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AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

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Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#61

Post by smallmancontrov »

hiddencost wrote: post #10
asdff wrote: post #4

The problem with the concept of a middle class job (one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations), is that it represents an unstable equilibrium state. Incentives of most businesses are the opposite of someone in the middle class. Businesses don't think in terms how they can take so little such as to perpetuate some idyllic lifestyle unimpinged, they think in…

There's a whole range of options. We can make the state stronger without going full planned economy. To pick a few things we could do: -> criminal liability for white collar crime -> muscular antitrust -> roll back citizen's united -> public option for health insurance -> taxes on real estate as investment I don't understand why people think this is all or nothing. Plenty of countries are doing much better than the U…

Right, max/median net worth is about 1000000:1, there is lots of room between 1000000:1 and 1:1.

The problem is that for the people on the 1000000 end of the spectrum, the same mechanics that encourage investment in productive activities also encourage investment in corruption, as they make no distinction between the two. With hundreds of billions in present-value-of-future-cash-flows at stake, almost any expenditure is justified. The laws of economics say that for you lobbying is a hobby, but for them it's a job with ROI (a whole office full of jobs, in fact). That's a steep advantage to overcome, but we've done it before and we'll do it again.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#62

Post by username332211 »

ben_w wrote: post #29
asdff wrote: post #4

The problem with the concept of a middle class job (one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations), is that it represents an unstable equilibrium state. Incentives of most businesses are the opposite of someone in the middle class. Businesses don't think in terms how they can take so little such as to perpetuate some idyllic lifestyle unimpinged, they think in…

> one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations My understanding is that most people's understanding of "middle class" is "about 20% richer than me", and that this remains true regardless of how rich one is. Most people, for most of the years since Joseph Marie Jacquard realised he could control a loom with punched cards, the Red Queen race of automation has gi…

> and if you have a completely efficient market then nobody can extract any profits because competition drives margins to zero…

That's nonsense. It's not just businessmen that compete for consumer's money. Consumers compete for businessmen's money as well.

Suppose a widget-making enterprise made 3% profit on it's capital. What's the sensible thing a widget maker should do? Obviously, fire his employees, sell or scuttle his machines, turn everything into cash and turn the cash into 4.313% treasury bonds.

And the destruction of widget-making machines and enterprises shall continue until widgets sell at a margin that justifies their existence. And if nobody can afford widgets at the that price, there shall be no more widgets.

I find it amazing how people can talk about capitalism, without any understanding of the concept of capital, it's formation and destruction.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#63

Post by toomuchtodo »

asdff wrote: post #11
teekert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You don't have to tell me that. You have to just out compete over a century of very successful anti union propaganda to get through to the labor in this country. Not to mention how the working class is so fractured on identity politics. No easy thing to go up against, especially when so many groups profit off the status quo as it is and will fight you every step of the way.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.asp...

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/03/gen-z-is-the-most-pro...

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#64

Post by Animats »

thfuran wrote: post #47
Animats wrote: post #40

This seems to be the author's main point: "Recall that the advent of pre-AI computing made the expert judgment of professional decision- makers more consequential and more valuable by speeding the task of acquiring and organizing information. Simultaneously, computerization devalued and displaced the procedural expertise that was the stock-in-trade of many middle-skill workers. But imagine a technology that could inv…

>The whole idea of paying people more than they are worth as an economic unit, a key goal of the union movement No, it wasn't. A company can't survive long paying all its employees more than they're worth. The goal of unions was, at least as far as pay is concerned, only to reduce the margin that was skimmed off of employee value by employers.

That assumes total victory by management over labor. Which is why workers need to be organized. Samuel Gompers, 1890, arguing for an 8-hour day.

"What we want to consider is, first, to make our employment more secure, and, secondly, to make wages more permanent, and, thirdly, to give these poor people a chance to work. The laborer has been regarded as a mere producing machine ... but back of labor is the soul of man and honesty of purpose and aspiration. Now you cannot, as the political economists and college professors, say that labor is a commodity to be bought and sold. I say we are American citizens with the heritage of all the great men who have stood before us; men who have sacrificed all in the cause except honor. . . . I say the labor movement is a fixed fact. It has grown out of the necessities of the people, and, although some may desire to see it fail, still the labor movement will be found to have a strong lodgment in the hearts of the people, and we will go on until success has been achieved!"

Gompers was noted for answering, when asked what labor wanted, "More".

[1] http://historymuse.net/readings/GompersWhatdoestheworkingman...

