I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true.
The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people.
This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thus simply having AI gives you leverage to not hire as many people and still stay competitive. The same thing happened with computers writ large, during the early days the folks that used computers had massive leverage over those that did not.
But what happens in 5-10 years once most orgs standardize on that leverage and everyone has it. All of a sudden that advantage AI gave you over others evaporates and you're right back to how things have always been, that is more humans give you more leverage.
I think once AI is broadly adopted and standardized, there will be an insane boom period for workers.
This makes the assumption that humans are needed to drive these AI assisted workflows. I don't think that's going to be the case at all.
The majority of office jobs are comprised of many simple tasks that current and, to an even greater extent, future, models can handle with ease.
Not all companies are looking for 10x productivity gains. I assume most of them probably just want to do exactly what they are doing now but with lower costs.
Even before AI, there was a serious hiring problem in the United States. Companies seem hell bent on not hiring full time employees at a livable wage. I don't blame the technology, but I do blame the greed of business owners and investors.
While its easy to look at the big picture and long term and say everything will all work out, there are so many individuals who are being hurt because of layoffs, reduced hiring, etc. My team is stressed out because they feel an axe hanging over their heads because private equity has declared no more hiring US developers. It's either AI or outsourcing. We should try to be empathetic because real people are losing their livelihoods and the long term isn't going to help them one bit.
Using AI as leverage for labor is myopic. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that use it to automate and allow its employees to go deeper and innovate. The fish can rot from the head or not.
The economics of AI investment don't make sense without the promise of vast displacement of labor. There's a ceiling on how much value can be created for a company simply by them using AI to crank out a higher throughput of TPS reports.
I don't broadly disagree and see AI opening up opportunities that didn't exist before but with respect to companies hiring large numbers of people I wonder what the people will be doing?
Come to think of it, I sort of wonder what many people with office jobs now are doing.
One sickening idea I had is even more bureaucracy. You know how any big infra project now has tens of thousand of pages of impact reports, studies and so on. With AI it can be easily scaled to millions if not more. Lots of words that then will be ingested by other AIs. All happily burning electricity in the process.
So more documentation that no one will ever read... Both generated and summarised multiple times by AI...
The same thing they are already doing? Being a companion for someone who doesn't want to be alone.
The human touch, if you will, is hard to replicate. Even where AI can convincingly act human, that often isn't enough to satisfy what people feel. Just look at the HN guidelines as a perfect example. "HN is for conversation between humans." If it were about the content then any suitable content would be welcome, regardless of the origin, but people are here under the belief that they are making a connection with other people.
Maybe someday AI will replace the business owners and managers too, but so as long as humans control the resources, they will choose to surround themselves with other humans by expending some of those resources towards those other humans.
There are places where 20% of society (or more) are unemployed. They're not nice places. They're run by gangs or warlords. They're the kind of place where teenagers sit on steps and just wait for the wrong person to walk past them.
There was a change in the world, which went largely unnoticed - sometime in 2013-2017 the global number of infants peaked, never to recover.
Those 20% would just figure that there's no need to have children when you can just focus on yourself and go largely extinct within a generation, replaced with some people from the higher tiers, but not nearly enough to make up for those who weren't born.
This actually has been happening without AI for a while now, but I imagine technology would accelerate the process.
The article clearly implies that one of the reasons why they "talk such nonsense" is because they are male, but no explanation is given - bog standard misandry that I take umbrage with.
I don't find the "AI will cause mass unemployment" argument compelling, in fact I see the opposite as being true.
The reason we are talking so much about that now is that at the current level of productivity, we just don't need as many humans to do the work, as companies can use AI as leverage to not hire as many people.
This i feel will be a short lived period where not everyone has adopted AI to the fullest and thus simply having AI gives you leverage to not hire as many people and still stay competitive. The same thing happened with computers writ large, during the early days the folks that used computers had massive leverage over those that did not.
But what happens in 5-10 years once most orgs standardize on that leverage and everyone has it. All of a sudden that advantage AI gave you over others evaporates and you're right back to how things have always been, that is more humans give you more leverage.
I think once AI is broadly adopted and standardized, there will be an insane boom period for workers.
This makes the assumption that humans are needed to drive these AI assisted workflows. I don't think that's going to be the case at all.
The majority of office jobs are comprised of many simple tasks that current and, to an even greater extent, future, models can handle with ease.
Not all companies are looking for 10x productivity gains. I assume most of them probably just want to do exactly what they are doing now but with lower costs.
Even before AI, there was a serious hiring problem in the United States. Companies seem hell bent on not hiring full time employees at a livable wage. I don't blame the technology, but I do blame the greed of business owners and investors.
