>50 years from new the career of a "coder" will evoke the same historical quaintness as does "switchboard operator" or "wainwright."
And what happens to those coders? For that matter--what happens to all the other jobs at risk of being replaced by AI? Where are all the high paying jobs these disenfranchised laborers will flock to when their previous careers are made obsolete?
We live in a highly specialized society that requires people take out large loans to learn the skills necessary for their careers. You take away their ability to provide their labor, and it now seriously threatens millions of workers from obtaining the same quality of life they once had.
I seriously oppose such a future, and if that makes me a Luddite, so be it.
It took me a long time to master the pen tool in Photoshop. I don't mean that I spent a weekend and learned how it worked. I meant that out of all the graphic designers at the agency I was working for, I was the designer who had the most flawless pen-tool skills and thus was the envy of many. It is now an obsolete skill. You can segment anything instantly and the results are pristine. Thanks to technology one no longer needs to learn how to make the most form-fitting curves with the pen tool to be labeled a great graphic designer.
It's remarkable that reading and writing, once the guarded domain of elites and religious scribes, are now everyday skills for millions. Where once a handful of monks preserved knowledge with their specialized scribing skills, today anyone can record history, share ideas, and access the thoughts of centuries with a few keystrokes.
The wheel moves on and people adapt. Who knows what the "right side" of history will be, but I doubt we get there by suppressing advancements and guaranteeing job placements simply because you took out large loans to earn a degree and a license.
But what if the rate at which things change increases to the point that humans can't adapt in time? This has happened to other animals (coral has existed for millions of years and is now threatened by ocean acidification, any number of native species have been crowded out by the introduction of non-native ones, etc.).
Even humans have gotten shocks like this. Things like the Black Death created social and economic upheavals that lasted generations.
Now, these are all biological examples. They don't map cleanly to technogical advances, because human brains adapt much faster than immune systems that are constrained by their DNA. But the point is that complex systems can adapt and can seem to handle "anything," up until they can't.
I don't know enough about AI or LLM's to say if we're reaching an inflection point. But most major crises happen when enough people say that something can't happen, and then it happens. I also don't think that discouraging innovation is the solution. But I don't also want to pretend like "humans always adapt" is a rule and not a 300,000 year old blip on the timeline of life's existence.
Automating drudgery is a good thing. It frees us up to do more important things.
Automating thinking and self-expression is a lot more dangerous. We're not automating the calculation or the research, but the part where you add your soul to that information.
How is a pen tool in Photoshop equivalent to an AI that can perform your entire job at a lower cost remotely similar? There are levels to this, and I don't think the same old platitudes apply.
> And what happens to those coders? For that matter--what happens to all the other jobs at risk of being replaced by AI?
Some will manage to remain in their field, most won't.
> Where are all the high paying jobs these disenfranchised laborers will flock to when their previous careers are made obsolete?
They don't exist. Instead they'll take low-paying jobs that can't (yet) be automated. Maybe they'll work in factories [1].
> I seriously oppose such a future, and if that makes me a Luddite, so be it.
Like I said, the Luddites were right, in the short term. In the long term, we don't know. Maybe we'll live in a post-scarcity Star Trek world where human labor has been completely devalued, or maybe we'll revert to a feudal society of property owners and indentured servants.
>They don't exist. Instead they'll take low-paying jobs that can't (yet) be automated. Maybe they'll work in factories
>or maybe we'll revert to a feudal society of property owners and indentured servants.
We as the workers in society have the power to see that this doesn't happen. We just need to organize. Unionize. Boycott. Organize with people in your community to spread worker solidarity.
I think more and more workers are warming up to unions. As wages in software continue to be oppressed, I think we'll see an increase in unionization efforts for software engineers.
"Gee, it seems that people in my profession are in danger of being replaced by AI. I wonder if there's anything I can do to help speed up that process..."
If that were indeed the case, your employer might not be investing so much in automation. They don't want to give up bargaining power any more than you do.
Hmm, millions of humans are spending a bulk of their lives plugging away at numbers on a screen. We can replace this with an AI and free them up to do literally anything else.
No, let's not do that. Keep being slow ineffective calculators and lay on your death bed feeling FULFILLED!
You're skipping over a critical step, which is that our society allocated resources based on the labor value that an individual provides. If we free up everyone to do anything, they're not providing labor any more, so they get no resources. In other words, society needs to change in big ways, and I don't know how or if it will do that.
