The insightful mathematical part of exponential progress is that this is a mathematical law without memory.
In concrete terms, that means that blue-collar workers are protected for exponentially less time than you expect because at this rate of progress the limits of robotics automation are getting piled through
So to answer your question I do think that AI will create greater and greater pressure for many jobs starting from bad software engineers and gradually but quickly eating up through every part of society.
I will be a psychiatrist in a few years and know that there are ways to practice psychiatry that really only rely on easy soft skills and applying pharmacological heuristics and guidelines. Of course, all of this can be very well accomplished by not so frontier models in not so long from now.
But for every given job though, there are ways to practice them that are completely irreplaceable. The software engineer that invents Linux. The psychiatrist that does miracles with mostly his voice. The mechanic who has invaluable insights. And golden fingers. and then of course it is extremely hard to get at this level of mastery if you have never been able to practice as a beginner this job because AI took the place of junior level work.
So yeah I am sometimes scared that AI will completely replace huge swaths of society but then that seems so extreme and yet so believable the only thing I can think of is that prediction markets are maybe among the most important technology right now to figure out our best moves at both individual and societal levels.
And on the topic of psychiatry there’s also things I don’t think humans are ready to let AI do.
I can see how some assessments could be done easier with AI, and how some therapies could also be done using AI…
But can you imagine a chronically depressed person being willing to let an AI do ECT’s on them??
Well in practice ECTs are hard to do because of the drugs and anesthesia, the psychiatrist present is practically here for legal reason in my experience.
In concrete terms, that means that blue-collar workers are protected for exponentially less time than you expect because at this rate of progress the limits of robotics automation are getting piled through
So to answer your question I do think that AI will create greater and greater pressure for many jobs starting from bad software engineers and gradually but quickly eating up through every part of society.
I will be a psychiatrist in a few years and know that there are ways to practice psychiatry that really only rely on easy soft skills and applying pharmacological heuristics and guidelines. Of course, all of this can be very well accomplished by not so frontier models in not so long from now.
But for every given job though, there are ways to practice them that are completely irreplaceable. The software engineer that invents Linux. The psychiatrist that does miracles with mostly his voice. The mechanic who has invaluable insights. And golden fingers. and then of course it is extremely hard to get at this level of mastery if you have never been able to practice as a beginner this job because AI took the place of junior level work.
So yeah I am sometimes scared that AI will completely replace huge swaths of society but then that seems so extreme and yet so believable the only thing I can think of is that prediction markets are maybe among the most important technology right now to figure out our best moves at both individual and societal levels.