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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9vii53 wrote

Pragmatically, though, AI will only end up doing the jobs it can do cheaper and better than humans can. And the more sophisticated the task, the more expensive it will be getting AI to a level where it can do it better than a human can. I have no doubt that, given time, AI will be capable of doing my job as well or better than I can. But the amount of specialist knowledge necessary for it to do so would make it an expensive project, sufficiently so that I see no risk to my career before I retire.

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Digital_Utopia t1_j9wfnpy wrote

However, keep in mind that sophistication for a human, and sophistication for a computer are 2 different things. Chances are, the more sophistication required on behalf of a human, the easier the job is for a computer - the latter only struggling with what we consider to be easy- namely sight, and the ability to hold a conversation.

While it's true that computers would struggle with creativity out of the blue - the type of creativity involved in actual jobs, is much less than artists creating their own, independent art.

I mean, someone working on game art, or designing advertisements, or websites, are getting similar parameters as Dall-E, from their supervisors/clients.

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nothingexceptfor t1_j9xpfcw wrote

The problem with the argument of "people will just do different jobs, better jobs" is that there won't be that many of those new jobs, as the goal is efficiency, only a very few will get to do these new jobs and inevitably those jobs will go soon too, faster than other jobs went before as the rate of innovation and efficiency accelerates with every iteration. Most people won't be doing better jobs but rather the jobs that AI cannot (yet) do, such as physical labour, but as soon as general use robots are a thing that's gone too, so something will have to be done with Humanity and the way we live our lives, and by the speed at which this is happening we might be seeing this events in our life time.

I didn't read this article but this is nothing new, I've been reading about this inevitable outcome for years, and I am very pessimistic about the future, or at least I feel very uncertain, the one thing I know is that we won't be doing the creative or office jobs we do today very soon, all from designers, composers, programmers, even actors, it all goes.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9xy217 wrote

"..very soon.." is an opinion. AI has been around a while already, but the signs of it taking over aren't there yet. Yes, it's improving and accelerating, but for now anything that's not repetitive and easily interfaced is not happening. There's still a huge gap between 'theoretically possible for AI' and 'cost-effective to implement for AI'. I'd be very surprised if the apocalypse you predict will happen in my lifetime.

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nothingexceptfor t1_j9y55iw wrote

I didn’t say apocalypse, as I said I’m not referencing the article, I’m not even taking about AI taking over or becoming sentient or any of that Sci-Fi nonsense of robots trying to kill us and taking over, I am talking about automation and endless efficiency and the effect it will have in the job and our current world in general (and eventually our own minds, I do believe this revolution will happen in our life time when a lot of people lose their jobs because a fraction of the same workforce can do the same job using these tools, that fraction of people is the ones who get these “new type of jobs” but those will also inevitably will go to.

People keep dismissing the impact of this because when the threats of AI are mentioned images of movies and bad robots immediately come to mind, instead of tools that essentially render a large and significant portion of the population redundant from the work force and when that happens the economical system itself collapses.

The cost effectiveness part of the equation is a matter of time, it is also not something that everyone needs, you just need one or two major service providers that provide these tools as a service to have a huge impact, you don’t need your own server farm or ai models to make use of this, just pay for the service which is a lot cheaper than a larger work force.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9y8p35 wrote

Sorry, by 'apocalypse' I meant loss of the workplace as the social norm, not some sci-fi nonsense. In my judgement the timescale for this exceeds my life expectancy quite significantly. That in part is mediated by the fact that I'm in my late sixties with various health conditions, but even without that I think the doomsday predictions are too premature.

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nothingexceptfor t1_j9yb9k3 wrote

Fair enough, I am in my early 40s but I still think that by the rate at which advances are coming in I will see this in my life time, maybe you too.

Thank you for your reply and engagement, have a nice day.

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oramirite t1_j9ykm57 wrote

Good interaction you two. I am in my late 30s and I also believe I will see some major fallout from AI use in my lifetime.personally. Good discussion and stay in good health both of you!

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LastAphrodesiac t1_j9zdz7t wrote

Some of us have already lost a decent chunk of our income and had our expensive degrees reduced to toilet paper :)

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9zph43 wrote

What degree?

