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L00525324 t1_j6sziyo wrote

Reply to comment by 3SquirrelsinaCoat in The steam engine changed the world. Artificial intelligence could destroy it. - The Boston Globe by GlobeOpinion

Yeah people keep saying that AI is gonna replace all jobs....it won't, but it will change what some of those jobs might be.

Also I'm not worried about China, they aren't even close to the US in tech, business, or anything else really and they have more domestic problems then the US does although reddit won't let you think so...

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Taliesin_Chris t1_j6tl4sm wrote

AI will replace all jobs, but not ALL jobs. As in, we'll need less programmers, but not 0 programmers. We'll need less office staff, but not 0 office staff. Less managers, less everything.

It doesn't matter if there are still some jobs if there aren't enough jobs. We'll need a plan. Do we lower # of hours full time is so more people can work? UBI? Something else?

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[deleted] t1_j6u53hh wrote

Yeah I don't disagree. It will have to be lower the # of work hours, IMO. A lot of people with nothing but time, failed dreams, no direction and low income (ubi prob won't be great, in terms of money) cannot be good.

Maybe all the above? Someone ask chat gpt

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Taliesin_Chris t1_j6u7fwm wrote

All of the above is probably the answer. A very basic UBI that lets people work more of a gig economy without falling through the cracks. Capitalism has an entry fee, and we'll have to cover people for it.

We'll probably start lowering retirement age as well. It'll be expensive to do, but getting people out of the work force will be needed and this will be a good way to do it.

Making college mandatory and having jobs start later for people will be another way to make it work. No more "We hire 15 year olds!" as some kind of weird brag (McDonalds, I'm looking at you).

And then, finally, 4 or 3 day work weeks, or 1/2 day work days, or maybe both.

The jobs themselves will feel far more 'gig' ish. You might sign on for a year, or a season, or something like that. Then take some time off to enjoy what you made supplemented by UBI, and then back to another job.

It'll be lots of cuts in lots of places. Conservatives will say that "That won't work" individually to all those things, but no one is saying any of those things solves the problem alone. It's a completely systemic solution that requires rethinking about a job, it's value to us as a human being, and maybe a little value on work we do for ourselves and not making someone else rich for a while.

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marketlurker t1_j6u4vrp wrote

So what do the people who do get displaced do? How do they make a living? This really scares the hell out of me for not just now but in the next 40 years. There is no hand guiding the ship (nor has there really ever been). The only constant so far has been greed and profits. Taking care of people has never been a priority.

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Taliesin_Chris t1_j6u61ju wrote

My, probably naive, hope is that when everyone knows 'someone' who's been displaced the reality will set in. Probably around 25% unemployment. Your job can't be your worth. People's living can't be tied to jobs. We do that because society needed jobs at one point in our history... that's changing. Now, it really doesn't need them as much as it did. We keep them because we're scared to change that mentality, but really... if the stuff doesn't need to get done by a person, why are we taking a person's time to do it?

The jobs that need to be done by people will still find people to do them. Probably more on a gig economy for that, but yeah... it won't look like it looks today. It can't. People who think jobs are defining in a person's life will have to adapt. Until then, some people are going to hurt. It will get better, but initially, no... it won't.

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marketlurker t1_j6u91of wrote

I agree your job shouldn't define you, but it does provide the means to keep body and soul together, that is, money. Right now, the big motivator for companies is revenue and profits. If they can get the profits with less cost, they are going to do that. The consequences of their choices are going to suck.

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Taliesin_Chris t1_j6ub69i wrote

No... money provides the exchange for things to keep your body and soul together, and we 'often' get money from jobs. But not just from jobs. Some people inherit the money, some people use the money to make money, some people own something worth charging for. Jobs are only one way of doing it. We get hung up on that reality because for most of us it is a job that does it, but we can find other ways to do it.

Maybe working at a company earns you shares, and you make money when that company makes money. Then when you've done enough, you let that do it for you.

That's just one idea. We'll hammer it out. Not immediately as people need to realize this isn't a joke, it isn't going away, and we can't just make people work jobs that don't need to exist because that does not actually create a fulfilling life. It does the opposite.

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journalingfilesystem t1_j6uhdl5 wrote

The other way that can go is just a straight up increase in output without a significant decrease in positions. That was the way that the Industrial Revolution ended going down. If we develop AGI then all bets are off, but we may not need close to that.

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Eudevie t1_j6u1575 wrote

Do we know if the specs for Wu Dao 2 are legit or nah?

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maretus t1_j6w6y6u wrote

Idk man, AI has already replaced several writers at the companies I work for. We only have editors now. And that’s with this rudimentary version of chatgpt.

The way exponential growth works and where we are on that curve means that more AI advances will happen this year than happened in the last 10. That’s what people fail to realize. The speed of innovation and change is increasing rapidly right now. Humans generally aren’t good at adapting to change. Especially change that happens rapidly.

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