> make the balance between capital and labor even more uneven.
I think it's interesting to note that as opens source models evolve and proliferate, the capital required for a lot of ventures goes down - which levels the playing field.
When I can talk to one agent-with-a-CAD-integration and have it design a gadget for me and ship the design off to a 3D printer and then have another agent write the code to run on the gadget, I'll be able to build entire ventures that would require VC funding and a team now.
When intellectual capital is democratized, financial capital looses just a bit of power...
What value do you bring to the venture, though? What makes your venture more likely to succeed than anybody else's, if the barrier is that low? I mean, I'll tell you: if anyone can spend $100 to design the same new gadget, the winner is going to be whoever can spend a million in production (to get economy of scale) and marketing. Currently, financial capital needs your brain, so you can leverage that. But if they can use a brain in the cloud instead, they're going to do just that. Sure, you can use it and design anything you can imagine, but nobody is going to pay you for it unless you, yourself, bring some irreplaceable value to the table.
At present, if you have financial capital and need intellectual capital you need to find people willing to work for you and pay them a lot of money. With enough progress in AI you can get the intellectual capital from machines instead, for a lot less. What loses value is human intellectual capital. Financial capital just gained a lot of power, it can now substitute for intellectual capital.
Sure, you could pretend this means you'll be able to launch a startup without any employees, and so will everyone. But why wouldn't Sam Altman or whomever just start AI Ycombinator with hundreds of thousands of AI "founders"? Do you really think it would be more "democratic"?
Think the marginal cost of developing complex software goes down thereby making it affordable to a greater market. There will still be a need for skilled software engineers to understand domains, limitations of AI, and how to harness and curate AI to develop custom apps. Maybe software engineering for the masses. Local small businesses can now maybe afford to take on custom software projects that were before unthinkable.
> There will still be a need for skilled software engineers to understand domains, limitations of AI, and how to harness and curate AI to develop custom apps.
But will there be a need for fewer engineers, though? That's the question. And the competition for those who remain employed would be fierce, way worse than today.
> I'm worried these technologies may take my job away
The way I look at this is that with the release of something like deepseek the possibility of running a model offline and locally to work _for_ you while you are sleeping, doing groceries, spending time with your kids / family is coming closer to a reality.
If AI is able to replace me one day I'll be taking advantage of that way more efficiently than any of my employee(s).
You won't be happy doing a robot's job either, at least not for long.
In the ideal case, we won't be dependent on the unwilling labor of other humans at all. Would you do your current job for free? If not -- if you'd rather do something else with your productive life -- then it seems irrational to defend the status quo.
One thing's for certain: ancient Marxist tropes about labor and capital don't bring any value to the table. Abandon that thinking sooner rather than later; it won't help you navigate what's coming.
That's not historically what's happened though, is it? We've had plenty of opportunities to reduce the human workload through increased efficiency. What usually happens is people demand more - faster deliveries, more content churn; and those of us who are quite happy with what we have are either forced to adapt or get left behind while still working the same hours.
Because billionaires think that you are a horse and that the best course of action is to turn you into glue while they hope AGI lets them live forever.
joshmarlow|1 year ago
I think it's interesting to note that as opens source models evolve and proliferate, the capital required for a lot of ventures goes down - which levels the playing field.
When I can talk to one agent-with-a-CAD-integration and have it design a gadget for me and ship the design off to a 3D printer and then have another agent write the code to run on the gadget, I'll be able to build entire ventures that would require VC funding and a team now.
When intellectual capital is democratized, financial capital looses just a bit of power...
breuleux|1 year ago
toth|1 year ago
At present, if you have financial capital and need intellectual capital you need to find people willing to work for you and pay them a lot of money. With enough progress in AI you can get the intellectual capital from machines instead, for a lot less. What loses value is human intellectual capital. Financial capital just gained a lot of power, it can now substitute for intellectual capital.
Sure, you could pretend this means you'll be able to launch a startup without any employees, and so will everyone. But why wouldn't Sam Altman or whomever just start AI Ycombinator with hundreds of thousands of AI "founders"? Do you really think it would be more "democratic"?
bubbleRefuge|1 year ago
the_af|1 year ago
But will there be a need for fewer engineers, though? That's the question. And the competition for those who remain employed would be fierce, way worse than today.
Or so I fear. I hope I'm wrong.
Vampiero|1 year ago
ghxst|1 year ago
The way I look at this is that with the release of something like deepseek the possibility of running a model offline and locally to work _for_ you while you are sleeping, doing groceries, spending time with your kids / family is coming closer to a reality.
If AI is able to replace me one day I'll be taking advantage of that way more efficiently than any of my employee(s).
esafak|1 year ago
ghxst|1 year ago
jonas21|1 year ago
CamperBob2|1 year ago
In the ideal case, we won't be dependent on the unwilling labor of other humans at all. Would you do your current job for free? If not -- if you'd rather do something else with your productive life -- then it seems irrational to defend the status quo.
One thing's for certain: ancient Marxist tropes about labor and capital don't bring any value to the table. Abandon that thinking sooner rather than later; it won't help you navigate what's coming.
cryptopian|1 year ago
hooverd|1 year ago
llm_trw|1 year ago