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#65

Post by mschuster91 »

dmurray wrote: post #53
fny wrote: post #5

"air traffic controllers were paid a median annual salary of $132,250 in 2022, or nearly four times the $33,380 median annual pay of crossing guards" It's not quite "expertise" that justifies the wage gap, it's supply and demand. Almost anyone can be a crossing guard--not everyone can be an air traffic controller. If AI theoretically could make anyone an air traffic controller, one would expect the salary to collapse…

Well, we can also say that we expect air traffic controllers generate at least their $132k/ year in value. Crossing guards seem to have a similar role and in theory could be generating the same value, but at the margin they're probably not - you'd expect hiring another one would be worth some significant fraction of the $132k to railway companies, but they're not competing to hire more of them. So if AI enables every…

> In modern societies the working man seems to get at least some benefit from productivity gains that don't come directly from him working harder. And even if you do believe Marx, note the caveat about "without state intervention". The modern state has many tools to intervene and is not afraid to use them: taxes, minimum wage laws, mandating bullshit jobs.

That may have been the case 30, 40 years ago in the US. In reality, the minimum wage in almost the entire US (unchanged since 2009, to add!) is not enough to afford to have a family [1]. Companies and the ultra rich aren't taxed shit - when you have people like Warren Buffett calling to tax him and his ilk more [2], it's obvious that the situation is clearly out of control.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/living_wage.asp

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8AP0LZ/

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#66

Post by kelseyfrog »

azinman2 wrote: post #50
xyst wrote: post #15

If AI truly does take over most jobs of today (low to mid tier level SWEs replaced with a couple of “prompt engineers”). I would be okay, but only if there were proper support pillars in place. Healthcare should be free for all. UBI. And of course continued education provided to train workforce into something else.

UBI means everyone is poor and on welfare. I don’t see why this is the ideal solution everyone points to. I guess better than everyone jobless and no net whatsoever, but I wouldn’t call it something to strive for.

I don't think we can say that without trying it.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#67

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

fny wrote: post #5

"air traffic controllers were paid a median annual salary of $132,250 in 2022, or nearly four times the $33,380 median annual pay of crossing guards" It's not quite "expertise" that justifies the wage gap, it's supply and demand. Almost anyone can be a crossing guard--not everyone can be an air traffic controller. If AI theoretically could make anyone an air traffic controller, one would expect the salary to collapse…

You see this all the time. Like college degrees for example. They did studies that showed if you got a university degree you would earn X times more than someone who didn't. But that was only the case because a relatively small percentage of people did go to college. Once EVERYONE has a college degree, this doesn't work anymore.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#68

Post by johnea »

All of this analysis is based on inaccurate assumptions. Primarily that some rules of supply and demand will dictate how the tech is deployed.

Let's look at history. The industrial revolution was predicted to create copious leasure time for the working class. How did that turn out?

The steam engine, the cotton gin, the automobile, the computer...

Every single technological advance that was predicted to improve the lives of the working class due to massive increases in productivity, was used instead to almost exclusivly bennefit ownership.

This is exactly what will happen with current LLM tech (please don't call the bullshit generators "AI")

If the tech cannot be deployed so as to exclusively bennefit ownership, it won't be deployed at all...

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#69

Post by asdff »

xyst wrote: post #25
fny wrote: post #5

"air traffic controllers were paid a median annual salary of $132,250 in 2022, or nearly four times the $33,380 median annual pay of crossing guards" It's not quite "expertise" that justifies the wage gap, it's supply and demand. Almost anyone can be a crossing guard--not everyone can be an air traffic controller. If AI theoretically could make anyone an air traffic controller, one would expect the salary to collapse…

Right. Instead of many people in a business (ie, accountants, lawyers, product owners, software engineers). The “workforce” can theoretically be reduced to specialists within a field: - “prompt engineer - accounting” who has vast history of accounting practices - “prompt engineer - lawyer”. No more farming out writing up complicated EULAs to Skadden. Have your general counsel do all of this for you with the help of “…

It will be interesting to see what of two possibilities happen: mass unemployment or simply more bullshit jobs and steady state employment. I imagine when computers hit the scene people had the same feelings about losing their accountants and human calculators and secretaries and what not, yet there is not a huge population of out of work people, people are doing different roles. You might even argue that while a total headcount per business might go down, it might be balanced by more businesses emerging. Considering the Fed's dual mandate they might opt to incentivize bullshit job growth over some great society reset to either mass unemployment or a basic income utopia.

Re: AI used well can restore middle class jobs [pdf]

#70

Post by johnea »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #58
badrunaway wrote: post #36

One new job which I believe will be high paying and lot of people will be able to do, in the post-AI world => Content verification and moderation. With so many bots and fake content, I don't want to waste my time on low quality stuff. I want other humans to verify it, test it, validate it etc. and then only it should see my eyes. Those platforms which will employ this approach will have better content coming to timel…

>high paying and lot of people will be able to do Generally speaking, this is an oxymoron.

This is already playing out in India and Africa as people are paid $1/day to classify training data.
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