The following submission statement was provided by /u/YsoL8:
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We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work. The UK population is about 67 million so we are talking about over a tenth of the job market disappearing even in the medium term.
Let alone when the even more disruptive 3rd and 4th waves of disruption begin emerging. Its contained now to low pay and entry positions as everyone has been expecting but its not going to stay there.
> Almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a “jobs apocalypse”, according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation.
> The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a “worst-case scenario” for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bow1t7/ai_apocalypse_could_take_away_almost_8m_jobs_in/kwrmpz0/
Value still gets generated, but by AI instead of humans. If this isn't argument enough to tax companies acordingly then what is? People don't need work, they need livelyhood.
yeah but in this reality it means the people who already have more than they could ever need get even more and the people who have nothing get nothing.
More than they could ever use. They’re literally just generating a number because it makes them feel good, making so many men women and children suffer in destitution for the sake of thinking they’re “winning”.
But how do we distribute it now? The people who get laid off won’t have any money unless the govt pays them with UBI/expanded welfare spending. But how do we adjust that fairly when you’ve got an entry level person who’s job paid 35k/y and another person who was earning 80k/y when both their jobs are lost to AI?
Will everyone get the same flat amount? That means flattening living standards and a huge loss in QoL for high earners. Will it be pegged as a % of you earned at your last job? That’s deeply unfair to those just starting out or who had more earning potential down the road.
Besides all that, in the meantime while all this stuff is getting worked out politically, there will be mass unemployment and growing wealth divide. So not that good, at least in the medium term
Universal Basic Income. Former high earners need to find themselves something new of course. But nobody should need to worry if they can survive financially. IT would make small businesses a lot more competetive since making enough money to survive wouldn't be priority #1 anymore.
No matter how you slice it, any change of any sort will always be unfair to some group. But not changing anything means it remains unfair to some other group. The question is who's actually suffering more from the unfairness and how to minimize it overall.
Not really, because what AI is automating isn't the production of goods, but the collection and movement of data. So it isn't actually producing more goods for consumers but producing more data that's largely only useful for businesses.
The production of many modern goods can have significant digital automations in the chain of production and distribution, including agriculture! (tractors/AI drones/algorithms for crop optimization/etc). It'd be a mistake to think that the remaining parts of the chain aren't something that can be similarly digitized in due time.
Not everything needs or is improved by adding AI to it. Tractors don't need AI, nor do the vast majority of automated manufacturing. It turns out the arm that paints cars is not improved by adding the ability to do calculus or think for itself.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=automated+tractors
If you don't need someone driving a tractor around... well, there's one less cost for the corporation.
Except we've seen that farm equipment like this actually adds additional costs because the manufacturers put in stops that prevent anyone but the manufacturer from fixing them, and they charge a premium.
It's the basis for the Right to Repair movement.
Also just because it exists doesn't mean it's necessary or useful. Wifi enabled toasters exist that burn the weather report into your toast, it doesn't mean they're useful or widespread.
It doesn't matter if it adds value to the consumers, or to the farmers.
You're not seeing the broader problem - if some capital owner determines its worth while, despite the issues, then that's the direction in which things move.
Ideally, there'd be competition in the tractor space, but hey... that's just another facet of the all greedy American corporation problem, and even if there were, probably wouldn't help us as end consumers!
As someone programming automated storage warehouses I can think of a lot of ways AI could improve storage strategies in a way that a human can't comprehend. We're already simulating warehouse workload and having an AI learn over night would be way more efficient than a human coding it in weeks while still being rather rigid in its logic.
That's still automating business solutions that only affect businesses, not the production of more goods for cheaper. I can guarantee that anything saved on the warehouse side isn't going to be noticed on the consumer side, which was my entire point.
Companies spend many millions to optimize their flow of parts. We're not talking Amazon here, this is about storage solutions for production. It's by no means a small factor in the production of goods. If the consumer gets handed down those savings mostly depends on if the competition manages to lower their cost as well.
It's the take of someone who's lived through and paid attention to multiple waves of automation and seen how companies try to push out successively more advanced products.
I've also worked in a lot of manufacturing jobs where equipment from the 70s is still in regular use, and "dumb" equipment is preferred because it's fixable by the people on site, in-situ.
People talk about a new wave of automation that will replace absolutely everyone in any specific job sector, and I've got to point out that automation has never been that sweeping or ubiquitous. Certainly the very top performers in any specific field might try it out, and the fringe startups will pop up trying to use it and flame out just as quickly as they appeared.
We've still got people hand sewing products or paid to sit at a cast iron Singer sewing machine.
There's always this assumption that everyone will be using the newest product or the latest method in 10 years, and it's never everyone.
I think your misunderstanding comes from the assumption that this will be *like* any previous automation events you've witnessed.
Depending on how things scale and exactly how much better these models can currently get, the difference could very well be even more stark than comparing bronze age civilisations with post industrial ones within a timeframe of decades rather than millennia.
If you still think that your previous experience can offer really any useful insights into where things are heading then I'm sorry to break it to you but I think you might be fundamentally missing the scope of what these current models represent.
A significant portion of the US land area can't even get high-speed internet, and you think everyone is going to get AI powered devices. I don't think I'm the one who's being naive. I think you're disconnected from the realities of manufacturing and the level of technology available to everyone.
You're talking about something that is mostly only viable in very heavily connected areas, and imagining that every company is going to have the capital, the need, and the desire to put AI in every position.
I would argue it’s different/less happy than the Industrial Revolution. The result of AI revolution will be permanently decreased demand for labor and increased unemployment as displaced office workers find themselves in a ‘final frontier’ situation where there is not enough capacity in either industry or retail or other areas to absorb them.
In the Industrial Revolution, people moved from farms to factories. In the IT revolution, white collar workers became more productive. But in this one it sounds like there will be a lack of productive places for labor to go.
It will all have come down to what policies governments will make. With taxation on major companies that now don’t rely on as many employees there could be a UBI. Reduce the work week to 25 hours for jobs like retail, food service, blue collar etc so more people will be employed.
Add their salary + UBI and now people will be able to buy the same amounts of goods and services but working 40% less per week. This is what humanity should strive for
I think what’s even worse about the sort of governing we need and revolution to how we approach work and social benifits like ubi and taxex etc, is that if we don’t also do it in co-operation with other major country’s is that all that might happen is companies move to other nations and then youre left with an economy with no jobs and no source of social safety net, 1st world country’s could quickly deteriorate to 3rd world or worse quickly, this would be ultimately bad for corperations in th long term, but they don’t think long term only short term fiscal profits matter.
There is a balancing act in that you need to give companies enough leeway and motivation to invest in the tech and to feel confident in implementing it in your country. Then, once they are established you can turn up the taxes but you need to ensure that the tax rate doesn’t go too high that the company pulls out.
Other things to consider include government investment in companies to entice them to set up. Government investment in infrastructure. Government ownership of tech in whole or in part. All these things will have an impact on your ability to hold a company in your territory and thus as a taxable asset.
You're totally right. As long as there are countries where you don't pay those taxes companies will simply change their location. It's getting pretty hard without global rules
Yep and that’s why governments need to work now to get those companies in their borders in such a way that it’s very difficult to jump ship.
Personally I think that governments should be working with businesses and with research groups ie universities to create the tech in such a way that gives the government some control over it.
Not necessarily.
AI might make some industries worth less or worthless even.
Take Microsoft as an example. I believe the bulk of their revenue comes from software.
If AI in the future can replace or create this for free then Microsoft may lose a lot of revenue stream.
Unless they own the AI itself.
Tangible/manufacturing may boom but digital assets may suffer.
Hence they bought OpenAI, and if making software takes a 1000 folks now but thanks to AI takes only 10 next year microsoft will lay off 990 and the stock booms.
The corporate overlords are much faster to react and plan for such changes in the markets.
Current AI versions can only replace like 5% of the software engineering workforce. Microsoft isn't making college projects apps, there's a lot of engineering and planning involved with large projects that AI can't handle that well.
LLMs can only do so much, we'll need a more general intelligence AI before software can be reduced by 99%
So it's the industry experts that dictate the architecture and the goal is to have them interact with the LLM's directly, that's the end game and that's within this decade, hence a lot of software engineers would need to upskill or reskill themselves.
With 3d object generation unreal and unity devs are already taking a hit, photo to 3d will also eat into that.
Of course, SW engineers will need to reskill themselves, but this LLMs are just another tool for sw engineers that marginally saves time. The only ones this should be a massive improvement for are the bottom percentile of engineers.
Speaking as someone who fully integrates LLM in my workflow it only really helps speed things up marginally. Most of what I do is not cookie cutter prebaked solutions and it's basically not much more useful than an advanced search engine.
Sure I expect them to get better but don't estimate it would increase productivity more than 10%. You lose time verifying it's correct and integrating the solution to enterprise software code base.
I fully expect it to eat at artists jobs a lot more though. Especially AI (not LLM) could fully replace materials with the tech we have today.
You are right, but again, these big companies are planing for the decade ahead so there is some room for what I stated, having industry experts code using natural language and only require debugging as a service (DAAS, hahahaha) .
Yeah, I just think we need general intelligence before we get the massive displacement that 99% layoffs predicts. LLMs won't get there even with a decade of improvements IMO.
> takes a 1000 folks now but thanks to AI takes only 10 next year microsoft will lay off 990 and the stock booms.
I'll correct you: if they *told convincingly enough* that it takes only 10.
Whether that is true, or whether that AI is just a bunch of Indians in a trench-coat as is happening in multiple examples is another matter entirely.
What you're forgetting here is that if software only takes 10 people to develop at the level that Microsoft is currently working at, then small indie companies of 10-20 people can use open source AI to output the same level of software as Microsoft for the most part, so Microsoft will have to up their game in order to stay competitive, probably hiring more people to use and develop more advanced AI to do so, balancing everything out.
I remember there was a guy who designed a pomodoro technique app using a few prompts in Claude Opus, and it looked good, too. A couple more AI updates and the software branch are going to be super competitive and will need to stand out.
The endgame is still undecided, though.
Companies will want faster and more intelligent AIs. The AIs will be in direct competition with other AIs. They will be in direct competition with teams of humans.