While its easy to look at the big picture and long term and say everything will all work out, there are so many individuals who are being hurt because of layoffs, reduced hiring, etc. My team is stressed out because they feel an axe hanging over their heads because private equity has declared no more hiring US developers. It's either AI or outsourcing. We should try to be empathetic because real people are losing their livelihoods and the long term isn't going to help them one bit.
In the long term the sun will go red giant and all life on earth will die.
In the short term I still need to eat, and tech integration that takes 20 years in the economy might leave me totally fucked!
5 to 10 years of 20% unemployment could be verydangerous in places like the us
You think? Here's the U.S. unemployment rate during the great depression
Who's going to buy the results of that extra output while most people are laid off? Where is the growth going to actually come from?
Even before LLMs, the cost of living and finding a job that left any disposal income were major societal issues.
Using AI as leverage for labor is myopic. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that use it to automate and allow its employees to go deeper and innovate. The fish can rot from the head or not.
The economics of AI investment don't make sense without the promise of vast displacement of labor. There's a ceiling on how much value can be created for a company simply by them using AI to crank out a higher throughput of TPS reports.
Yes, the value of TPS reports diminishes with throughput.
That's why Jevon's Paradox is the dumbest meme we've had this year. The parent concept of marginal utility describes why AI isn't that useful.
I don't broadly disagree and see AI opening up opportunities that didn't exist before but with respect to companies hiring large numbers of people I wonder what the people will be doing?
Come to think of it, I sort of wonder what many people with office jobs now are doing.
trying to reify the proposed efficiency gains they have been told are just out of reach
One sickening idea I had is even more bureaucracy. You know how any big infra project now has tens of thousand of pages of impact reports, studies and so on. With AI it can be easily scaled to millions if not more. Lots of words that then will be ingested by other AIs. All happily burning electricity in the process.
So more documentation that no one will ever read... Both generated and summarised multiple times by AI...
The same thing they are already doing? Being a companion for someone who doesn't want to be alone.
The human touch, if you will, is hard to replicate. Even where AI can convincingly act human, that often isn't enough to satisfy what people feel. Just look at the HN guidelines as a perfect example. "HN is for conversation between humans." If it were about the content then any suitable content would be welcome, regardless of the origin, but people are here under the belief that they are making a connection with other people.
Maybe someday AI will replace the business owners and managers too, but so as long as humans control the resources, they will choose to surround themselves with other humans by expending some of those resources towards those other humans.
So the tendency to hire friends and "cool looking" people instead of smart talented people will get even worse?
I don't find the argument that advanced AI will leave 20% of society permanently unemployed particularly compelling
There are places where 20% of society (or more) are unemployed. They're not nice places. They're run by gangs or warlords. They're the kind of place where teenagers sit on steps and just wait for the wrong person to walk past them.
Like where?
Fortunately it's extremely unlikely.
There was a change in the world, which went largely unnoticed - sometime in 2013-2017 the global number of infants peaked, never to recover.
Those 20% would just figure that there's no need to have children when you can just focus on yourself and go largely extinct within a generation, replaced with some people from the higher tiers, but not nearly enough to make up for those who weren't born.
This actually has been happening without AI for a while now, but I imagine technology would accelerate the process.
Wait until you're in that 20%.
> males who come from narrow Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) backgrounds
I see, so women from narrow Stem backgrounds would totally handle these issues differently, got it.
I think you left this off.
> the main reason is that they are, overwhelmingly, males
Was that intentional? Do you disagree that tech is overwhelmingly male?
Do you happen to be someone who believes in differences in the sexes? Just curious.
The article clearly implies that one of the reasons why they "talk such nonsense" is because they are male, but no explanation is given - bog standard misandry that I take umbrage with.
Unironically, yes. It would be totally different.
i dont know anyone who wants AI
only use case i see, is ... helping disabled people
Maybe you - as in, whoever says that - should go first talk to them, because I don't know any disabled people wanting AI (data set of one).
Why didn't you regard it as a promotion or marketing strategy? Actually it is
https://archive.ph/fRwM4
Rather ironically you spend time outside Silicon Valley it would appear those most at risk of “mass unemployment” are the folks full-press pushing AI.
It’s “cool” and the tech is here to stay, but we appear light years away from anything like what was promised from materializing.
The current hype cycle is clearly barreling toward the “trough of disillusionment” phase of the Gartner hype cycle.
Full title: "Silicon Valley sees AI as the solution – for everyone else, it’s the problem"
I don't understand why OP cut that off... that's a completely different title.
Character limit..?
Even when the full title is displayed it can be interpreted in two ways.
Bait
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