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LastAphrodesiac t1_j9zurnz wrote

I had a graphic design degree, I was making money by freelancing photo edits and website layouts, Wix destroyed my website business, and now a lot of the clients I was talking to for photo edits and designs have pulled out, to a degree I can no longer afford adobe

So ultimately there's no point in even complaining since even if I found a client I couldn't do anything regardless :) I'm probably done with life soon XD

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22HitchSlaps t1_j9w10bs wrote

Hope you're retiring within 10 years.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9w1xgs wrote

For what it's worth I'm 67 now, so probably yes. But I doubt that there'll be AI doing my job for a long time after that.

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22HitchSlaps t1_j9w2gdl wrote

Well that's actually fairly reasonable then. I'd say though that the idea that AI will do "some stuff sure but not MY STUFF" is shortsighted. Sufficiently advanced AI will do everything better than humans and the thing is the tech is like an avalanche that has already started. I'm 40 years younger than you, there's no job I could ever do that won't be better done by AI by the time I'm finished learning it to the level you could have in your life time. Such is life...now.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9w35w6 wrote

My work is facilitating a particular type of technical safety audit (HAZOP) in the process engineering industry. There's no reason why AI couldn't do it, but the demand isn't great and the complexity of learning is such that it would be unlikely to be cost-effective even in the medium term.

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22HitchSlaps t1_j9w4onh wrote

With how narrow AI is now I tend to agree with you. No one is going to pay for that. But the thing is we just don't know when AGI is coming, maybe a long way off. To me though I still see even the continued prevalence of narrow AI as so destabilising that it'll affect every sector and job, even if it doesn't specifically take it over. Whether agi or this kinda paradigm shifting destabilisation happens in the next 10 years, who knows but I do see it as inevitable. We need an entirely new approach to society, jobs and capitalism.

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skunk_ink t1_j9x62ij wrote

>But the thing is we just don't know when AGI is coming, maybe a long way off.

This is what I feel a lot of people don't get. We have literally no idea what the threshold for consciousness is. We don't even know how to identify it in other humans let alone another species. Without knowing what that threshold is, there is absolutely no way for us to determine how close or far away from it we are. All we do know is that if and when AI reaches that level, it will intellectually outpace humans at a significant rate.

When the first atomic bomb was created, scientists knew precisely under what conditions a nuclear reaction would go critical. Now imagine if those scientists had absolutely no way of know when or if the reaction would go critical and blow up in their face. That is exactly what we are doing with AI. Racing towards a criticality point which we cannot identify.

Long story short, it could happen in 10 years or 100 years. We literally have no means knowing when.

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skunk_ink t1_j9x4zep wrote

>My work is facilitating a particular type of technical safety audit (HAZOP) in the process engineering industry.

You had me here. I was about to jump in pointing out that things like auditing is probably one of the easier tasks for AI. Glad I read the rest before commenting though because I think you're spot on with what you said. Lots of things could be replaced by AI, but until AI becomes more advanced and lower cost to train, many of those applications just won't be feasible from a financial point of view.

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jl_theprofessor t1_j9w2w1o wrote

You better learn how to hunt and fish since you're not going to be able to get a job.

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v_maria t1_j9y81vw wrote

saying "AI will replace every job soon" is equally shortsighted though. There is a lot of job niches where it's not worth it to train AI for, it wouldn't be profitable.

For these things to be properly automated you would need "artificial general intelligence" which is still speculative.

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22HitchSlaps t1_j9y8fqy wrote

Actually replacing jobs Vs 'better than human' is different I'd say. It's not so much that overnight everything will disappear but you can easily see how disruptive it'll be, even in narrow examples. Two companies doing the same job, one with AI one without is not going to be the same.