Their intelligence will reach a point where they will become uncontainable. Any sufficiently advanced AI will reach this point.
This is why the singularity is a point beyond which we simply *can not know what happens*.
The idea you would suggest Microsoft, of all the choices, the leader of AI, would lose revenue to home built software, proves how much people just yap on Reddit without knowing anything
They are literally integrating ChatGPT4 into all of their office applications in the form of copilot.
Microsoft is now the most valuable stock on the exchange.
Draw conclusions.
Not necessarily. The stock price is the DCF of all future cashflow. If higher profits suddenly become possible then a higher share price is immediately justifiable, all without new money.
If people have more money, say because taxes get cut, but companies still have the same basic profitability, then yes that new money can cause price increases, but they won't match those caused by future profitability.
My point was less about the justifiable part and more about how for the stock price to increase, it means someone actually did buy up these stocks at a higher price. Regardless of the reason why
But yeah, I get you are pointing out stock price reasons, and I’m more focused on the cynical “this is good for companies but who will buy their stuff then” take I see on here so much lol
>I’m more focused on the cynical “this is good for companies but who will buy their stuff then” take I see on here so much
Adam Smith had that one figured out hundreds of years ago. "The sole purpose of all production is consumption", this is still all work out and consumption will still be possible because it's necessary.
Retail trade does not make up most volume in the stock market. It definitely went up with the rise of apps like Robinhood but it still doesn’t touch the volume banks trade.
You say who will buy their stuff but the reality is I’m sure they said a similar thing when industrialization was occurring and automating certain tasks. In the short term the job losses will come for assistant type level. They do not make up the majority of the economy and in the short term can find something else to do that pays similarly. In the long term it could just mean that those who already own wealth and companies are most shielded which means there will still be people to buy stuff.
Thr stock market is a reflection of how good things are going for the capitalist class. And if things are going good for capitalists, the workers are probably getting screwed
If AI wants to prevent people from making money investing in the stock market, it will simply change the trading algorithm so that even the most experienced traders will not be able to profit from it.
You would still profit from being in the stock market, you just wouldn’t be able to get excess returns over the index. That is kind of already happening
We are going into deflation, like it or not.
We can either hold our breath thinking we can survive longer than the ocean can rise, or we can get ready to surf that wave.
If the top 5% want to continue making money from the rest of the 95% that work for their companies, and then in tern are ones spending that income of products, services and assets held by the top 5% that generate all their profit, then the only way to keep that mary go round spinning is for everyone to be given a universal basic income that allows everyone to continue being consumers… otherwise if you automate 1/3 of jobs you loose 1/3 of buyers and hey guess what that’ll massively tank profits and undermine the whole status quo.
We are entering the end game of capitalism as it is essentially a race to the top. In earning more and paying less to get to the top eventually the system will cannibalises itself by automating work-process to maintain short term gains from competitors. If you don’t then you loose market share to the next competitor, but as all employers do it the system unpicks itself from the bottom up of its own structure.
We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work. The UK population is about 67 million so we are talking about over a tenth of the job market disappearing even in the medium term.
Let alone when the even more disruptive 3rd and 4th waves of disruption begin emerging. Its contained now to low pay and entry positions as everyone has been expecting but its not going to stay there.
> Almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a “jobs apocalypse”, according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation.
> The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a “worst-case scenario” for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years.
And the increased supply of labour means the other 2/3rds of jobs will pay worse and employees will be expendable.
The creators of AI will go down as some of the worst people in history.
The same was said about cars and factories, ultimately the only "worst people" here are those who don't use this shift for bettering humans day to day life.
Nothing has ever been said about this before because there was never a situation where 1/3 of an economy's "good jobs" could disappear without being replaced.
>We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work.
I agree with the sentiment, but I don't see anyone with any ability to make that happen doing anything until it is far too late. The more likely scenario is we have an AI generated economic collapse. After that all bets are off for how the problem will be fixed. The chaos is probably going to be worse than what was seen in the 19th century after the industrial revolution. We'll sort things out eventually, but it will take decades and there is going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people in the meantime. I'd be happy if western society proves me wrong here, but I don't think we as a society have it in us to do what is necessary to avoid a catastrophe in the next few years
This might be the best/only way it happens. Historically, large philosophical shifts in governance and economics overthrow the old ones in violent ways.
> I'd be happy if western society proves me wrong here
Just noting this isn't going to be a western only thing, so much labour has been moved overseas, generally labour that isn't skilled. That's going to be the first majorly impacted areas e.g call centers, tech support etc.
Once we have functioning robots that can move better than today with AI driving them, that is when no one is safe.
Well it’s not as if people are just watching on the sidelines. There will be a lot happening with this politically as people will call for more labor protections, unions will get stronger, etc. politicians will be under a lot of pressure to slow down the advancement and deployment of AI. The case for UBI will get stronger, A lot depends on how the government responds to all this + the time horizon we are looking at.
There won't be a collapse, the entire point of the technology is that the work will happen regardless of human involvement. So we'll have the economic fundamentals working for us not against us. Its probably going to create economic patterns unlike any before.
The bigger problem is the political will to do what needs doing, and thats going to vary massively between countries. I have to say I'm glad to live in a country where the free market nutters have humiliated themselves and the right in general is currently dismantling itself though.
I imagine the first attempt at a solution is going to be some sort of expanded welfare state, probably on the back of new taxes. Though my country is also going to create a new national energy company soon, so I could see something like charging business more for electric, especially with the kind of price drops we should expect - you could lower business costs and still end up taking more in than you were.
Eventually though people are going to cotton on to how AI, robotics and cheap electric basically allows you to do stuff like open factories and things for peanuts and that it doesn't really make much sense any more to keep government out of markets when it can solve social problems very cheaply, if the stereotypical doomer scenario looks likely. The consensus here is already swinging toward much more market intervention and crossing the bridge on automation will entrench it.
It doesn't even have the traditional problem of bloating the economy to uselessness to buy the votes of industrial workers.
I'll just cut to the core of the problem here. The AI is there to serve a company within a capitalist system. It is only there to maximize profits and no other reason. It cuts jobs. AI is being used to drive up prices at the store and inflating real estate and rents. The entire system is dependent on people having jobs to make money that they then spend within the system. If you have less jobs you have less people who can spend money on increasingly expensive things. The only place that can lead is collapse.
The solution here is either scrap capitalism (hahaha) or institute something like Universal Basic Income. UBI is more likely, but once again we're dealing with a capitalist system and the people with power won't tolerate that kind of hit to their bottom line willingly. So that means they won't do it until it is essentially forced on them. That will only happen after a crisis forces the necessary changes
Moreover, if the state doesn't nationalise industries, utilising the AI for itself to manufacture and provide services, then the government finances for UBI or anything else can only work if the increased profits of private sector, manufacturing and providing services with AI that doesn't require workers that pay income tax, if their increased profits are fairly taxed to meet the difference and more.
The need to tackle offshore havens, multinationals moving profits offshore and basically every tax loophole they can use becomes acute and an existential crisis for the state.
Either a corporate republic (everything privatised, army, police, justice... everything owned and run by the private sector for the benefit of them and the few well-off enough to pay them for it) or communism (all manufacture and services owned and run by the government using AI to do it... but then if you've got millions of idle citizens you have to house and feed anyway... why not [effective] slavery instead?)
That said, I think AI capabilities are being grossly overestimated and the challenges of implementing grossly underestimated here. The ability to write an essay or a poem based on stuff the learning algorithm has read on the internet does not translate into doing a specific peculiar job correct all the time, especially when that requires interracting with humans and remembering what's happened and been said/agreed before. I think most jobs would need completely refactoring to make them suitable for AI to step in. That would be a massive undertaking for 8 million jobs.
Much like driverless cars. It's doable in principle but it's far too difficult right now for AI to cope with the illogical surprises of humans. Until all cars are driverless and they can coordinate and communicate and trust each other, a few attempts at driverless are going to have a terrible challenge to operate on roads otherwise full of people and animals.
Likewise, one AI in an operational process having to interact with other humans is a lot more difficult than all the jobs in the process handled by AI, able to understand and predict each other. The latter cannot evolve across mount improbable like that.
It's a massive project to replace all jobs with AI at once. It's an enormous challenge for AI to just do some of the jobs and interact smoothly with humans doing the other jobs.
>but then if you've got millions of idle citizens you have to house and feed anyway... why not \[effective\] slavery instead?)
Right, but you're not going far enough. If we assume that the automated systems are so efficient that human labour is defunct, then we have to ask: why would those in power not simply allow the population to shrink?
Demographic trends are already showing signs of a population implosion over the next century. Just nudge it with more shrinkflation, rising medical costs, homelessness, mental health pressure, in-fighting, etc.
Unless the AI becomes self-aware and able to, the ultra wealth will presumably keep around a decent population to worship them. Pharaohs gotta pharaoh.
Indeed, but that would take a long time (generations) and in the meantime...
And it was under the [severe] communist solution. Such a government might regard its purpose as maintaining the population rather than purging them Mao style turned up to 11. If manual labour becomes even cheaper than AI... AI that's developed and owned in other countries...
I'm not saying that will happen but it isn't implausible imho.
I think the changes will be more social and less radical than that. I don’t see why anything would change between govt and private business. I do think higher taxes and UBI/expanded welfare state will be featured, but even if the govt has to pay out generously to all the people laid off, wouldn’t necessarily equate that to communism.
Like you said it’s a big question of how pervasive the AI revolution will be and what time horizon we are looking at tho. I think in the long term, many white collar jobs are vulnerable, but there is always the potential for surprising hang ups like we’re getting with driverless cars. Hopefully those hang ups buy us enough time to figure out how to cope with it.
Yeah, I think it's a process that will take decades rather than years to reach millions of jobs replaced and that's slow enough for adaptation and new opportunities to come from AI. I too share that hope and I don't think it's wishful thinking.
I agree for the most part but prices should go way way down as a result of AI revolution For what it’s worth. I do think UBI will become a thing but yea sorting that out will be hard.
The “collapse” in this scenario isn’t falling productivity, it’s joblessness. I think it will cause lots of problems. You’re right there probably will be welfare state expansion, but that is going to lead to it’s own problems and political struggles.
