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"AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

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Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#61

Post by mjr00 »

rvz wrote: post #48
eranation wrote: post #16

My personal thoughts on this are - A good lawyer + AI will likely win in court against a non lawyer with AI who would likely win in court against just an AI - A good software engineer + AI will ship features faster / safer vs a non engineer with AI, who will beat just AI - A good doctor + AI will save more lives than a non doctor + AI, who will perform better than just AI As long as a human has a marginal boost to AI…

The enitre point is less knowledge worker jobs will be needed. Not more.

Only if you assume the current amount of knowledge work being done, or the amount of output from knowledge work, is the maximum amount possible or desired. Which is incorrect.

Every software company has a backlog of 1000 features they want to add, everywhere has a shortage of healthcare workers. If AI makes developers on a successful product 20% more efficient, they won't fire 20% of developers, they'll build 20% more features.

The problem is the "successful product" part; for a decade or more unsuccessful products were artificially propped up by ZIRP. Now that money isn't free these products are being culled, and the associated jobs along with them. AI is just an excuse.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#62

Post by dgfitz »

esafak wrote: post #44
JSR_FDED wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s all well and good for the humans with experience, for whom AI is a force multiplier. My concern is for the juniors - there’s going to be far fewer opportunities for them to get started in careers.

How did commercial pilots solve the problem?

Not all of them of course, but a lot of them are ex-military.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#63

Post by agentultra »

You just have to look at who benefits from making these claims and keep asking where they're getting their claims/numbers from.

"Oh no, we invented an AI that is so smart we're afraid of it! We need AI safety!" is literally snake-oil sales pitching. Media outlets that give air to these claims are cringe.

AI isn't replacing people. It's being used to replace labour with capital which weakens labour's negotiating power in order to increase the profits of the capital class. Just as other disruptive technologies have been used in the past.

What the Luddite movement shows us is that society needs to prepare for taking care of highly skilled people. What society didn't do back then was take care of people. Textile workers didn't find jobs elsewhere unless you mean work houses. The myth capitalists fabricated around disruptive technologies is that people displaced by these technologies will acquire new skills and find work elsewhere and that these technologies create new opportunities. It doesn't exactly happen that way.

The same could happen here. The wealthy transfer even more wealth from the labour class to themselves and avoid taxation or doing their part to replace the value they've taken from the labour class.

Update: Changed sentence on the "capitalist myth" to explain what the myth is.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#64

Post by shafyy »

lapcat wrote: post #40
roywiggins wrote: post #5

What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? "Meat robot constantly monitored and directed by AI overlords" is technically a job.

> What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? Right. Consider: 1) Senior engineer writing code vs. 2) Senior engineer prompting and code reviewing LLM agent The senior engineer is essential to the process in each case, because the LLM agent left to its own devices will produce nonfunctional crap. But think about the pleasantness of the job and the job satisfaction of the senior…

Same. I actually like writing code, reviewing code that my colleagues have written, having interesting technical discusisons. I don't want to spend my days reviewing code that some AI has written.

But I guess if you don't like writing code, and you are "just doing it for the money", having an LLM write all the code for you is fine. As long as it passes some very low bar of quality — which, let's be honest — is enough for most companies (i.e. software factories) out there.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#65

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

cj wrote: post #57
touisteur wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (and I) prefer to keep the pilot s there, but still, there's a push to need only one person and not two in that plane/cockpit. I have little to no doubt we'll have to relearn some hard lessons after we've AI'd up pilots.

I wanted to say maybe the 2nd pilot could double as a flight attendent if they're not needed full time in the cockpit. Still retains redundancy while saving the airline money. The problem with that is most skills need to be practiced. When you only need to use your skills unexpectedly in an emergency, that may not end well. Same applies to other fields where AI can do something 95% of the time, with human interventio…

> maybe the 2nd pilot could double as a flight attendent

Have you ever managed people?

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#66

Post by HenryBemis »

touisteur wrote: post #29
eranation wrote: post #16

My personal thoughts on this are - A good lawyer + AI will likely win in court against a non lawyer with AI who would likely win in court against just an AI - A good software engineer + AI will ship features faster / safer vs a non engineer with AI, who will beat just AI - A good doctor + AI will save more lives than a non doctor + AI, who will perform better than just AI As long as a human has a marginal boost to AI…

You (and I) prefer to keep the pilot s there, but still, there's a push to need only one person and not two in that plane/cockpit. I have little to no doubt we'll have to relearn some hard lessons after we've AI'd up pilots.

You kinda said it, but you didn't hit the nail on the head. Yes we need the pilots. But -I will repeat my own example in my current mega-corp employer- I am about to develop a solution using an LLM (premium/enterprise) that will stop a category of employees from reaching 50, and will remain to 20, and with organic wear & tear, will drop to 10, which will be the 'forever number' (until the next 'jump' in tech).

So yes, we keep pilots, but we keep _fewer_ pilots.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#67

Post by lenerdenator »

some_random wrote: post #58
lenerdenator wrote: post #24

It's also a great example of why tech executives shouldn't be trusted, at all. "My thing will break our entire economy. I'm still gonna build it, though." - statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged

If you believe that breaking the economy is good you're obviously going to do it. If you believe that if you don't break the economy one of your many competitors will, you're obviously going to do it.

If it's good, why's Altman (reportedly) bragging about the preps he's making for societal collapse?[0]

[0]https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#68

Post by bluefirebrand »

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #30

I rarely hear people talk about the fact that demand for new software will increase exponentially as cost to produce software crash. The ratios of devs_per_1k_lines_of_code_in_2022:devs_per_1k_lines_of_code_in_2028 and increase_in_demand:decrease_in_cost are unknown. But what if 1 dev could produce 300% more code, reducing eng cost (assuming same cost per hour per dev) to 1/3 of historical norms. Would that result in…

Demand does not always boom this way

AI companies are positioning themselves as "the everything machine"

The vast majority of software written today is "capture data -> transform data (optional) -> display data nicely formatted and easily accessible"

If an AI can wire into your database to retrieve the data in the format you want, then a bunch of the job is done

If the AI can also be made to present a form to users to capture the data in the first place, then almost all of the job is done

These are huge IFs. I remain skeptical that we'll reach this level soon. But if we do, the software industry is gonna tank

The AI industry will grow. Maybe.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#69

Post by LPisGood »

qoez wrote: post #23
roywiggins wrote: post #5

What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? "Meat robot constantly monitored and directed by AI overlords" is technically a job.

I can't make up my mind if I'd prefer an AI boss or not. Human bosses can be quite terrible and not having to deal with an emotional being seems kinda nice.

AI bosses can also be quite nice and having the benefits of reporting to an emotional being is kinda nice.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#70

Post by AstroBen »

lapcat wrote: post #40
roywiggins wrote: post #5

What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? "Meat robot constantly monitored and directed by AI overlords" is technically a job.

> What if it just makes most jobs worse, or replaces good jobs with more, worse jobs? Right. Consider: 1) Senior engineer writing code vs. 2) Senior engineer prompting and code reviewing LLM agent The senior engineer is essential to the process in each case, because the LLM agent left to its own devices will produce nonfunctional crap. But think about the pleasantness of the job and the job satisfaction of the senior…

As of right now it's actually making my job much more enjoyable. It lets me focus on the things I enjoy thinking about - code design, architecture, and the higher level of how to solve problems

I haven't seen any evidence its made progress on these which is nice

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