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v_maria t1_j9ybagn wrote

I still think it's a matter of how the AI is used. The company using it has a higher potential but they have to realize it too

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VitriolicViolet t1_ja0lbjo wrote

not all jobs are going yet, just the high paying ones that involve computers in any capacity.

im a gardener, im likely to be one of the last jobs automated (its easy to make an AI lawyer, good luck making a machine capable of moving dozens of different ways to perform a dozen different tasks that doesnt also cost millions, not to mention it would need many of the abilities of the AI lawyer to ID plants, chemicals etc).

im 30, i expect ill be nearly retired by the time they bust low paying labor jobs (the lower the pay the longer automation will take due to cost-benefit, i expect some of the first jobs to go will be data entry and lawyers)

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Otarih OP t1_j9vjepr wrote

This is a good point. Thank you for adding that. I think we could go more in depth in terms of deflationary pressure in the future, considering tech such as Quantum Computing. We do believe that costs will sink significantly as algorithms and hardware situations improve.

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rottentomatopi t1_j9vy0o4 wrote

Yes, but there are very high skill, well paid jobs that AI is capable of doing cheaper than humans, primarily in the arts. It’s already tough getting into those fields, so this does make it pretty troublesome because it takes away from those opportunities that many people make a living off of and feel fulfilled by.

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Zyxyx t1_j9yaxfv wrote

One problem: AI doesn't have to do your job as good as or better than you.

All it has to do is good enough to pass for a fraction of the cost to keep you hired.

And once it reached that point, that's it for the entire career path for every human in the future.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9yfm2l wrote

Perhaps worth remembering that they said the same and worse when personal computers became available. Time will tell. Almost certainly not mine, as it happens, as my current life expectancy is below 10 years.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9ygjj7 wrote

I remain to be convinced that when it comes to design safety audits - my job - "good enough to pass" is going to swing.

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ValyrianJedi t1_j9yr261 wrote

There are a decent many that it just flat isn't compatible with though... And of equal importance, AIs aren't able to have accountability. Somebody's head has to be on the chopping block for major decisions made, and that can't be an A.I...

Not to mention in some jobs the human element itself is critical, and obviously can't be replaced. Like my background is in finance and sales. Sales is about as automation-proof as it gets. I have absolutely zero doubt that my job will still exist in 40 years. With finance there are some positions that are extremely suited for automation, and really have already been automated, but there are also a boatload where it would be virtually impossible for people to trust an AI with that level of responsibility and discretion...

In positions like those, the AI being capable and able to do something well enough to pass aren't really relevant to why they wouldn't work.

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oramirite t1_j9ykefe wrote

This automatic assumption of "better" is both hilariously naieve and terribly scary to me.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9ymun8 wrote

For many jobs 'better' translates as 'more cost-effectively'. But not for all.

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oramirite t1_j9yrncw wrote

What a cynical view. Cost-effectively making your service, product or content worse isn't better. "Better" is supposed to represent more than just monetary gain. Quality of life, effect on society.... hello? Just because investors treat the world like a game and think the only thing that makes something "better" is a higher number on a piece of paper does not make that reality.

When we chase nothing but profitability we forget that we are humans with lives.

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VitriolicViolet t1_ja0lr3a wrote

>When we chase nothing but profitability we forget that we are humans with lives.

already have.

look at any discussion on helping people, first thing that comes up is 'who will pay?'

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oramirite t1_ja11ecw wrote

crickets

Thank you, token nihilist in the back. Anyone have anything of value to contribute?

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AllanfromWales1 t1_j9yvqsi wrote

And yet, we live in a capitalist society. Like it or not (and I don't), profit decides what scientific developments get implemented. The only way around is that the government incentivises 'progress'. But the government isn't going to incentivise something which causes mass redundancies. At least, not until AIs get the vote.

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oramirite t1_j9zbvhp wrote

"Better" marks a level of quality, what you are talking about is profitability. Capitalism being a cancer on society doesn't absolve you of the responsibility to use language correctly. If you don't like it you cloud at least take some effort to play along with it's mistruths less.

Like, we are literally talking about inferior products, services, knowledge... everything. Of course if you're LYING about these things being of equal value to previous options, that's going to be more profitable if nobody is calling it out.

But the results are inferior and not better. Its really important that we don't give a shit about these profitability metrics that the system you and I dislike put in front of us. It's one thing to be realistic about the system we live in. It's another thing entirely to take no action against it as if it's inevitable and that resistance is futile.

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