, let's talk about those successes. What are the conditions that gave rise to SpaceX, Amazon, Google, and Walmart? Whatever they are, none of their stories seems path-dependent anyone's personal billions. SpaceX owes as much or more to government decisions to privately source launch capability (not to mention path dependence on public programs supporting a certain related company). Google was famously founded by not particularly wealthy PhD students with initial capital well under a million dollars. Walmart wasn't founded with millions let alone billions. Bezos was probably the wealthiest founder when it comes to your list -- maybe had a six figure net worth, possibly seven, certainly good networks for raising capital -- but the bootstrapping capital that went into it didn't require anyone to be a billionaire.
Whatever the US does right as far as positive business environment goes, it doesn't require personal billions, so it's pretty unlikely to stop with additional taxes on billionaire concentrations of wealth. Taxes which, again, at the level of any proposed rate, would most likely not even un-billionaire anyone.
Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a hard time believing that Redbox had much of an impact on Blockbuster, and they certainly weren't changing the video rental paradigm. Netflix's original DVD-rental by mail business no doubt ate into Blockbuster's business to some degree, and with their huge inventory was more of a head-on competitor than Redbox which could only offer a vending-machine full of options - the most popular ones. What really kille…
That sounds logical but the timeline doesn’t match up. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. This came after years of decline. Netflix streaming launched in 2007 and ended 2010 with only 20 million users. (They currently have over 15x that). I was using it from the start, they had barely any content back then, Hulu was pretty new, and that was the entirety of the streaming universe. Netflix’s first major original…
Yes, that sounds about right. I was too glib in saying that it was video streaming was the cause - one of the final nails in the coffin, perhaps.
As I recall Blockbuster was really in it's heyday in the VHS era, and the largest selection was always VHS even when DVD and then Blu-ray came on the scene.
Digital of one form or another - DVDs and streaming - was the future, and Blockbuster never really fully embraced it, instead just becoming increasingly irrelevant as various alternatives emerged.
It was fun while it lasted though - there was something about the experience of going to Blockbuster, or any of the smaller local video rental stores, and choosing something for movie night. I never really saw the appeal of the Netflix approach of having a want list and not really having control over what they mailed you, as well as the delay of mail.