I consulted for three different large organisations over the last 14 months. All of them chose to let their workforce know that the management are "looking into using AI". In all three cases one of the first questions during all-hands town halls was "are we getting replaced by AI?" People are freaking out and managers are loving it, because they have shifted people's attention from how little they are getting paid to fearing being replaced by a hallucinating algorithm. So, based on my limited experience, I would argue that AI is a wage rise suppression tool, not a labour replacing tool.
My townhalls have been very different. My company introduced a harsh policy against AI, even local LLMs. The main fears were leaking IP & confidential information and contamination of code bases with poor or copyrighted code. That policy may loosen in future but I think it was the right move.
I think in the short term that definitely makes sense, but long term… I think we’ll see more and more jobs be automated away. Look at what Amazon is doing with their new wheelhouse robots. In 2 to 5 years that’s going to become mainstream. Maybe sooner.
Also, demographics and other changes (in many developed countries at least) mean we really need more labor replacing tools, as there’s simply a lack of human labor supply in many areas.
Of course, if the labor replacing process is too rapid, then that could become a problem.
I really worry that we're discussing these topics like idiots. I totally understand why you would look at a peice of technology that can enable 1 worker to do the work of 5 and panic. But... we're not living in Dickensian Britain. We know what happens when technology enables massive productivity improvements and the answer isn't mass unemployment. We're not living in some dystopia where typewriters caused mass unemployment.
I actually think to a large extent the corporate world is putting the cart before the horse. Unemployment is at an historic low, wages are growing fast and so this is a great story to tell as to how you're going to continue to exploit labour to enrich capital.
We've gone from a single person being able to buy a house and feed a family, to two salaries in many cases not being sufficient in the past 50 years. While you're right that mass unemployment didn't happen, wage stagnation certainly did.
More than a year into ChatGPT and… unemployment is at historic lows.
I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where workers have been replaced though if you have citations to actual empirical evidence for job losses please comment!
An alternative theory: Part of what AI CEO’s are doing is marketing their products. If you want to get investors and customers to pay your very expensive compute bill you’d better sell your product. You can sell your product by claiming it can replace workers. That doesn’t mean it can do it. If the current generation of LLMs can replace workers, that is not obvious.
Perhaps some future generation might be, but that will require something fundamentally different than what’s currently available. (And no I don’t think “more data” is enough.)
I'm always wondering when people speak about (un)employment. Like ok non-farm payroll numbers may look good but what kind of jobs, for what kind of pay?
Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worse at the same time?
Is there somewhere more specific data?
Other than that, I think I remember an article claiming that the introduction of thr personnal computers led companies to be able to generate the same revenue with less people. Like it used to be 8 employee per million USD and it got to 5.
Then again, depends of the size of the average enterprise and the market size (which increases with population increase)
Here are a few jobs that I'm aware of, which are already well on their way out:
- Language translators.
- Video annotation, summary, transcription.
- Voiceover artists.
- Graphic designers.
- Warehouse inventory work.
- Personal tutors.
- Junior software engineers.
There will still be openings for these roles in the future, just as there are still openings for Personal Assistants (secretaries, which were once as abundant as teachers and truck drivers), and maybe even the occasional Draftsman.
> The tech and media industries—which are uniquely exposed to the threat of AI-related job losses—saw huge layoffs last year, right as AI was “coming online.”
This is one of those cases where correlation isn't causation. The actually meaningful thing that came online were interests rates which people discovered can actually be above zero, and one thing that went offline was the pandemic.
AI as it currently exists is not a job replacing tool, it's a task automation tool and in that capacity no different from any other tool. And companies don't actually fire people when tasks get automated, they give the more productive employees more tasks so they can make the company more money.
surfingdino|2 years ago
janice1999|2 years ago
alexwhb|2 years ago
drooby|2 years ago
Society will adapt. As it always has. Most Americans no longer work on farms or factories either.
imartin2k|2 years ago
Of course, if the labor replacing process is too rapid, then that could become a problem.
mmh0000|2 years ago
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
mooreds|2 years ago
Economies are human constructs and can be changed with political will.
RetroTechie|2 years ago
SilverBirch|2 years ago
I actually think to a large extent the corporate world is putting the cart before the horse. Unemployment is at an historic low, wages are growing fast and so this is a great story to tell as to how you're going to continue to exploit labour to enrich capital.
_Algernon_|2 years ago
FirmwareBurner|2 years ago
We clearly live in different countries.
alexwhb|2 years ago
surfingdino|2 years ago
elevatedastalt|2 years ago
danpalmer|2 years ago
oth001|2 years ago
ls612|2 years ago
huitzitziltzin|2 years ago
I don’t remotely see the present generation of LLMs as being “labor replacing tools.” I’m aware of empirical work which shows them to be useful complements to human judgment, not substitutes for the same. I’m also aware of one study showing (iirc) less work for illustrators on an online job board. That latter case is the only case im aware of where workers have been replaced though if you have citations to actual empirical evidence for job losses please comment!
An alternative theory: Part of what AI CEO’s are doing is marketing their products. If you want to get investors and customers to pay your very expensive compute bill you’d better sell your product. You can sell your product by claiming it can replace workers. That doesn’t mean it can do it. If the current generation of LLMs can replace workers, that is not obvious.
Perhaps some future generation might be, but that will require something fundamentally different than what’s currently available. (And no I don’t think “more data” is enough.)
aatd86|2 years ago
Logically, employment may increase while people's standard of living may get worse at the same time?
Is there somewhere more specific data?
Other than that, I think I remember an article claiming that the introduction of thr personnal computers led companies to be able to generate the same revenue with less people. Like it used to be 8 employee per million USD and it got to 5. Then again, depends of the size of the average enterprise and the market size (which increases with population increase)
givemeethekeys|2 years ago
- Language translators.
- Video annotation, summary, transcription.
- Voiceover artists.
- Graphic designers.
- Warehouse inventory work.
- Personal tutors.
- Junior software engineers.
There will still be openings for these roles in the future, just as there are still openings for Personal Assistants (secretaries, which were once as abundant as teachers and truck drivers), and maybe even the occasional Draftsman.
malux85|2 years ago
schneems|2 years ago
Barrin92|2 years ago
This is one of those cases where correlation isn't causation. The actually meaningful thing that came online were interests rates which people discovered can actually be above zero, and one thing that went offline was the pandemic.
AI as it currently exists is not a job replacing tool, it's a task automation tool and in that capacity no different from any other tool. And companies don't actually fire people when tasks get automated, they give the more productive employees more tasks so they can make the company more money.