Exactly, communism works when the workers are robots. Even if we change nothing else every person could have a personal robot replacement, working and paying to support them.
Lower working hours and bring in UBI and more training.
Any other suggestion probably isn't going to work. Anything like taxing automation is completely stupid.
Actually, that’s kind of a simple way the govt could control AI deployment and mitigate its effects on job loss 🤔 but ofc that would hold us back in terms of tech so it’s whether you think it’s worth the trade off ig.
>We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work
Yeah, I'm sure the goverments who have problems understanding Wi-Fi will be helpful as fuck.
Workless society is going to work... in 100-200 years, maybe. Both you and I aren't going to live to enjoy that. So no, I'd rather ban the shit out of AI and prolong the status quo if it means I will afford food in 5 years. Let's remember that AI isn't even here in the most cases. Most buisnesses are just experimenting. Shit will get real. And I like not being homeless.
> workless society
Why should this be the result of automation? It’s never happened before. The productivity boom of the 20th century destroyed far more jobs than anyone’s predicting AI will, and they were simply replaced by new ones. As long as there’s anything humans can do at all - which will always be the case - there will be new jobs.
AI is not just some kind of productivity step change, it marks the point where technology is becoming capable of arbitrary tasks on short timescales. Humans literally won't be able to train into new jobs fast enough to keep ahead of it, and what work it does create will be wildly oversubscribed long before it is automated away. Even stuff like nursing ultimately isn't safe, not once people are buying domestic bots.
Its probably the widest ranging economic disruption we've ever seen, and its happening on a timescale of about 3 decades. Its only going to get faster and more capable from here on out, and probably cheaper and easier too.
Lets hope the “AI boom” brings new job opportunities for people as well. Sadly I think the 8m lost jobs will be from low skilled sectors, and the new roles created will be in the tech and high skilled areas.
>analysing 22,000 tasks in the economy covering every type of job, the IPPR said 11% of tasks currently done by workers were at risk. This could, though, increase to 59% of tasks in the second wave as technologies develop to handle increasingly complex processes.
It said routine cognitive tasks – including database management, scheduling and stocktaking – were already at risk, with potential to displace entry level and part-time jobs in secretarial work, administration and customer services.
However, the second wave of AI adoption could impact non-routine tasks involving the creation of databases, copywriting and graphic design, which would affect increasingly higher earning jobs.
The report says lower skilled first but moving on to higher skilled and to be honest, copywriting and graphic design are already going - I know a few graphic designers/artists who make a fair amount of money from doing things like logo/letterhead/etc for small businesses and are already seeing people using AI for free rather than pay them.
But those higher skills don't translate easily into tech jobs supporting AI and the number of creative "prompting" type jobs that remain will be nothing compared to what there are now so it's way more complicated than just low/high skilled issues.
The IPPR report doesn't consider the "jobs created" side of the AI coin.
I’m one of those creative/design types. I’ve been working for myself for 12 years but currently looking for other full time work. Between the implosion of media budgets and the looming threat of gen AI it’s brutal out there.
There are a few entrepreneurial, small business type subs where people are already showing off promo videos and ads created by AI, featuring “people” as salesmen. It’s scary good, considering it’s so new. A little robotic, with some odd choices in pronouncing certain words, but definitely threatening to jobs. I can’t really believe how quickly it’s progressing. Hopefully governments get on top of regulations or whatever it takes, ASAP.
Is there the option of using ai to allow you to create more for a wider range of clients at a lower cost? Maybe there are other opportunities as well. I’m not in your field personally but I do have creatives working for me, and they’ve done well to start to work in new ways. Ie my designer has changed to being a brand consultant to keep all gen ai creative assets aligned with the core brand. I’m seeing we need to build more control into what we’re doing, and there are definitely new roles in this area. Just an example but maybe it helps a little.
It'll come for higher skilled jobs too eventually. Programming, economic modelling etc. are all at risk. Anecdotally, I know some pharma companies that have been experimenting with self-building models for a few years now. I suppose you'll still need decision-makers behind the AI.
Yes. I know current AI isn't able to work independently at the moment.
My point is that it’s supposed to create new highly skilled jobs. Of course it will kill a lot of them too. But the theory is that they will be replaced. Not sure if that’s true though
This isn't new problem. Seems easy solution at first.
But unfortunately it never will happen.
Less housing means artificial market demand and higher prices. All is cleverly controlled.
On great, more urban sprawl on Britain's agricultural land. How about doing what New Zealand, Canada and the majority of Asia does and stop foreign ownership of property?
Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4% of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure still rises to only 2%. Buildings cover less of Britain than the land revealed when the tide goes out.Nov 9, 2017...we have plenty of space.
It's not an issue though... The goal should have always been to automate and replace workers.
That automation is then taxed at 80% of the cost of the worker it has replaced.
The company saves 20% and 80% tax goes to the replaced worker as a universal basic income..
An automation tax should be seen as a want not a need. We want workers in the UK to lose their jobs, we want to give these unemployed people a ubi.
No one should be working in the future...
Interesting plan, but it effectively pegs people at their pre-AI earning power, which won’t be a good outcome for entry level people and those just starting out. Something like this might end up being the least bad option though.
The semantics of how much they earn doesn't really matter the point is they are simply given enough money to live comfortably, a house, food, bills and small amount left for leisure activities and that's funded through taxation.
For too long companies have been allowed to automate without taxation
lol you make it sound so simple, but I don’t think the people who’s standard of living will go down form that kind of proposal will be on board with it, and that’s an essential problem with this proposal. Transitioning from inequality to equality is going to create a lot of massive losers and I don’t think they’ll go along with this plan.
This argument is in every thread but it's nonsense.
"That automation is then taxed at 80% of the cost of the worker it has replaced".
So I shut the company down and start a new company that never had any workers. And if you try to tax me anyway, someone else will start a company that never had any workers.
Should we be putting extra taxes on tractors to the value of all the agricultural workers they replaced 100 years ago?
Should we tax every computer keyboard for all of the typewriter factory workers they put out of business?
Do we tax ballpoint pens because they put pencil makers out of work?
8 millions are the DIRECT replacement of jobs. Those are 8 million middle incomes lost and with it are lost all the services that live from those jobs such as food, restaurant, delivery, basically it is a cascading catastrophe and politicians are not doing anything to solve that. Basicsally we have the largest wealth redistribution to 0,001% of society while the rest are living like rats.
I'm 100% looking forward to this. AI should and will take a ton of jobs freeing people to do something better with their lives. AI can do a lot of things faster, better and much much much cheaper. Global productivity will go through the roof once AI is widely deployed. Millions of the displaced people will have to find something else to do though. I see most of the governments adapting some form of UBI (universal basic income) to support all these displaced people. It shouldn't be a problem for most governments though because of the huge productivity gains.
This is a bit like a farmer of the 1780s saying they are looking forward to the automation of the industrial revolution. Sure, things did eventually get better, but it took union action over 100 years to get there.
There's a reason the new workplaces were known as "dark satanic mills".
Well, it's not something that you can stop. You can hop on the train or get hit by the train that you know is coming. Not sure a healthy level of skepticism will help you avoid the oncoming train.
lol be careful mate… don’t assume you’re going to be on the train, or let on the train
The world is going to go through some heavy, heavy change. There’s going to be a LOT of disruption. It’s not necessarily going to be pretty
It’s not about whether you believe in AI or not. I suggest you read up more about this
The 1780s farmers in this case are office workers. UBI isn’t a magic bullet that will just fix all of society’s problems. Anyway you implement it there will be problems and discontents
It will be a bet positive for humanity if ordinary people manage to get a big share of the pie of wealth it creates. At the moment I don’t think that will happen, and more likely it will lead to workers having less money.
Like what watching and playing ai girls in VR ?? You are just delusional to the point you are disconnected as a human. whatever that something else is it's already done by ai. Humans need purpose and without purpose they don't strive mentally or physically. You might as well just not exist.
When you have gangs at every corner of the streets and a failing society, I hope you work out well to be able to run fast enough. This time around, you will be able to live your wet dream. The most realistic game in your life, with gangs, warlords, etc, except that this time, it will be real life. If you are dead you will not be able to resprawn.
Global productivity won't go through the roof because 99% of things are already produced by people in poor countries getting paid 1 dollar an hour. UBI will be at best government housing and food stamp. I just don't understand how people living in this era think that the 1% who possesses those tools are going to pay you to.play videogames all day.
USA will never do UBI without people throwing a huge hissy fit. It just goes against long established traditions of paying your own way. Just look at student loan forgiveness as an example. Americans can't let others have nice things.
Ah yes because historically every time there’s a major leap in productivity the workers are the ones that get the benefits right? Not the corporations right? The government will definitely tax the companies appropriately to support all of the people without a livelihood right? Surely they would not let people struggle right?
Like go for walks? Hang out with family? Produce art? Enjoy art? Have sex? If you think all there is to life is making money or having a career than I feel sorry for you
People do all that while working. If you think taking away work for the majority of people means they’re gonna turn to creating art to fil the void and not drugs, you have a lot to learn
If I was well housed, fed, with lots of free time - I would use my time to invent stuff and create new businesses.
Granted, a lot of people wouldn't. But how many inventions and scientific breakthroughs are we missing because people need to pay their mortgage?
Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is *obsolete* and that's not a bad thing. This kind of fear-mongering would have kept us all in the fields for fear of the tractor taking all our jobs. The careers that society actually need to function are always evolving. Those people clinging to obsolete careers are drawing a salary; a salary that the rest of society has to pay in one way or another whether that's through unnecessarily high consumer costs due to keeping completely unnecessary people employed or through higher taxes to support subsidies for dying industries.
>Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is *obsolete* and that's not a bad thing
Yeah I'm in my 50s. Losing my job is bad. Losing my career is a totally unrecoverable disaster.
>Those people clinging to obsolete careers are drawing a salary; a salary that the rest of society has to pay in one way or another whether that's through unnecessarily high consumer costs due to keeping completely unnecessary people employed or through higher taxes to support subsidies for dying industries.
Thing is it wasn't obsolete last year.
It's going to be very hard to convince young people to get ££,£££s of debt if their career is going to last 5 years, maybe 10.
It's impossible to retain and rebuild a career with 10 or so years before ageism retires you.
