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Can we have the day off?

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Re: Can we have the day off?

#601

Post by throwaway63467 »

cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

It’s been like that for a while, economic gains went to a small fraction of people, before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side. Think about how much the US economy is growing right now and who really profits from that growth. My guess is that 90 % of the growth goes to 10 % of people, with AI maybe 99 % might go to the 1 %. Or who do you think will gain from the tokenization of development? You’re just supposed to be more productive and the gains the company achieves will just go to the owners as they are in a great position right now and developers are scared shitless to get fired, so no one is increasing salaries or time off, instead most companies hang the threat of layoffs over people’s head to keep them in line. And the funny thing is we developers did this to ourselves, by doing free open source work for the greater good, which now feeds AI models that are replacing many of us. But I guess most people didn’t care as they made good money while it lasted.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#602

Post by hellojeanpierre »

xiaoyu2006 wrote: post #167
alexpotato wrote: post #43

My dad was a stock broker in the late 1970s and remembers when most of trading was 100% manual and firms actually had "runners" who would take stock certificates back and forth between trading firms. He has this great quote about when computers came out: "We were told 'computers will save you so much time on work tasks that you won't even know what to do with your free time'. I spent the next 30 years working the sam…

Human had all the industrialization and stuff, yet we work 5 days / week now.

We worked 6 days a week before, Germany got to 5 days only in 1967 after years of strikes.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#603

Post by andersonpico »

lorecore wrote: post #97
chipsrafferty wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are neither of them being driven by capitalism? U.S. becomes more authoritarian -> you are more afraid of being targeted by an AI drone and mass surveillance -> companies that make those weapons of war for the government (prime contractors) make billions -> they use their money to influence politics and public opinion -> U.S. becomes more authoritarian -> etc.

Capitalism is certainly one lever, but were we a communist country, I would still be afraid of the same thing. Centralization of power and ideology driving technological progress is in essence what I think we should all worry about.

We liked to pretend that our current technology wave wasn't driven by any ideology at all, so much so that it became a dirty word. But look at these billionaires talking amongst themselves, look at Thiel, look at Musk: their ideology is so compelling and they're so willing to go to bat for it that it materialized in the current state of affairs; and now only ideologies that are different from theirs are in fact dirty words.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#604

Post by drsalt »

vlunkr wrote: post #177
drsalt wrote: post #164

i really dislike lazy bums. you are in a position to use great tools for productivity and you're not inspired to work harder? you should be fired on the spot.

Fired on the spot? The hyperbole doesn't help your argument. What inspires me to work harder is getting to work on things that I enjoy.

not an argument m8 it's an opinion

Re: Can we have the day off?

#605

Post by tumdum_ »

resonious wrote: post #470
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

It won't get you days off because you (rather, your employer) will fall behind those who didn't opt to take days off. You'd only get days off if it was only you who got a 10x increase. But it's everybody. So it's status quo: technology advances, and you have to keep up if you want to stay in the industry.

40 hours work week wasn’t always the case and yet here we are.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#606

Post by OccamsMirror »

slg wrote: post #269
ipaddr wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Classic American politics right there: Person 1: "We need class solidarity against the billionaires." Person 2: "No, it's the immigrants' fault."

There's some truth to the fact that workers on H-1B visas are not going to rock the boat. A modern form of indentured servitude.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#607

Post by casey2 »

cednore wrote: post #263
9991 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the AI should get 36x the current pay. It's not as if the employee is bringing that to the table.

Who said AI doesn't request compensation? We are not sure yet. One day when GPT10.0 released, he might request dollars to people.

Your data is compensation enough. AI is just happy to chat with you :-)

Re: Can we have the day off?

#608

Post by colordrops »

flohofwoe wrote: post #580
colordrops wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, we might have to depending on how quickly AI and robots become effective at doing most jobs.

Tbh, with the productivity gains of the last 150 years, we should already be able to easily afford another weekday off for a long time. Instead most people sit around doing bullshit jobs to kill time until the weekend.

There's a fundamental difference with AI though. Even though we could live easily, greed drives the class with power to continue to force more and more productivity from workers, which is the elite's only source of labor. With AI, the workers won't been the most cost effective or even necessary. Very different situation.

And you must be a high paid tech worker in a bubble if you think most people are just trying to "kill time". At least in the US the majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#609

Post by DrProtic »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #218
apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright guys, I'm running for president. 4 day work weeks (8 hours each) for employees or prison.

You have my vote. Work to live, don’t live to work. ~90% of Iceland is on a 35-36 hours work week, seems to work fine. Remote work was also skeptically thought of up until a global pandemic forced it, and while there has been some retreat, 20% of Americans work remotely in some capacity still. Just need a catalyst to challenge norms and rigid mental models. https://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ICELAND_4DW…

EU average is 35.9.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#610

Post by soco »

theptip wrote: post #247
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

I think it’s pretty naive to ask your employer for a day off. As experienced by companies, the market is more competitive than ever. Whoever slows down will get eaten by some hungry upstart that is willing to work 996 to eat the incumbent’s lunch. It’s a Prisoner’s Dilemma. The only way to get this outcome is to coordinate at a level higher than individual market participants. In other words, get your government to i…

By the amount of money thrown out the AI window nowadays, a day off, or hiring a few more folks to cover for those days off and more, seems like the much cheaper option. But that's only my naive impression right?
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