User1539 t1_itskw1w wrote
A few friends lost work to AI, and it blindsided them.
One was doing dictation work, basically listening to recordings, writing a transcript, and going through the transcript to highlight certain points.
Suddenly, work just dried up. She was getting contracts one month, and the next month ... nothing. She finally heard through the grapevine some AI package is doing that work now, for practically nothing.
Another friend is a graphic artist, and while they're still getting all the usual 'work' they do at work, commissions dried up this summer.
Of course, it coincided directly with the release of AI drawing programs where you just give it a few prompts, and maybe clean up whatever it produces. Most of her commissions were basically people saying 'I'll give you X dollars to draw this weird thing'. Now AI does that, for so little money it's ridiculous.
I think, after almost a decade of being told we'll have self driving cars taking all the driving cars tomorrow, it'll still catch people off guard when all those Uber jobs suddenly dry up to fleets of self-driving cars.
It's like people know it's happening, but can't apply it to their personal lives.
norby2 t1_itsprwe wrote
It’s difficult for people to admit something will apply to them. It’s like ego death. Maybe they should drop acid.
Evnogena t1_itsrg2l wrote
There are people in this very sub insisting A.I. STILL isn't taking jobs and actually they'll never lose their work to a machine cause this this and that and people are delusional for thinking it's even possible.
Humans are shit at grasping the big picture. People think small scale, comprehend only what they see around them even if those in the distance are screaming the truth at the top of their lungs.
Stuff like this doesn't and will never affect them because they personally don't see nor feel the consequences of these tech innovations...up until one day work is gone and they have no fallback because they ignored it.
It's been some 4-6 months since Dall-E Mini was released, charming the internet with low quality blurry generation, now we have Novel A.I. image generation releasing stuff indistinguishable and in most cases superior to the human art most would otherwise commission from. $10 spent on that program can net you quality to match $30-50 dollar commissions, only being inferior in its specificity (and even that's becoming less and less an issue as inhabiting and image to image improves.)
The tech is coming, in some cases it's here, and in all cases it's going to be a net gain for humanity. The only people who will suffer are thos echo aren't prepared for it, or are unwilling to adapt to the changing times.
The sooner people realize the future is now, the better things will be for everyone.
User1539 t1_itsvaho wrote
My only fear is the transition time between when people need jobs, but there aren't enough jobs to do.
Eventually, if everything is automated, we'll have no choice but to turn to some kind of an automated socialism.
But, there will be a period before that. In that period we will be riding a failed capitalist system into the ground.
AdditionalPizza OP t1_itub71k wrote
That's my fear too. It's what I try to talk about, but get met with either people agreeing and having no idea if a solution (same boat), or people on the total end of the spectrum saying it isn't happening there will always be enough jobs.
I don't care about people's prediction of when they think it will happen, More about when it happens what will we do in that period of transition.
I made the askreddit thread to see what jobs people think won't be replaced. Some of the answers are good candidates for lasting a while on the physical side of their job, but most of them could be fully automated outside of the physical aspects. What's interesting is one person even supposing a robot existed, thinks firefighting will never be automated because you need a gut feeling and have hair stand up on the back of your neck. Another saying mixing music needs a human ear. It's a case of not understanding humans won't be the most intelligent thing on the planet for long, and our senses can be replicated and improved magnitudes over. Intuition isn't uniquely human, and it isn't magic.
I guess I have been asking the wrong question and should phrase it as a hypothetical more, like "if half of all jobs were automated, what would society do" or something.
User1539 t1_ituha5e wrote
well, we already have a social security system. We've actually been through mass unemployment before, but in a time of mass wealth inequality and actual scarcity.
If we don't need workers, we probably won't just immediately fall into a dystopian nightmare.
We're also already talking about basic income, and early retirement is a concept we're generally familiar with.
So, it's likely we'll see social security pick up a lot of slack at first. People who can't work, like people with mental problems, are already provided for. We'll probably just lower the bar to 'people with no special skills'.
Then at the other end there's early retirement. If you're 50, and there just aren't enough jobs, you might be offered early retirement and a pension.
Eventually, work might be seen more like a tour of duty. You get through primary school, train for a job, do it for 4 years, and get a certain level above basic. Do another 4 years, and get another bump, etc ...
It works for the military.
We made it through the great depression, a period of sudden scarcity. I can't imagine we won't figure out a way to make it through a period of great abundance.
AdditionalPizza OP t1_ituigzl wrote
I have no doubt we will make it, it's just a matter of how much foresight we have to reduce suffering among the people that don't make the decisions.
User1539 t1_ituja10 wrote
I don't think it's a matter of foresight. We could tell the leader of every country 'Full automation will happen June 23, 2035', and they'd still do nothing about it. Humans are reaction based actors. We create the mess, then we clean it up. It's just in our nature.
Like I said, at least in America, we do actually already have systems for handling these things. All we'd need to do is raise taxes on the people not hiring workers, to pay for the social security they'd all be receiving.
More socialist countries will just keep doing what they're doing. There are already countries with raw materials that send a check to everyone every month. They'd increase those payments.
Then you have the countries with basically no infrastructure. At first I'm sure the excess resources would be hoarded, and of course there were no jobs there to begin with. But, eventually, there's just no benefit to hoarding things people need, if no one is ever going to buy that stuff off you anyway.
So, I really don't worry too much about it. Not everyone is working now, and it's really just a numbers game as they shift from 70% of a country having a job, to 50%, 30%, etc ...
AdditionalPizza OP t1_itulozg wrote
>I don't think it's a matter of foresight.
What you describe thereafter is exactly foresight, just not on an individual scale. Governmental foresight with implementing security nets.
The US has mega rich corporations, but a lot of countries don't. However the US also has a pretty large population compared to other fully developed countries. Social security has been the target for stripping down over the years, and with the generation currently reaping its benefits, projections show younger generations will be with less. But that's more political than I care to dive into. And may not be the case in the US, I'm not from the states I'm north of the border.
I think cracks will form though, sure we have systems for unemployment, but those systems haven't been tested for crises levels of unemployment. It also begs the question of UBI being available, while some people continue to work.
User1539 t1_itut0f2 wrote
> What you describe thereafter is exactly foresight, just not on an individual scale. Governmental foresight with implementing security nets.
Well, not foresight. Those safety nets are already in place from having reacted to other disturbances in employment.
We haven't really done a single thing to change those existing systems to better handle what's coming, and I don't think we will.
It's just not in our nature.
AdditionalPizza OP t1_itutqs9 wrote
I can agree to that
Quealdlor t1_itw8276 wrote
Funnily enough, there are more job openings today than 10 years ago. 😅
User1539 t1_itwdnl6 wrote
Yeah, the baby boomers retired in droves during covid, which I remember reading articles warning about 20 years ago.
Japan has been facing the same problem for much longer, as their birthrates drop and the population ages. That's partially why it has been largely Japanese companies trying to build robots to take care of the sick and elderly.
There are so many factors already at play, it's absurd to pretend we have any idea what's coming next.
Quealdlor t1_iu0rla5 wrote
I think we will need methods to slow down aging and to automate various tasks really soon, in the 2030s as the latest.
User1539 t1_iu0syxw wrote
Well, we need either one or the other, right? We either need to be 'young' enough to work forever, or we need robots to do all the work.
Of course, I'm hoping for both!
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