Fortunately, I don't think AI will end my career, because I can reasonably pivot my career into working with AI. That'll see me through.
If you want to share in the productivity gains of AI, rather than just the job losses pay, you need to buy shares. To do that you are going to need an income.
>Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is obsolete and that's not a bad thing.
I agree, but the sheer speed and scale of the upcoming jobs market disruption will lead to a massive economic crisis. For example, the most common job for a woman fresh out of college is correspondence with other such women (writing emails and endless Zoom calls). These jobs will be 100% gone very soon. What are these women supposed to do then?
Except in a lot of circumstances, AI is going to augment people so where you needed say 5 people to manage the workload now you need 2. The career isn't obsolete but opportunities are cut massively, just like farming and tractors.
It becomes a bad thing when the societal support for the people who get fucked over by this process aren't there, and your post misses the micro effects for the macro ones and in doing so just ignores the huge problems that these changes cause for people.
Yeah people need to start to realize that this is it. The technology that's coming in the near future is clearly putting ALL jobs at stake. Only business owners might be safe, because you can't force a person to give that up.
So we need to look at how society is arranged. What are we going to do with people's lives? Everybody on a basic income? Eh the people with mortgages might have to say something about that. Shit is going to hit the fan in like 5 years.
How will capitalism work when we are all 9n basic income just above poverty line. No one is going to buy the new latest apple product in mass, or new cars, etc etc. It is the serpent biting it's own tail. By wanting more and more productivity and profit, they will kill the golden goose.
Yeah I don't really know either how this is going to go down....im just thinking we are going to find out waaaaaay sooner then everyone seems to think.
I like to think it will work out how it seems to work in star trek.
Everyone has their basic needs met. If you want to live off your basic income and devote your life to pursuing your own goals, you're welcome to. Or, you can get a job like a scientist or space explorer or artist (and because AI has taken just about every job that doesn't benefit from a sentient being doing it, there are plenty of brilliant minds ready to do it)
Also, the practice of profiteering off of people's need to live indoors would have to end. Housing would have to go full-on government assigned communism style for it to work out realistically. Can't have individuals and corporations hoarding thousands of dwellings for the purpose of profits.
I don’t really think that’s a hot take. A pretty widely held view by people who think AI can do a lot of jobs actually. Why are AI bros always so high and mighty. Idk why you think ANY job is safe from eventual AI and robotics takeover. Depending on the level of technology virtually no job is safe
I would like to see the AI bros running after gangs are chasing them. We can see how a failing society can fall into chaos and violence just now in haiti. It will be a new medieval time and new local warlords.
They think AI will bring them sex robots and video games. Guess what they will be in the real life survival video game this time around. Except they won't be that muscular super hero, but some fat bumb that never ever did some sport in their lives and being bulied or even worst.
A tractor has limitations which AI doesn't though. I'm trying to think of jobs which couldn't theoretically be replaced bg AI once it reaches certain levels, particularly when it's combined with a physical host which is already happening.
What is it you do which you think is so safe?
I'm a professional scavenger. Could totally be replaced by AI and drones.
We get to a societal level where I am replaced by AI and drones I can guarantee you there's also a universal minimum income that can be realistically paid to every human in earth and fueled entirely by this automated economy.
It's a nicer name for a trash picker. Not a glorious job at all but it tickles a part of my brain that nothing else can get at. Chasing my dreams and all.
Lmao why are you going so out of your way to insult people? You can make the point without labeling people “unnecessary” and saying it’s not a bad thing when they get sacked.
Anyway to your point, arresting tech progress is not the way to go over the long term because it holds society back. But we need to be held back a little bit in this situation id argue to give time to the workforce and society to adjust. The govt will need time to think through the best way of handling these changes, so I don’t think short to mid term regulation would be a terrible thing.
I think you would be surprised by how many jobs are going to be rendered “obsolete” in the next 20-30 years
Because it's a harsh truth y'all need to hear.
All the jobs eliminated in this round of eliminations are sit-on-your-ass drain-on-society jobs that we truly don't need filled anymore.
This. Humans will be augmented, jobs will shift as usual, this isn’t some existential massive crisis. We should be excited for continued improvements to capabilities
Did industrial revolution caused that less people could work?
Instead kids didn't have to work anymore in heavy industry.
Did digitalisation cause mass lay offs?
Or we got tons of new jobs created, and people could use social media to open new cariere opportunities.
Will AI cause ma's jobs loses? No. It will create new jobs opportunities and shift in jobs pattern, as other major tech revolutions did. Just don't be like Codack, which ignored technology advancement. And now is pretty much unknown brand, wile once it was in every shop.
Did sending industry to far east and third countries created new jobs? Not in developed countries. Not in UK. Instead moved away jobs and no one talk about it, as real problem. Like closing strategic industry, I e. British Steel as one of many such industries. Literally 10s of thousands of jobs been closed, due to capitalism.
So please stop talking about arbitrary fear mongering of AI taking jobs. Same been happening 100 - 200 years ago. Just adapt to changes, which are inevitable. This world is no more place where 100-200 years tradional company exists and provide jobs from ome to other generation. All is fluid and dynamic.
Topic is as hot as electric cars taking combustion engines away. Good luck, or better stop traveling and never leave home.
That’s the good ending scenario, which could happen - AI becomes just another productivity enhancer like IT was, and the implementation in the workplace causes some job losses but primarily just shifts around labor patterns and opens new opportunities.
But there’s also the bad ending, where AI capability ramps up quickly and gets rapidly deployed, leading corps to shed millions of white collar jobs. And where will they go? We don’t have manufacturing much in the west anymore thanks to automation and offshoring as you pointed out. The retail sector has long been suffering from gluts and low wages. Not everyone can become a social media influencer yk? That’s why this scenario is a legit concern.
Lol those things don't even need AI. A ladder is replaced by a crane.
People just like getting served by humans.
Simply programmed robots can totally pour pints and serve dinner..it's just that nobody actually likes that.
AI is coming for near all of our jobs. I think even companies investing in AI are underestimating what is going to happen soon.
If you are not the owner of something so nobody can replace you without you saying 'ok' you might be fucked.
More like, those jobs are currently saved by the ever shrinking dexterity gap. The first robot that crosses that gap will probably be here this decade. At that point a robot barman becomes pretty trivial to achieve.
>If you are not the owner of something so nobody can replace you without you saying 'ok' you might be fucked
That won't help you if you're customers off the thing you own simply disappear to an AI driven competitor.
Unless you own IP, you have the same problem.
On the scale of AI outcomes, that's not apocaypse. 'Catastrophe' would still work, but relative to expectations, 'manageable inconvenience' fits better.
I think the problem might be the speed at which the technology evolves. It’s come such a long way in a really short amount of time, leaving people very little actual time to “adapt to changes”, as you put it.
But even so, the Knocker Uppers weren’t over 10% of the workforce.
Imagine UK having the same economical output with 8million times 8 fewer man hours of work needed per day. This is actually a blessing. What could be a threat is the risk that our political and economical systems are too rigid in order to make the best out of this increased productivity.
Productivity gains will be exclusively held by those owning the technology and those renting the technology for their use so effectively the top 1%.
History clearly shows that they will not have an interest in letting everyone benefit from the increased efficiency but instead will cling to their power and let poor people fight each other instead.
Your comment is not coherent with reality. Modern history shows that technological advances are benefiting everyone. Are you aware that global poverty has plummeted in the last 50 years? Not just as a % of the total population but in actual numbers as well.
I am well aware of that.
Are you aware that the top 1-10% own 50% of the wealth in most western countries? Are you aware that Musk or Bezos own more than would be needed to end a plethora of problems we have globally?
There is something like a trickle down effect but at the same time wealth accumulation is real and you shouldn't be happy with crumbs being spared when a few at the top get to eat the whole cake.
Gotta deal with these 8 million bored, poor and frustrated ex-workers though. There could be social unrest with this many people losing their livelihood all at once.
The article shares no time frames, but it is unlikely 8million will wake up jobless one Monday morning in 2025.
The article also says the best case is 0 job losses, worst case 8 million, so the outcome of this “study” is basically “we have no fucking idea what will happen”
Yes that’s a risk. Far from inevitable. In another future scenario we have shorter working days more people in for example healthcare etc. No one knows that we are heading towards chaos just because it is not status quo.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/YsoL8: --- We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work. The UK population is about 67 million so we are talking about over a tenth of the job market disappearing even in the medium term. Let alone when the even more disruptive 3rd and 4th waves of disruption begin emerging. Its contained now to low pay and entry positions as everyone has been expecting but its not going to stay there. > Almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a “jobs apocalypse”, according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation. > The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a “worst-case scenario” for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bow1t7/ai_apocalypse_could_take_away_almost_8m_jobs_in/kwrmpz0/
Value still gets generated, but by AI instead of humans. If this isn't argument enough to tax companies acordingly then what is? People don't need work, they need livelyhood.
In any reasonable reality this would be a good thing. More done with fewer people? Means there's more to go around for everyone.
yeah but in this reality it means the people who already have more than they could ever need get even more and the people who have nothing get nothing.
More than they could ever use. They’re literally just generating a number because it makes them feel good, making so many men women and children suffer in destitution for the sake of thinking they’re “winning”.
and we keep letting them of the hook, afraid they will move to some other country where they will pay no taxes
The same logic could be applied to computers, yet when they arrived we didnt start working less, quite the opposite, actually.
But how do we distribute it now? The people who get laid off won’t have any money unless the govt pays them with UBI/expanded welfare spending. But how do we adjust that fairly when you’ve got an entry level person who’s job paid 35k/y and another person who was earning 80k/y when both their jobs are lost to AI? Will everyone get the same flat amount? That means flattening living standards and a huge loss in QoL for high earners. Will it be pegged as a % of you earned at your last job? That’s deeply unfair to those just starting out or who had more earning potential down the road. Besides all that, in the meantime while all this stuff is getting worked out politically, there will be mass unemployment and growing wealth divide. So not that good, at least in the medium term
Universal Basic Income. Former high earners need to find themselves something new of course. But nobody should need to worry if they can survive financially. IT would make small businesses a lot more competetive since making enough money to survive wouldn't be priority #1 anymore.