Where is the existing work these people would take up? If it doesn't exist yet, then how do you suppose people will support themselves in the meantime?
What if the new work that is created pays less? Do you think people should just accept being made obsolete to take up lower paying jobs?
>Where is the existing work these people would take up? If it doesn't exist yet, then how do you suppose people will support themselves in the meantime?
Everywhere in human society. "Jobs" is literally when you do something that someone needs, so that in exchange they do something that you need. And in human society, because of AI, neither people’s needs, nor the ability to satisfy them, nor the possibility of exchanging them will suddenly disappear. So the jobs will be everywhere.
>Do you think people should just accept being made obsolete to take up lower paying jobs?
Let's start with the fact that on average all jobs will become higher paying because the amount of goods produced (and distributed) will increase. So the more correct answer to this question is "What choice will they have?".
AI will make the masses richer, so society will not abandon it. Subsidize their obsolete well-paid jobs to make society poorer? Why would anyone do that? So the people replaced by AI will go to work in other jobs. Sometimes higher paying, sometimes lower.
If we are talking about real solutions, the best alternative they will have is to form a cult like the Amish did (God bless America and capitalism), in which they can pretend that AI does not exist and live as before. The only question in this case is whether they will find willing participants, because for most, participation in such a cult will mean losing the increase in income provided by the introduction of AI.
No, that's just logic. AI doesn't thwart the ability of people to satisfy their needs (getting richer).
>Inequality is worse now than it was 20 years ago despite technology progressing.
And people are still richer than ever before (if we take into account the policies that are thwarting society's ability to satisfy each other's needs and that have nothing to do with technologies)
Huh? If AI can do any job cheaper and better than a person can, why would anyone hire a person? What "useful" skill could a person exchange for resources in an era when computers write code, drive cars, fight wars, and cook food?
But you answer your own question: the only situation in which it makes no sense to hire another person to satisfy a need is when that need has already been satisfied in another way.
And if all needs are already satisfied... Why worry about work? The purpose of work is to satisfy needs. If needs are satisfied, there is no need for work.
You assume the everyone's needs are solved together. More likely is that the property owning class acquire AI robots to provide cheap labor; and everyone else doesn't.
>You assume the everyone's needs are solved together.
No, I am not assuming that. "Together" are not required. It's just combination of needs, ability to satisfy them and ability to exchange - creates jobs. And nothing of this will be thwarted by AI.
>More likely is that the property owning class acquire AI robots to provide cheap labor
Doesn't matter. Your everyday person either will be able to afford this cheap AI labor for themselves (no problem that required solving) or if AI labor for them are unaffordable - will create jobs for other people (there will be jobs on market everywhere)
>We can replace this with an AI and free them up to do literally anything else.
I would happily support automation to free myself, and others, from having to work full-time. But we live in a capitalist society, not StarTrek. Automation doesn't free up people from having to work, it only places people in financial crisis.
Manual labor in the US pays far less than any of the above mentioned jobs. That's the alarming part--if we're to transition to manual labor and the wages for these jobs stay the same, then workers will be forced to work harder jobs for less money. I'm not sure why you'd expect this proposition to be popular?
I think you along with some others in this thread are looking at the real individualistic view - "If I go from high paying to low paying, I'm in trouble". Think about how the economy may react along with it. If companies are no longer paying these high salaries, perhaps products and services go down and despite earning less $, your purchasing power stays the same or even grows!
Of course lots of speculation, but I am not particularly worried by the fields we can wipe out in future with automation and AI.
>If companies are no longer paying these high salaries, perhaps products and services go down and despite earning less $
There is endless amounts of cheaply produced slop in stores today. By and by I don't give a fuck about affording those kinds of goods. I care about being able to afford a home, having access to good healthcare, being able to travel, etc. These are the kinds of goods and services that I doubt will come down significantly in price.
And what happens to those coders? For that matter--what happens to all the other jobs at risk of being replaced by AI? Where are all the high paying jobs these disenfranchised laborers will flock to when their previous careers are made obsolete?
We live in a highly specialized society that requires people take out large loans to learn the skills necessary for their careers. You take away their ability to provide their labor, and it now seriously threatens millions of workers from obtaining the same quality of life they once had.
I seriously oppose such a future, and if that makes me a Luddite, so be it.