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AI is different

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Re: AI is different

#71

Post by d2veronica »

btilly wrote: post #7

In every technology wave so far, we've disrupted many existing jobs. However we've also opened up new kinds of jobs. And, because it is easier to retrain humans than build machines for those jobs, we wound up with more and better jobs. This is the first technology wave that doesn't just displace humans, but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can. Right now it can't replace human…

During the Industrial Revolution, many who made a living by the work of their hands lost their jobs, because there were machines and factories to do their work. Then new jobs were created in factories, and then many of those jobs were replaced by robots.

Somehow many idiotic white collar jobs have been created over the years. How many web applications and websites are actually needed? When I was growing up, the primary sources of knowledge were teachers, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, and those covered a lot. For the most part, we’ve been inventing problems to solve and wasting a tremendous amount of resources.

Some wrote malware or hacked something in attempt to keep this in check, but harming and destroying just means more resources used to repair and rebuild and real people can be hurt.

At some point in coming years many white collar workers will lose their jobs again, and there will be too many unemployed because not enough blue collar jobs will be available.

There won’t be some big wealth redistribution until AI convinces people to do that.

The only answer is to create more nonsense jobs, like AI massage therapist and robot dog walker.

Re: AI is different

#72

Post by c0balt »

_jab wrote: post #59

I'm skeptical of arguments like this. If we look at most impactful technologies since the year 2000, AI is not even in my top 3. Social networking, mobile computing, and cloud computing have all done more to alter society and daily life than has AI. And yes, I recognize that AI has already created profound change, in that every software engineer now depends heavily on copilots, in that education faces a major integri…

> in that every software engineer now depends heavily on copilots

That is maybe a bubble around the internet. Ime most programmers in my environment rarely use and certainly aren't dependent on it. They do also not only do code monkey-esque web programming so maybe this is sampling bias though it should be enough to refute this point.

Re: AI is different

#73

Post by AdieuToLogic »

__float wrote: post #62
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #50

> Since LLMs and in general deep models are poorly understood ... This is demonstrably wrong. An easy refutation to cite is: https://medium.com/@akshatsanghi22/how-to-build-your-own-lar... As to the rest of this pontification, well... It has almost triple the number of qualifiers (5 if's, 4 could's, and 5 will's) than paragraphs (5).

That doesn't mean we _understand_ them, that just means we can put the blocks together to build one.

> That doesn't mean we _understand_ them, that just means we can put the blocks together to build one.

Perhaps this[0] will help in understanding them then:

  Foundations of Large Language Models

  This is a book about large language models. As indicated by 
  the title, it primarily focuses on foundational concepts 
  rather than comprehensive coverage of all cutting-edge 
  technologies. The book is structured into five main 
  chapters, each exploring a key area: pre-training, 
  generative models, prompting, alignment, and inference. It 
  is intended for college students, professionals, and 
  practitioners in natural language processing and related 
  fields, and can serve as a reference for anyone interested 
  in large language models.
0 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09223

Re: AI is different

#74

Post by ares623 »

ahurmazda wrote: post #13

When I hear folks glazing some kinda impending jobless utopia , I think of the intervening years. I shudder. As they say, "An empty stomach knows no morality."

This pisses me off so much.

So many engineers are so excited to work on and with these systems, opening 20 prs per day to make their employers happy going “yes boss!”

They think their $300k total compensation will give them a seat at the table for what they’re cheering on to come.

I say that anyone who needed to go the grocery this week will not be spared by the economic downturn this tech promises.

Unless you have your own fully stocked private bunker with security detail, you will be affected.

Re: AI is different

#75

Post by bamboozled »

btilly wrote: post #7

In every technology wave so far, we've disrupted many existing jobs. However we've also opened up new kinds of jobs. And, because it is easier to retrain humans than build machines for those jobs, we wound up with more and better jobs. This is the first technology wave that doesn't just displace humans, but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can. Right now it can't replace human…

It’s probably the only technology that is designed to replace humans as its primary goal. It’s the VC dream.

Re: AI is different

#76

Post by rifty »

Every technology tends to replace many more jobs in a given role than which ever existed inducing more demand on its precursors. If the only potential application of this was just language, the historic trend that humans would just fill new roles would hold true. But if we do the same with motor movements with a generalized form factor this is really where the problem emerges. As companies drop more employees moving towards fully automated closed loop production their consumer market fails faster than they can reach a zero cost.

Nonetheless I do still believe humans will continue to be the more cost efficient way to come up with and guide new ideas. Many human performed services will remain desirable because of its virtue and our sense of emotion and taste for a moment that other humans are feeling too. But how much of the populous does that engage? I couldn't guess right now. Though if I was to imagine what might make things turn out better it would be that AI is personally ownable, and that everyone owns, at least in title, some energy production which they can do things with.

Re: AI is different

#77

Post by bamboozled »

anon-3988 wrote: post #55
silisili wrote: post #51

> Moreover, companies could be less willing to pay for services that their internal AIs can handle or build from scratch. Companies have to be a bit more farsighted than this thinking. Assuming LLMs reach this peak...if say, MS says they can save money because they don't need XYZ anymore because AI can do it, XYZ can decide they don't need Office anymore because AI can do it. There's absolutely no moat anymore. Human…

Isn't this exactly the goals of open source software? In an ideal open source world, anything and everything is freely available, you can host and set up anything and everything on your own. Software is now free, and all people care about is the hardware and the electricity bills.

This is why I’m not so sure we’re all going to end up in breadlines even if we all lose our jobs, if the systems are that good (tm) then won’t we all just be doing amazing things all the time. We will be tired of winning ?

Re: AI is different

#78

Post by DiscourseFan »

schneems wrote: post #69
chrisco255 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had untold billions of dollars in reaearch and decades in applied testing, iteration, active monitoring, etc and it still has a very long tail of unaddressed issues. They've been known to ignore police traffic redirections, they've run right through construction barriers, and recently…

A few months ago I saw one driverless car maybe every three days. Now I see roughly 3-5 every day. I get that it’s taken a long time and a lot of hype that hasn’t panned out. But once the tech works and it’s just about juicing the scale then things shift rapidly. Even if you think “oh that’s the next generation’s problem” if there is a chance you’re wrong, or if you want to be kind to the next generation: now is the…

The major shift for me is now its normal to take Waymos. Yeah, there aren't as fast as Uber if you have to get across town, but for trips less than 10 miles they're my go to now.

Re: AI is different

#80

Post by atleastoptimal »

This is an accurate assessment. I do feel that there is a routine bias on HN to underplay AI. I think it's people not wanting to lose control or relative status in the world.

AI is an existential threat to the unique utility of humans, which has been the last line of defense against absolute despotism (i.e. a tyrannical government will not kill all its citizens because it still needs them to perform jobs. If humans aren't needed to sustain productivity, humans have no leverage against things becoming significantly worse for them, gradually or all at once).

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