DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
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Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#2I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unemployment.
I actually think to a large extent the corporate world is putting the cart before the horse. Unemployment is at an historic low, wages are growing fast and so this is a great story to tell as to how you're going to continue to exploit labour to enrich capital.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#3More than a year into ChatGPT and… unemployment is at historic lows.
I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where workers have been replaced though if you have citations to actual empirical evidence for job losses please comment!
An alternative theory: Part of what AI CEO’s are doing is marketing their products. If you want to get investors and customers to pay your very expensive compute bill you’d better sell your product. You can sell your product by claiming it can replace workers. That doesn’t mean it can do it. If the current generation of LLMs can replace workers, that is not obvious.
Perhaps some future generation might be, but that will require something fundamentally different than what’s currently available. (And no I don’t think “more data” is enough.)
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#4Tractor company CEO: Tractors are fundamentally a “labor replacing tool
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#5Which tool isn’t?
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#6More than a year into ChatGPT and… unemployment is at historic lows. I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where…
I'm always wondering when people speak about (un)employment. Like ok non-farm payroll numbers may look good but what kind of jobs, for what kind of pay?
Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worse at the same time?
Is there somewhere more specific data?
Other than that, I think I remember an article claiming that the introduction of thr personnal computers led companies to be able to generate the same revenue with less people. Like it used to be 8 employee per million USD and it got to 5. Then again, depends of the size of the average enterprise and the market size (which increases with population increase)
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#7More than a year into ChatGPT and… unemployment is at historic lows. I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where…
I'm always wondering when people speak about (un)employment. Like ok non-farm payroll numbers may look good but what kind of jobs, for what kind of pay? Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worse at the same time? Is there somewhere more specific data? Other than that, I think I remember an article claiming that the introduction of thr personnal computers led companies to be ab…
>Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worde at the same time?
Yes it can and yes it is. I'm also baffled by people keep pointing out low unemployment like it's the be all end all of all arguments for economic prosperity.
Obviously sky high unemployment like in the great depression isn't great either but just because people are forced to accept any one of the abundant gig economy jobs, no matter how shitty, or even more than one job, due to the high CoL and low welfare, it definitely reduces unemployment numbers on paper, but is that ideal?
Maybe some jobs are so shit that people would rather bum around on minimum welfare than get dirty, tired and aching bodies just to only to make peanuts over welfare.
Maybe the median inflation adjusted take home wage of the employed person after subtracting essentials like rent, utilities, bills and food, would be a better metric to measure economic prosperity of the working class than collectively clapping at record low unemployment numbers.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#8Which tool isn’t?
A union signup sheet.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#9I consulted for three different large organisations over the last 14 months. All of them chose to let their workforce know that the management are "looking into using AI". In all three cases one of the first questions during all-hands town halls was "are we getting replaced by AI?" People are freaking out and managers are loving it, because they have shifted people's attention from how little they are getting paid to fearing being replaced by a hallucinating algorithm. So, based on my limited experience, I would argue that AI is a wage rise suppression tool, not a labour replacing tool.
Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
#10I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unempl…
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