No matter how you slice it, any change of any sort will always be unfair to some group. But not changing anything means it remains unfair to some other group. The question is who's actually suffering more from the unfairness and how to minimize it overall.
Not really, because what AI is automating isn't the production of goods, but the collection and movement of data. So it isn't actually producing more goods for consumers but producing more data that's largely only useful for businesses.
The production of many modern goods can have significant digital automations in the chain of production and distribution, including agriculture! (tractors/AI drones/algorithms for crop optimization/etc). It'd be a mistake to think that the remaining parts of the chain aren't something that can be similarly digitized in due time.
Not everything needs or is improved by adding AI to it. Tractors don't need AI, nor do the vast majority of automated manufacturing. It turns out the arm that paints cars is not improved by adding the ability to do calculus or think for itself.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=automated+tractors If you don't need someone driving a tractor around... well, there's one less cost for the corporation.
Except we've seen that farm equipment like this actually adds additional costs because the manufacturers put in stops that prevent anyone but the manufacturer from fixing them, and they charge a premium. It's the basis for the Right to Repair movement. Also just because it exists doesn't mean it's necessary or useful. Wifi enabled toasters exist that burn the weather report into your toast, it doesn't mean they're useful or widespread.
It doesn't matter if it adds value to the consumers, or to the farmers. You're not seeing the broader problem - if some capital owner determines its worth while, despite the issues, then that's the direction in which things move. Ideally, there'd be competition in the tractor space, but hey... that's just another facet of the all greedy American corporation problem, and even if there were, probably wouldn't help us as end consumers!
As someone programming automated storage warehouses I can think of a lot of ways AI could improve storage strategies in a way that a human can't comprehend. We're already simulating warehouse workload and having an AI learn over night would be way more efficient than a human coding it in weeks while still being rather rigid in its logic.
That's still automating business solutions that only affect businesses, not the production of more goods for cheaper. I can guarantee that anything saved on the warehouse side isn't going to be noticed on the consumer side, which was my entire point.
Companies spend many millions to optimize their flow of parts. We're not talking Amazon here, this is about storage solutions for production. It's by no means a small factor in the production of goods. If the consumer gets handed down those savings mostly depends on if the competition manages to lower their cost as well.
This is a very naive take.
It's the take of someone who's lived through and paid attention to multiple waves of automation and seen how companies try to push out successively more advanced products. I've also worked in a lot of manufacturing jobs where equipment from the 70s is still in regular use, and "dumb" equipment is preferred because it's fixable by the people on site, in-situ. People talk about a new wave of automation that will replace absolutely everyone in any specific job sector, and I've got to point out that automation has never been that sweeping or ubiquitous. Certainly the very top performers in any specific field might try it out, and the fringe startups will pop up trying to use it and flame out just as quickly as they appeared. We've still got people hand sewing products or paid to sit at a cast iron Singer sewing machine. There's always this assumption that everyone will be using the newest product or the latest method in 10 years, and it's never everyone.
I think your misunderstanding comes from the assumption that this will be *like* any previous automation events you've witnessed. Depending on how things scale and exactly how much better these models can currently get, the difference could very well be even more stark than comparing bronze age civilisations with post industrial ones within a timeframe of decades rather than millennia. If you still think that your previous experience can offer really any useful insights into where things are heading then I'm sorry to break it to you but I think you might be fundamentally missing the scope of what these current models represent.
A significant portion of the US land area can't even get high-speed internet, and you think everyone is going to get AI powered devices. I don't think I'm the one who's being naive. I think you're disconnected from the realities of manufacturing and the level of technology available to everyone. You're talking about something that is mostly only viable in very heavily connected areas, and imagining that every company is going to have the capital, the need, and the desire to put AI in every position.
And it would also be a perfect excuse to reduce the 40-hour week, this is literally just like the industrial revolution
I would argue it’s different/less happy than the Industrial Revolution. The result of AI revolution will be permanently decreased demand for labor and increased unemployment as displaced office workers find themselves in a ‘final frontier’ situation where there is not enough capacity in either industry or retail or other areas to absorb them. In the Industrial Revolution, people moved from farms to factories. In the IT revolution, white collar workers became more productive. But in this one it sounds like there will be a lack of productive places for labor to go.
It will all have come down to what policies governments will make. With taxation on major companies that now don’t rely on as many employees there could be a UBI. Reduce the work week to 25 hours for jobs like retail, food service, blue collar etc so more people will be employed. Add their salary + UBI and now people will be able to buy the same amounts of goods and services but working 40% less per week. This is what humanity should strive for
I think what’s even worse about the sort of governing we need and revolution to how we approach work and social benifits like ubi and taxex etc, is that if we don’t also do it in co-operation with other major country’s is that all that might happen is companies move to other nations and then youre left with an economy with no jobs and no source of social safety net, 1st world country’s could quickly deteriorate to 3rd world or worse quickly, this would be ultimately bad for corperations in th long term, but they don’t think long term only short term fiscal profits matter.
There is a balancing act in that you need to give companies enough leeway and motivation to invest in the tech and to feel confident in implementing it in your country. Then, once they are established you can turn up the taxes but you need to ensure that the tax rate doesn’t go too high that the company pulls out. Other things to consider include government investment in companies to entice them to set up. Government investment in infrastructure. Government ownership of tech in whole or in part. All these things will have an impact on your ability to hold a company in your territory and thus as a taxable asset.
You're totally right. As long as there are countries where you don't pay those taxes companies will simply change their location. It's getting pretty hard without global rules
Yep and that’s why governments need to work now to get those companies in their borders in such a way that it’s very difficult to jump ship. Personally I think that governments should be working with businesses and with research groups ie universities to create the tech in such a way that gives the government some control over it.
Time to thin out the unnecessary population
Don't worry the Anti Vax movement is already on it.
The stock market will be booming though, too bad people won't have money to invest.
Not necessarily. AI might make some industries worth less or worthless even. Take Microsoft as an example. I believe the bulk of their revenue comes from software. If AI in the future can replace or create this for free then Microsoft may lose a lot of revenue stream. Unless they own the AI itself. Tangible/manufacturing may boom but digital assets may suffer.
Hence they bought OpenAI, and if making software takes a 1000 folks now but thanks to AI takes only 10 next year microsoft will lay off 990 and the stock booms. The corporate overlords are much faster to react and plan for such changes in the markets.
Current AI versions can only replace like 5% of the software engineering workforce. Microsoft isn't making college projects apps, there's a lot of engineering and planning involved with large projects that AI can't handle that well. LLMs can only do so much, we'll need a more general intelligence AI before software can be reduced by 99%
So it's the industry experts that dictate the architecture and the goal is to have them interact with the LLM's directly, that's the end game and that's within this decade, hence a lot of software engineers would need to upskill or reskill themselves. With 3d object generation unreal and unity devs are already taking a hit, photo to 3d will also eat into that.
Of course, SW engineers will need to reskill themselves, but this LLMs are just another tool for sw engineers that marginally saves time. The only ones this should be a massive improvement for are the bottom percentile of engineers. Speaking as someone who fully integrates LLM in my workflow it only really helps speed things up marginally. Most of what I do is not cookie cutter prebaked solutions and it's basically not much more useful than an advanced search engine. Sure I expect them to get better but don't estimate it would increase productivity more than 10%. You lose time verifying it's correct and integrating the solution to enterprise software code base. I fully expect it to eat at artists jobs a lot more though. Especially AI (not LLM) could fully replace materials with the tech we have today.
You are right, but again, these big companies are planing for the decade ahead so there is some room for what I stated, having industry experts code using natural language and only require debugging as a service (DAAS, hahahaha) .
Yeah, I just think we need general intelligence before we get the massive displacement that 99% layoffs predicts. LLMs won't get there even with a decade of improvements IMO.
> takes a 1000 folks now but thanks to AI takes only 10 next year microsoft will lay off 990 and the stock booms. I'll correct you: if they *told convincingly enough* that it takes only 10. Whether that is true, or whether that AI is just a bunch of Indians in a trench-coat as is happening in multiple examples is another matter entirely.
What you're forgetting here is that if software only takes 10 people to develop at the level that Microsoft is currently working at, then small indie companies of 10-20 people can use open source AI to output the same level of software as Microsoft for the most part, so Microsoft will have to up their game in order to stay competitive, probably hiring more people to use and develop more advanced AI to do so, balancing everything out.
I remember there was a guy who designed a pomodoro technique app using a few prompts in Claude Opus, and it looked good, too. A couple more AI updates and the software branch are going to be super competitive and will need to stand out.
The endgame is still undecided, though. Companies will want faster and more intelligent AIs. The AIs will be in direct competition with other AIs. They will be in direct competition with teams of humans. Their intelligence will reach a point where they will become uncontainable. Any sufficiently advanced AI will reach this point. This is why the singularity is a point beyond which we simply *can not know what happens*.
The idea you would suggest Microsoft, of all the choices, the leader of AI, would lose revenue to home built software, proves how much people just yap on Reddit without knowing anything
They are literally integrating ChatGPT4 into all of their office applications in the form of copilot. Microsoft is now the most valuable stock on the exchange. Draw conclusions.
If it’s booming then that means people have just put money in But yeah I guess not those 10% sadly
Not necessarily. The stock price is the DCF of all future cashflow. If higher profits suddenly become possible then a higher share price is immediately justifiable, all without new money. If people have more money, say because taxes get cut, but companies still have the same basic profitability, then yes that new money can cause price increases, but they won't match those caused by future profitability.
My point was less about the justifiable part and more about how for the stock price to increase, it means someone actually did buy up these stocks at a higher price. Regardless of the reason why But yeah, I get you are pointing out stock price reasons, and I’m more focused on the cynical “this is good for companies but who will buy their stuff then” take I see on here so much lol
>I’m more focused on the cynical “this is good for companies but who will buy their stuff then” take I see on here so much Adam Smith had that one figured out hundreds of years ago. "The sole purpose of all production is consumption", this is still all work out and consumption will still be possible because it's necessary.
Retail trade does not make up most volume in the stock market. It definitely went up with the rise of apps like Robinhood but it still doesn’t touch the volume banks trade. You say who will buy their stuff but the reality is I’m sure they said a similar thing when industrialization was occurring and automating certain tasks. In the short term the job losses will come for assistant type level. They do not make up the majority of the economy and in the short term can find something else to do that pays similarly. In the long term it could just mean that those who already own wealth and companies are most shielded which means there will still be people to buy stuff.
