[djent]

You realize when you get automated out of your job, you need a new job? The "interesting problems" you'll be left with are hoping that you don't need to go to the ER after your health insurance ends

[keybored]

You’re posting on a site where many people think that for-profit employment will be replaced with UBI in the sense of a stipend which will free most people up to pursue their dreams and desires.[1] So 200+ years of for-profit employment and wealth extraction which created a very impressive wealth disparity until One Weird/Genius Policy proposal by Andre Yang/Musk will usher in the post-scarcity era.

[1] As opposed to something that will keep you alive but perhaps not give you any means of expressing or pursuing your interests. If UBI even becomes a thing.

[bluefirebrand]

> You’re posting on a site where many people think that for-profit employment will be replaced with UBI in the sense of a stipend which will free most people up to pursue their dreams and desires

Sure, but until you actually see evidence that this will become a reality instead of a pipe dream, you should be planning accordingly, right?

Even the most UBI optimistic people should expect there to be a very painful period of time where things are being automated and people are unemployed en masse which could last a long time before any kind of UBI is enacted

[djent]

Step 1. AI Step 2. ??? Step 3. UBI

[DaiPlusPlus]

> you'll be left with are hoping that you don't need to go to the ER after your health insurance ends

This is a US-only problem. The majority of software professionals in the world do not reside in the US.

[azangru]

They will be solving other interesting problems caused by unemployment.

[rcshubhadeep]

How come is it a US only problem? Well, the way the problem is stated is US only, but everyone will need a new job to bring bread on their plate or pay other bills? Whether they live in the US or not. Is it not true?

[keybored]

As you know that is only one of the potential problems caused by unemployment. Pointing out a concrete, potential life-or-death problem gives more punch than just saying abstractly that there will be problems.

So the boring version: you will be left with the problem of a sudden loss of money as (concurrently) labor power vanes because LLMs don’t go on strike and you have no one to complain to since no one with any power has to care (see: LLMs don’t strike) that unemployed person #5468 today couldn’t pay their mortgage again and/or started on an opioid death-of-despair campaign.

[bigstrat2003]

You're getting hung up on an irrelevant detail and missing the point. The point is that one will still have bills to pay even after they don't have a job. That is not a US-only problem, that is a human existence problem.

[debesyla]

Programmer's job isn't writing code - it's solving customer problems. And it's unlikely that customers will stop having (and creating new) problems.

"No job" is only a problem for someone who refuses to learn and move on. It's similar to having a child - first you have a job as a technician, then teacher, then mentor and lastly you are out of job until your customer makes you grandkids to care for, or something. ;-)

[rchaud]

Put a programmer out on the street, and they'll be on LinkedIn in 5 minutes with a big "For Hire" sign on their profile, like 99% of other people.

The idea that programmers serve some higher purpose in society ("solving customer problems") that frees them from the whims of corporate restructuring or bad management is laughable. Pray tell, how many programmers employed by Google or Netflix are solving actual problems? As opposed to helping build a bigger competitive moat?

[falcor84]

> you need a new job

Jobs as we know them have only been around for 500 or so years. There have been other ways of living beforehand and I expect we'll be about to figure another way in the near future. The only real argument I see for keeping jobs around even when human labor isn't needed anymore is the protestant moralistic one, and I don't buy that one.

[et-al]

> There have been other ways of living beforehand and I expect we'll be about to figure another way in the near future.

Or we revert back to serfdom and slavery.

[keybored]

The abstract occupations of most people for all the thousands years of advanced society (marked by the ability to accumulate and hoard food or other kinds of wealth) have been marked by subjugation in service to some elite classes. Naturally some people are a bit concerned about their future and are not content to just stumble/bumble into the future and see what kinds of “ways of living” the powers that be have in store for them.

[djent]

Yep subsistence farming in my living room is a good idea too. Do you think I could raise a cow in my bedroom if I swap out my queen bed for a twin?

[jtriangle]

Automation doesn't replace human work, it just amplifies how much work can be done.

There is -plenty- of work out there that's currently not worth taking that will be suddenly worth it if you can code 100x faster than you can now. It might be for jimbob's landscaping company instead of google, but that hardly matters outside of your ego.

[CogitoCogito]

I think the real problem is that in the US health insurance is tied to employment.

[soco]

So the US folks will have a real problem rather sooner than later. Of course, we others as well, better start investing time in woodworking, mechanics, healthcare or agriculture...

[ghaff]

Subsidized health insurance is tied to employment with subsidies probably at about the 50% level on average.

[kolinko]

What? Just because you don’t have work doesn’t mean you lose access to the public services.

But in all seriousness - the way I see it is that it’s a race to reaching post-scarcity utopia before we reach unemployment dystopia.