It is what has underpinned all of human progress towards automation. It isn't a bad thing. Every time we automate something the luddites cry out about the coming mass unemployment. It has never happened.
>Every time we automate something the luddites cry out about the coming mass unemployment. It has never happened
It has happened each and every time, it just haven't affected you personally. Starting of course with the original luddites - they didn't complain out of some philosophical opposition to automation.
Each time in changes like this a huge number of people lost their jobs and took big hits in their quality of life. The "new jobs", when they arrive, arrive for others.
This includes the post 1990s switch to service and digital economies and outsourcing, which obliterated countless factory towns in the US - and those people didn't magically turn to coders and creatives. At best they took unemployment, big decreases in job prospects, shitty "gig" economy jobs, or, well, worse, including alcohol and opiods.
With AI it's even worse, since it has the capacity to replace jobs without adding new ones, or a tiny handful at a hugely smaller rate.
It literally happens every single time - people DO lose jobs. They might get new jobs, but they definitely lose their old ones.
And not everyone gets new jobs, because usually the new job is fundamentally different and might not be compatible with the person or their original desire out of their employment.
The problem isn't so much automation, but that the benefits of automation are invariably reaped by a few tech CEOs. It's not society in general that benefits, it's that the rich get richer, and the rest of us barely scrape by. If wealth were evenly distributed, nobody would bat an eyelid at AI.
AI is not the problem. Late-stage capitalism and wealth disparity is.
But most work IS drudge work and the automation causes new different drudgery. Use to be you could dictate a letter and someone from the typing pool would clean it up, proof it, and send it. Now those same people get to write their own crappy email themselves
There's the concept, and then there's the painting.
AI slop from a generic prompt is not the same as "using AI to get my concept in physical form faster."
Imagine, for example, a one-man animated movie. But, like, with a huge amount of work put into good, artistic, key-frames; what would previously have been a manga. That's possible, soon, and I think that's huge and actual art.
Except all the manufacturing jobs got shipped overseas and now those people are Walmart greeters or similar unskilled labor. Having a shit job isn’t unemployment but it’s not a huge step up
That isn't what happened. American jobs are more productive than ever. Americans are richer than ever. The modern luddites dramatically underestimate how bad the past was.
coldtea|2 months ago
It has happened each and every time, it just haven't affected you personally. Starting of course with the original luddites - they didn't complain out of some philosophical opposition to automation.
Each time in changes like this a huge number of people lost their jobs and took big hits in their quality of life. The "new jobs", when they arrive, arrive for others.
This includes the post 1990s switch to service and digital economies and outsourcing, which obliterated countless factory towns in the US - and those people didn't magically turn to coders and creatives. At best they took unemployment, big decreases in job prospects, shitty "gig" economy jobs, or, well, worse, including alcohol and opiods.
With AI it's even worse, since it has the capacity to replace jobs without adding new ones, or a tiny handful at a hugely smaller rate.
tim333|2 months ago
array_key_first|2 months ago
And not everyone gets new jobs, because usually the new job is fundamentally different and might not be compatible with the person or their original desire out of their employment.
stavros|2 months ago
AI is not the problem. Late-stage capitalism and wealth disparity is.
pchangr|2 months ago
loeg|2 months ago
malnourish|2 months ago
Whether or not it comes to fruition, it's making large portions of society feel uneasy, and not just programmers, or artists, or teachers.
pchangr|2 months ago
JeremyNT|2 months ago
Like, you know... creating art.
wombatpm|2 months ago
coldtea|2 months ago
It will leave not-yet-automatable grudge work to people instead.
tekne|2 months ago
There's the concept, and then there's the painting.
AI slop from a generic prompt is not the same as "using AI to get my concept in physical form faster."
Imagine, for example, a one-man animated movie. But, like, with a huge amount of work put into good, artistic, key-frames; what would previously have been a manga. That's possible, soon, and I think that's huge and actual art.
vlovich123|2 months ago
loeg|2 months ago
throwaway613745|2 months ago
It has happened every single time.