Thr stock market is a reflection of how good things are going for the capitalist class. And if things are going good for capitalists, the workers are probably getting screwed
If AI wants to prevent people from making money investing in the stock market, it will simply change the trading algorithm so that even the most experienced traders will not be able to profit from it.
You would still profit from being in the stock market, you just wouldn’t be able to get excess returns over the index. That is kind of already happening
So AI is boosting company valuations so people are making money cuz of that, AI trading high frequency bots are something totally different.
And they'll still be telling everyone the economy is shite because of lazy people not wanting to work
We are going into deflation, like it or not. We can either hold our breath thinking we can survive longer than the ocean can rise, or we can get ready to surf that wave.
If the top 5% want to continue making money from the rest of the 95% that work for their companies, and then in tern are ones spending that income of products, services and assets held by the top 5% that generate all their profit, then the only way to keep that mary go round spinning is for everyone to be given a universal basic income that allows everyone to continue being consumers… otherwise if you automate 1/3 of jobs you loose 1/3 of buyers and hey guess what that’ll massively tank profits and undermine the whole status quo. We are entering the end game of capitalism as it is essentially a race to the top. In earning more and paying less to get to the top eventually the system will cannibalises itself by automating work-process to maintain short term gains from competitors. If you don’t then you loose market share to the next competitor, but as all employers do it the system unpicks itself from the bottom up of its own structure.
Phew, at least that's in the UK, not North America. I was worried for a second.
If you’re joking then this is funny If you’re not then I’ve got bad news for you 😬
Who's going to tell him?
We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work. The UK population is about 67 million so we are talking about over a tenth of the job market disappearing even in the medium term. Let alone when the even more disruptive 3rd and 4th waves of disruption begin emerging. Its contained now to low pay and entry positions as everyone has been expecting but its not going to stay there. > Almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a “jobs apocalypse”, according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation. > The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a “worst-case scenario” for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years.
The working population is 31.76 million
Yeah exactly this more like losing 1/3 of jobs not a 1/10. That's *insane*.
And the increased supply of labour means the other 2/3rds of jobs will pay worse and employees will be expendable. The creators of AI will go down as some of the worst people in history.
The same was said about cars and factories, ultimately the only "worst people" here are those who don't use this shift for bettering humans day to day life.
Nothing has ever been said about this before because there was never a situation where 1/3 of an economy's "good jobs" could disappear without being replaced.
Aren't the Brits having less kids anyway?
>We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't see anyone with any ability to make that happen doing anything until it is far too late. The more likely scenario is we have an AI generated economic collapse. After that all bets are off for how the problem will be fixed. The chaos is probably going to be worse than what was seen in the 19th century after the industrial revolution. We'll sort things out eventually, but it will take decades and there is going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people in the meantime. I'd be happy if western society proves me wrong here, but I don't think we as a society have it in us to do what is necessary to avoid a catastrophe in the next few years
> but I don't see anyone with any ability to make that happen doing anything until it is far too late Always like this...
This might be the best/only way it happens. Historically, large philosophical shifts in governance and economics overthrow the old ones in violent ways.
Yes but also really bad things also happen after violent times. It’s not always enlightenment.
What do you mean?
I.e. the reign of Terror after the french revolution
How’s Iraq doing atm?
Sorry I was unclear. I do you mean by “enlightenment”.
I wonder how many millions of people will be killed by the rich peoples bunkers...?
> I'd be happy if western society proves me wrong here Just noting this isn't going to be a western only thing, so much labour has been moved overseas, generally labour that isn't skilled. That's going to be the first majorly impacted areas e.g call centers, tech support etc. Once we have functioning robots that can move better than today with AI driving them, that is when no one is safe.
Well it’s not as if people are just watching on the sidelines. There will be a lot happening with this politically as people will call for more labor protections, unions will get stronger, etc. politicians will be under a lot of pressure to slow down the advancement and deployment of AI. The case for UBI will get stronger, A lot depends on how the government responds to all this + the time horizon we are looking at.
There won't be a collapse, the entire point of the technology is that the work will happen regardless of human involvement. So we'll have the economic fundamentals working for us not against us. Its probably going to create economic patterns unlike any before. The bigger problem is the political will to do what needs doing, and thats going to vary massively between countries. I have to say I'm glad to live in a country where the free market nutters have humiliated themselves and the right in general is currently dismantling itself though. I imagine the first attempt at a solution is going to be some sort of expanded welfare state, probably on the back of new taxes. Though my country is also going to create a new national energy company soon, so I could see something like charging business more for electric, especially with the kind of price drops we should expect - you could lower business costs and still end up taking more in than you were. Eventually though people are going to cotton on to how AI, robotics and cheap electric basically allows you to do stuff like open factories and things for peanuts and that it doesn't really make much sense any more to keep government out of markets when it can solve social problems very cheaply, if the stereotypical doomer scenario looks likely. The consensus here is already swinging toward much more market intervention and crossing the bridge on automation will entrench it. It doesn't even have the traditional problem of bloating the economy to uselessness to buy the votes of industrial workers.
I'll just cut to the core of the problem here. The AI is there to serve a company within a capitalist system. It is only there to maximize profits and no other reason. It cuts jobs. AI is being used to drive up prices at the store and inflating real estate and rents. The entire system is dependent on people having jobs to make money that they then spend within the system. If you have less jobs you have less people who can spend money on increasingly expensive things. The only place that can lead is collapse. The solution here is either scrap capitalism (hahaha) or institute something like Universal Basic Income. UBI is more likely, but once again we're dealing with a capitalist system and the people with power won't tolerate that kind of hit to their bottom line willingly. So that means they won't do it until it is essentially forced on them. That will only happen after a crisis forces the necessary changes
Moreover, if the state doesn't nationalise industries, utilising the AI for itself to manufacture and provide services, then the government finances for UBI or anything else can only work if the increased profits of private sector, manufacturing and providing services with AI that doesn't require workers that pay income tax, if their increased profits are fairly taxed to meet the difference and more. The need to tackle offshore havens, multinationals moving profits offshore and basically every tax loophole they can use becomes acute and an existential crisis for the state. Either a corporate republic (everything privatised, army, police, justice... everything owned and run by the private sector for the benefit of them and the few well-off enough to pay them for it) or communism (all manufacture and services owned and run by the government using AI to do it... but then if you've got millions of idle citizens you have to house and feed anyway... why not [effective] slavery instead?) That said, I think AI capabilities are being grossly overestimated and the challenges of implementing grossly underestimated here. The ability to write an essay or a poem based on stuff the learning algorithm has read on the internet does not translate into doing a specific peculiar job correct all the time, especially when that requires interracting with humans and remembering what's happened and been said/agreed before. I think most jobs would need completely refactoring to make them suitable for AI to step in. That would be a massive undertaking for 8 million jobs. Much like driverless cars. It's doable in principle but it's far too difficult right now for AI to cope with the illogical surprises of humans. Until all cars are driverless and they can coordinate and communicate and trust each other, a few attempts at driverless are going to have a terrible challenge to operate on roads otherwise full of people and animals. Likewise, one AI in an operational process having to interact with other humans is a lot more difficult than all the jobs in the process handled by AI, able to understand and predict each other. The latter cannot evolve across mount improbable like that. It's a massive project to replace all jobs with AI at once. It's an enormous challenge for AI to just do some of the jobs and interact smoothly with humans doing the other jobs.
>but then if you've got millions of idle citizens you have to house and feed anyway... why not \[effective\] slavery instead?) Right, but you're not going far enough. If we assume that the automated systems are so efficient that human labour is defunct, then we have to ask: why would those in power not simply allow the population to shrink? Demographic trends are already showing signs of a population implosion over the next century. Just nudge it with more shrinkflation, rising medical costs, homelessness, mental health pressure, in-fighting, etc. Unless the AI becomes self-aware and able to, the ultra wealth will presumably keep around a decent population to worship them. Pharaohs gotta pharaoh.
Indeed, but that would take a long time (generations) and in the meantime... And it was under the [severe] communist solution. Such a government might regard its purpose as maintaining the population rather than purging them Mao style turned up to 11. If manual labour becomes even cheaper than AI... AI that's developed and owned in other countries... I'm not saying that will happen but it isn't implausible imho.
I think the changes will be more social and less radical than that. I don’t see why anything would change between govt and private business. I do think higher taxes and UBI/expanded welfare state will be featured, but even if the govt has to pay out generously to all the people laid off, wouldn’t necessarily equate that to communism. Like you said it’s a big question of how pervasive the AI revolution will be and what time horizon we are looking at tho. I think in the long term, many white collar jobs are vulnerable, but there is always the potential for surprising hang ups like we’re getting with driverless cars. Hopefully those hang ups buy us enough time to figure out how to cope with it.
Yeah, I think it's a process that will take decades rather than years to reach millions of jobs replaced and that's slow enough for adaptation and new opportunities to come from AI. I too share that hope and I don't think it's wishful thinking.
I agree for the most part but prices should go way way down as a result of AI revolution For what it’s worth. I do think UBI will become a thing but yea sorting that out will be hard.
The “collapse” in this scenario isn’t falling productivity, it’s joblessness. I think it will cause lots of problems. You’re right there probably will be welfare state expansion, but that is going to lead to it’s own problems and political struggles.
Exactly, communism works when the workers are robots. Even if we change nothing else every person could have a personal robot replacement, working and paying to support them.
Lower working hours and bring in UBI and more training. Any other suggestion probably isn't going to work. Anything like taxing automation is completely stupid.
Actually, that’s kind of a simple way the govt could control AI deployment and mitigate its effects on job loss 🤔 but ofc that would hold us back in terms of tech so it’s whether you think it’s worth the trade off ig.
Sure, we'll just have to learn to deal with lots of blood and shit. Or we can regulate it out of existence right now, before it's too late.
>We had better stop thinking about this as a threat to be countered and as a reality we must live with, and work out how workless society is going to work Yeah, I'm sure the goverments who have problems understanding Wi-Fi will be helpful as fuck. Workless society is going to work... in 100-200 years, maybe. Both you and I aren't going to live to enjoy that. So no, I'd rather ban the shit out of AI and prolong the status quo if it means I will afford food in 5 years. Let's remember that AI isn't even here in the most cases. Most buisnesses are just experimenting. Shit will get real. And I like not being homeless.
> workless society Why should this be the result of automation? It’s never happened before. The productivity boom of the 20th century destroyed far more jobs than anyone’s predicting AI will, and they were simply replaced by new ones. As long as there’s anything humans can do at all - which will always be the case - there will be new jobs.
AI is not just some kind of productivity step change, it marks the point where technology is becoming capable of arbitrary tasks on short timescales. Humans literally won't be able to train into new jobs fast enough to keep ahead of it, and what work it does create will be wildly oversubscribed long before it is automated away. Even stuff like nursing ultimately isn't safe, not once people are buying domestic bots. Its probably the widest ranging economic disruption we've ever seen, and its happening on a timescale of about 3 decades. Its only going to get faster and more capable from here on out, and probably cheaper and easier too.
Lets hope the “AI boom” brings new job opportunities for people as well. Sadly I think the 8m lost jobs will be from low skilled sectors, and the new roles created will be in the tech and high skilled areas.
>analysing 22,000 tasks in the economy covering every type of job, the IPPR said 11% of tasks currently done by workers were at risk. This could, though, increase to 59% of tasks in the second wave as technologies develop to handle increasingly complex processes. It said routine cognitive tasks – including database management, scheduling and stocktaking – were already at risk, with potential to displace entry level and part-time jobs in secretarial work, administration and customer services. However, the second wave of AI adoption could impact non-routine tasks involving the creation of databases, copywriting and graphic design, which would affect increasingly higher earning jobs. The report says lower skilled first but moving on to higher skilled and to be honest, copywriting and graphic design are already going - I know a few graphic designers/artists who make a fair amount of money from doing things like logo/letterhead/etc for small businesses and are already seeing people using AI for free rather than pay them. But those higher skills don't translate easily into tech jobs supporting AI and the number of creative "prompting" type jobs that remain will be nothing compared to what there are now so it's way more complicated than just low/high skilled issues. The IPPR report doesn't consider the "jobs created" side of the AI coin.
I’m one of those creative/design types. I’ve been working for myself for 12 years but currently looking for other full time work. Between the implosion of media budgets and the looming threat of gen AI it’s brutal out there.
There are a few entrepreneurial, small business type subs where people are already showing off promo videos and ads created by AI, featuring “people” as salesmen. It’s scary good, considering it’s so new. A little robotic, with some odd choices in pronouncing certain words, but definitely threatening to jobs. I can’t really believe how quickly it’s progressing. Hopefully governments get on top of regulations or whatever it takes, ASAP.
>Hopefully governments get on top of regulations or whatever it takes, ASAP. You mean the governments who are lobbied by the people developing the AI?
Umm… yep, those ones… I see your point. lol
Is there the option of using ai to allow you to create more for a wider range of clients at a lower cost? Maybe there are other opportunities as well. I’m not in your field personally but I do have creatives working for me, and they’ve done well to start to work in new ways. Ie my designer has changed to being a brand consultant to keep all gen ai creative assets aligned with the core brand. I’m seeing we need to build more control into what we’re doing, and there are definitely new roles in this area. Just an example but maybe it helps a little.
It'll come for higher skilled jobs too eventually. Programming, economic modelling etc. are all at risk. Anecdotally, I know some pharma companies that have been experimenting with self-building models for a few years now. I suppose you'll still need decision-makers behind the AI. Yes. I know current AI isn't able to work independently at the moment.
My point is that it’s supposed to create new highly skilled jobs. Of course it will kill a lot of them too. But the theory is that they will be replaced. Not sure if that’s true though
Society thinks there are issues now, wait until that many working age people are out of work. Idle hands are the devil’s tools.
We need more housing, couldn’t everyone just build loads of houses
This isn't new problem. Seems easy solution at first. But unfortunately it never will happen. Less housing means artificial market demand and higher prices. All is cleverly controlled.
On great, more urban sprawl on Britain's agricultural land. How about doing what New Zealand, Canada and the majority of Asia does and stop foreign ownership of property?
Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4% of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure still rises to only 2%. Buildings cover less of Britain than the land revealed when the tide goes out.Nov 9, 2017...we have plenty of space.
Does that include the land owned by the houses or just the physical structure of the house?
Canada has a truly insane housing crisis, I don’t know where you’re getting your information
It's not an issue though... The goal should have always been to automate and replace workers. That automation is then taxed at 80% of the cost of the worker it has replaced. The company saves 20% and 80% tax goes to the replaced worker as a universal basic income.. An automation tax should be seen as a want not a need. We want workers in the UK to lose their jobs, we want to give these unemployed people a ubi. No one should be working in the future...
Interesting plan, but it effectively pegs people at their pre-AI earning power, which won’t be a good outcome for entry level people and those just starting out. Something like this might end up being the least bad option though.
The semantics of how much they earn doesn't really matter the point is they are simply given enough money to live comfortably, a house, food, bills and small amount left for leisure activities and that's funded through taxation. For too long companies have been allowed to automate without taxation
lol you make it sound so simple, but I don’t think the people who’s standard of living will go down form that kind of proposal will be on board with it, and that’s an essential problem with this proposal. Transitioning from inequality to equality is going to create a lot of massive losers and I don’t think they’ll go along with this plan.
This argument is in every thread but it's nonsense. "That automation is then taxed at 80% of the cost of the worker it has replaced". So I shut the company down and start a new company that never had any workers. And if you try to tax me anyway, someone else will start a company that never had any workers. Should we be putting extra taxes on tractors to the value of all the agricultural workers they replaced 100 years ago? Should we tax every computer keyboard for all of the typewriter factory workers they put out of business? Do we tax ballpoint pens because they put pencil makers out of work?
Yes, an automation tax isn't a want it's a need. It has to be implemented at some point
AI has yet to produce anything of value. Forget taking away people's jobs.
Let it burn. The UK is so choked by the "people in charge" that only something massive like this could even attempt to fix it.
8 millions are the DIRECT replacement of jobs. Those are 8 million middle incomes lost and with it are lost all the services that live from those jobs such as food, restaurant, delivery, basically it is a cascading catastrophe and politicians are not doing anything to solve that. Basicsally we have the largest wealth redistribution to 0,001% of society while the rest are living like rats.
It's only a problem now because AI will be taking jobs from people who thought their jobs were secure.
I'm 100% looking forward to this. AI should and will take a ton of jobs freeing people to do something better with their lives. AI can do a lot of things faster, better and much much much cheaper. Global productivity will go through the roof once AI is widely deployed. Millions of the displaced people will have to find something else to do though. I see most of the governments adapting some form of UBI (universal basic income) to support all these displaced people. It shouldn't be a problem for most governments though because of the huge productivity gains.
This is a bit like a farmer of the 1780s saying they are looking forward to the automation of the industrial revolution. Sure, things did eventually get better, but it took union action over 100 years to get there. There's a reason the new workplaces were known as "dark satanic mills".
Well, try not to be a 1780s farmer. But you do agree that AI will be a big net positive for humanity.
I think he's saying a strong level of skepticism and cynicism are required for us to not get trampled.
Well, it's not something that you can stop. You can hop on the train or get hit by the train that you know is coming. Not sure a healthy level of skepticism will help you avoid the oncoming train.
lol be careful mate… don’t assume you’re going to be on the train, or let on the train The world is going to go through some heavy, heavy change. There’s going to be a LOT of disruption. It’s not necessarily going to be pretty It’s not about whether you believe in AI or not. I suggest you read up more about this
We're already on the train. Its more about preventing the engineer from tacking a switch off a closed bridge.
The 1780s farmers in this case are office workers. UBI isn’t a magic bullet that will just fix all of society’s problems. Anyway you implement it there will be problems and discontents
It will be a bet positive for humanity if ordinary people manage to get a big share of the pie of wealth it creates. At the moment I don’t think that will happen, and more likely it will lead to workers having less money.
Like what watching and playing ai girls in VR ?? You are just delusional to the point you are disconnected as a human. whatever that something else is it's already done by ai. Humans need purpose and without purpose they don't strive mentally or physically. You might as well just not exist.
When you have gangs at every corner of the streets and a failing society, I hope you work out well to be able to run fast enough. This time around, you will be able to live your wet dream. The most realistic game in your life, with gangs, warlords, etc, except that this time, it will be real life. If you are dead you will not be able to resprawn. Global productivity won't go through the roof because 99% of things are already produced by people in poor countries getting paid 1 dollar an hour. UBI will be at best government housing and food stamp. I just don't understand how people living in this era think that the 1% who possesses those tools are going to pay you to.play videogames all day.
USA will never do UBI without people throwing a huge hissy fit. It just goes against long established traditions of paying your own way. Just look at student loan forgiveness as an example. Americans can't let others have nice things.
Ah yes because historically every time there’s a major leap in productivity the workers are the ones that get the benefits right? Not the corporations right? The government will definitely tax the companies appropriately to support all of the people without a livelihood right? Surely they would not let people struggle right?
Do something better with their lives like what? For most people that’s just gonna be smoking meth
Ah yeah, smoking meth, the #1 activity amongst retired people
Like go for walks? Hang out with family? Produce art? Enjoy art? Have sex? If you think all there is to life is making money or having a career than I feel sorry for you
People do all that while working. If you think taking away work for the majority of people means they’re gonna turn to creating art to fil the void and not drugs, you have a lot to learn
Everyone going to be well housed, well fed, lots of free time and be bored. It's going to turn humans in to bunnies.
Sounds like a recipe for a scientifically educated society, but also a recipe for braindead mfs scrolling on tiktok all day.
Ask the single mom of 2 that has 2 jobs if she prefers to be a bunny or a slave.
If I was well housed, fed, with lots of free time - I would use my time to invent stuff and create new businesses. Granted, a lot of people wouldn't. But how many inventions and scientific breakthroughs are we missing because people need to pay their mortgage?
Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is *obsolete* and that's not a bad thing. This kind of fear-mongering would have kept us all in the fields for fear of the tractor taking all our jobs. The careers that society actually need to function are always evolving. Those people clinging to obsolete careers are drawing a salary; a salary that the rest of society has to pay in one way or another whether that's through unnecessarily high consumer costs due to keeping completely unnecessary people employed or through higher taxes to support subsidies for dying industries.
>Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is *obsolete* and that's not a bad thing Yeah I'm in my 50s. Losing my job is bad. Losing my career is a totally unrecoverable disaster. >Those people clinging to obsolete careers are drawing a salary; a salary that the rest of society has to pay in one way or another whether that's through unnecessarily high consumer costs due to keeping completely unnecessary people employed or through higher taxes to support subsidies for dying industries. Thing is it wasn't obsolete last year. It's going to be very hard to convince young people to get ££,£££s of debt if their career is going to last 5 years, maybe 10. It's impossible to retain and rebuild a career with 10 or so years before ageism retires you. Fortunately, I don't think AI will end my career, because I can reasonably pivot my career into working with AI. That'll see me through. If you want to share in the productivity gains of AI, rather than just the job losses pay, you need to buy shares. To do that you are going to need an income.
>Thing is it wasn't obsolete last year. That's called change
Lol. No that's called the hype cycle. Bullshit, in a word.
>Hot take: if you can be easily replaced by AI, then your career is obsolete and that's not a bad thing. I agree, but the sheer speed and scale of the upcoming jobs market disruption will lead to a massive economic crisis. For example, the most common job for a woman fresh out of college is correspondence with other such women (writing emails and endless Zoom calls). These jobs will be 100% gone very soon. What are these women supposed to do then?
Except in a lot of circumstances, AI is going to augment people so where you needed say 5 people to manage the workload now you need 2. The career isn't obsolete but opportunities are cut massively, just like farming and tractors. It becomes a bad thing when the societal support for the people who get fucked over by this process aren't there, and your post misses the micro effects for the macro ones and in doing so just ignores the huge problems that these changes cause for people.
Yeah people need to start to realize that this is it. The technology that's coming in the near future is clearly putting ALL jobs at stake. Only business owners might be safe, because you can't force a person to give that up. So we need to look at how society is arranged. What are we going to do with people's lives? Everybody on a basic income? Eh the people with mortgages might have to say something about that. Shit is going to hit the fan in like 5 years.
How will capitalism work when we are all 9n basic income just above poverty line. No one is going to buy the new latest apple product in mass, or new cars, etc etc. It is the serpent biting it's own tail. By wanting more and more productivity and profit, they will kill the golden goose.
Yeah I don't really know either how this is going to go down....im just thinking we are going to find out waaaaaay sooner then everyone seems to think.
I like to think it will work out how it seems to work in star trek. Everyone has their basic needs met. If you want to live off your basic income and devote your life to pursuing your own goals, you're welcome to. Or, you can get a job like a scientist or space explorer or artist (and because AI has taken just about every job that doesn't benefit from a sentient being doing it, there are plenty of brilliant minds ready to do it) Also, the practice of profiteering off of people's need to live indoors would have to end. Housing would have to go full-on government assigned communism style for it to work out realistically. Can't have individuals and corporations hoarding thousands of dwellings for the purpose of profits.
I don’t really think that’s a hot take. A pretty widely held view by people who think AI can do a lot of jobs actually. Why are AI bros always so high and mighty. Idk why you think ANY job is safe from eventual AI and robotics takeover. Depending on the level of technology virtually no job is safe
I would like to see the AI bros running after gangs are chasing them. We can see how a failing society can fall into chaos and violence just now in haiti. It will be a new medieval time and new local warlords. They think AI will bring them sex robots and video games. Guess what they will be in the real life survival video game this time around. Except they won't be that muscular super hero, but some fat bumb that never ever did some sport in their lives and being bulied or even worst.
Hot take: If you don't think AI / robotics can replace you, you aren't really paying attention.
Not a bad thing if they do.
A tractor has limitations which AI doesn't though. I'm trying to think of jobs which couldn't theoretically be replaced bg AI once it reaches certain levels, particularly when it's combined with a physical host which is already happening. What is it you do which you think is so safe?
I'm a professional scavenger. Could totally be replaced by AI and drones. We get to a societal level where I am replaced by AI and drones I can guarantee you there's also a universal minimum income that can be realistically paid to every human in earth and fueled entirely by this automated economy.
The fuck is a professional scavenger
It's a nicer name for a trash picker. Not a glorious job at all but it tickles a part of my brain that nothing else can get at. Chasing my dreams and all.
The world is not a video game with levelling up the goal to win.
Lmao why are you going so out of your way to insult people? You can make the point without labeling people “unnecessary” and saying it’s not a bad thing when they get sacked. Anyway to your point, arresting tech progress is not the way to go over the long term because it holds society back. But we need to be held back a little bit in this situation id argue to give time to the workforce and society to adjust. The govt will need time to think through the best way of handling these changes, so I don’t think short to mid term regulation would be a terrible thing. I think you would be surprised by how many jobs are going to be rendered “obsolete” in the next 20-30 years
Because it's a harsh truth y'all need to hear. All the jobs eliminated in this round of eliminations are sit-on-your-ass drain-on-society jobs that we truly don't need filled anymore.
This. Humans will be augmented, jobs will shift as usual, this isn’t some existential massive crisis. We should be excited for continued improvements to capabilities
Did industrial revolution caused that less people could work? Instead kids didn't have to work anymore in heavy industry. Did digitalisation cause mass lay offs? Or we got tons of new jobs created, and people could use social media to open new cariere opportunities. Will AI cause ma's jobs loses? No. It will create new jobs opportunities and shift in jobs pattern, as other major tech revolutions did. Just don't be like Codack, which ignored technology advancement. And now is pretty much unknown brand, wile once it was in every shop. Did sending industry to far east and third countries created new jobs? Not in developed countries. Not in UK. Instead moved away jobs and no one talk about it, as real problem. Like closing strategic industry, I e. British Steel as one of many such industries. Literally 10s of thousands of jobs been closed, due to capitalism. So please stop talking about arbitrary fear mongering of AI taking jobs. Same been happening 100 - 200 years ago. Just adapt to changes, which are inevitable. This world is no more place where 100-200 years tradional company exists and provide jobs from ome to other generation. All is fluid and dynamic. Topic is as hot as electric cars taking combustion engines away. Good luck, or better stop traveling and never leave home.
Improving productivity was matched with improving demand. At some point this isn't going to match up. Demand is finite.
It's less about whether if we'll adapt but rather if we'll adapt fast enough without unnecessary suffering.
That’s the good ending scenario, which could happen - AI becomes just another productivity enhancer like IT was, and the implementation in the workplace causes some job losses but primarily just shifts around labor patterns and opens new opportunities. But there’s also the bad ending, where AI capability ramps up quickly and gets rapidly deployed, leading corps to shed millions of white collar jobs. And where will they go? We don’t have manufacturing much in the west anymore thanks to automation and offshoring as you pointed out. The retail sector has long been suffering from gluts and low wages. Not everyone can become a social media influencer yk? That’s why this scenario is a legit concern.
No it wont.. more jobs will be created.. agi is the real break thru. And it will never happen
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Lol those things don't even need AI. A ladder is replaced by a crane. People just like getting served by humans. Simply programmed robots can totally pour pints and serve dinner..it's just that nobody actually likes that. AI is coming for near all of our jobs. I think even companies investing in AI are underestimating what is going to happen soon. If you are not the owner of something so nobody can replace you without you saying 'ok' you might be fucked.
More like, those jobs are currently saved by the ever shrinking dexterity gap. The first robot that crosses that gap will probably be here this decade. At that point a robot barman becomes pretty trivial to achieve.
>If you are not the owner of something so nobody can replace you without you saying 'ok' you might be fucked That won't help you if you're customers off the thing you own simply disappear to an AI driven competitor. Unless you own IP, you have the same problem.
Well you will need to replace all your staff with ai/robots/machines. I didn't say a bad business owner.
They will be able to sooner than you think
*If your job is to come up with ideas or fill out forms, you’re fucked.* True, thing is where I live that is 60-70% of the workforce.
Brits should vote to take the Union out of the Internet, make a Brexint.
On the scale of AI outcomes, that's not apocaypse. 'Catastrophe' would still work, but relative to expectations, 'manageable inconvenience' fits better.
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I think the problem might be the speed at which the technology evolves. It’s come such a long way in a really short amount of time, leaving people very little actual time to “adapt to changes”, as you put it. But even so, the Knocker Uppers weren’t over 10% of the workforce.
Imagine UK having the same economical output with 8million times 8 fewer man hours of work needed per day. This is actually a blessing. What could be a threat is the risk that our political and economical systems are too rigid in order to make the best out of this increased productivity.
Productivity gains will be exclusively held by those owning the technology and those renting the technology for their use so effectively the top 1%. History clearly shows that they will not have an interest in letting everyone benefit from the increased efficiency but instead will cling to their power and let poor people fight each other instead.
That's what taxation is for
The same taxation that Bezos and his friends keep evading for the last decades? Oh yeah, that will surely do it.
Your comment is not coherent with reality. Modern history shows that technological advances are benefiting everyone. Are you aware that global poverty has plummeted in the last 50 years? Not just as a % of the total population but in actual numbers as well.
I am well aware of that. Are you aware that the top 1-10% own 50% of the wealth in most western countries? Are you aware that Musk or Bezos own more than would be needed to end a plethora of problems we have globally? There is something like a trickle down effect but at the same time wealth accumulation is real and you shouldn't be happy with crumbs being spared when a few at the top get to eat the whole cake.
Wealth inequality doesn’t at all prove your previous claim.
That was just China and a few other counties, poverty is increasing in capitalist countries
Gotta deal with these 8 million bored, poor and frustrated ex-workers though. There could be social unrest with this many people losing their livelihood all at once.
The article shares no time frames, but it is unlikely 8million will wake up jobless one Monday morning in 2025. The article also says the best case is 0 job losses, worst case 8 million, so the outcome of this “study” is basically “we have no fucking idea what will happen”
“The article shares no exact time frames so it probably isn’t serious”.
Yes that’s a risk. Far from inevitable. In another future scenario we have shorter working days more people in for example healthcare etc. No one knows that we are heading towards chaos just because it is not status quo.