To think that AI is taking over jobs far, far, FAR quicker than we anticipated?

@MayaPinion of course it's relevant. What we need is UBI but Labour are making it very clear with their drastic cuts to benefits that this will never ever be implemented! Can't push people into jobs that aren't there........

What are you talking about? How does that relate to AI?

AI is making my life a lot easier, speeding up a ton of routine tasks I have to do! It is broadening my role (so probably eliminating roles elsewhere) but also making my role more indispensable because I now do so much with my extra capacity?

its a funny one and I agree that careers advice is not keeping up

AI is probably one of the most dangerous things humanity has faced for centuries. It goes beyond the threat to jobs it threatens the way we think, the way we interact with each other. Anyone cheering it on (yes you Starmer) needs their head examining.

it is so easy to manipulate- I could write essays in this. But it is basically the beginning of the end for humanity

Yes it turns out you don't need a load of overpaid tech bros to do this stuff. And it's not free speech apparently, wow what a surprise

You know what really gets to me? When I've observed someone spend 20 precious minutes fruitlessly trying to convince Excel not to fuck up the date on a spreadsheet, 99% of the time the person will say 'Oh I'm so rubbish at this' rather than saying 'Gosh this software is a real piece of shit isn't it?'

If something is supposed to help you and it doesn't, that's not your fault, that's the fault of the people who designed and developed the software. Too many people accept shitty tools because politicians are too old to realise that they're being hoodwinked by tech idiots in hoodies who believe they are the next messiah. When I saw Starmer's speech about AI I could have cried. It was so stupid.

The real misery of all tech is the way it hides human work. So much tech with and without AI claims to make things quicker and more efficient when it does nothing of the sort - humans just end up working around all the shortcomings, mistakes and shitness of the tech without any recognition of the effort that takes. So-called autonomous vehicles are a great example of this hideous phenomenon - at the current level the car does the driving but the human has to stay vigilant and take over at a millisecond's notice if something goes wrong. The irony is that this is the exact thing humans are absolutely terrible at - they simply cannot stay alert over a long period of time when nothing is happening - they switch off, meaning that when the car starts ploughing into a pedestrian they notice too late. Of course, it's the accident is then deemed the human's fault because they were responsible, despite the fact that the whole task set them up for failure. I observe people using tech all the time and it is soul-destroying to see how often software causes problems rather than solves them. AI will just make that worse. Now, instead of waiting on the phone for hours to talk to a person who doesn't have a clue how to help you, you'll instantly get sent to a bot who doesn't know how to help you, with no way of actually getting to anyone who knows anything.

Tech bros are arrogant idiots who like to paint themselves as geniuses. They know nothing and they make tech that is ridiculous and pointless. AI will just add speed to the ridiculous pointlessness.

i was reading about mr bates and the post office and part of the prosecution was that computers were infallible and therefore the subpostmasters were lying. It’s all if that in combination which is concerning eg if facial recognition software is considered infallible.

Ok, thanks. I agree - it's scary stuff and I think stuff like this gets missed (deliberately or not) by people who aren't in the affected group.

It is both fascinating and scary - I'm definitely going to read further. I really hope it's been, or is being, addressed properly.

That’s prob when I read it tbf. Even though things may have improved I think it’s useful ro point out unintended consequences.

There was a tv programme showing some research that explained the inherent bias in eg facial recognition software and how black and brown faces were incorrectly identified. It’s to do with coder bias. It was fascinating and scary.

i would challenge your view that the descendants in the main led more prosperous lives. You clearly have no idea of the amount of extra work caused by differing economies and a very strange idea of the amount of reward open to working class people, especially now. Many no longer own anything beyond the clothes they stand up in.

A very quick Google brought up some articles from 2019. I will look properly later but I don't suppose you have any up to date sources you could share do you? Everything is moving so fast it seems that even Google can't keep up!

1 farmer is needed to do the work 100 peasants would have done 200 years ago.

If you’d told the peasants that there would be no work on the land for them in the future, they’d have panicked and assumed their descendants would be unemployed and starve… they’d have no concept whatsoever of how the world would change!

But what happened to their descendants? In the main, they thrived and live far, far more prosperous and healthy lives than they ever did.

Technology has been making jobs obsolete since the Industrial Revolution. To date, new jobs have emerged to replace those that were lost. I’m not sure there strong grounds for thinking it will be different with AI.

The issue with AI isn’t job losses, it’s the ability it gives for power to be ever more concentrated in the hands of a select few.

A young police officer in our extended family told me it takes 2 hours to do all the paperwork when they arrest someone so this would be excellent time saving as long as checked by humans.

😯 I have been following (loosely) the development of FSD and didn't realise this was a thing.

Robot hairdressers were being developed “way back” in 2020!

www.cnet.com/science/this-robot-will-give-you-a-new-haircut-if-you-dare/

I've been watching the reaction to the open source DeepSeek release - it absolutely fascinating! I think it was released a week or so ago but only hit the news in a big way over the last day?

The markets will be interesting this week...

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI is rocking international markets this morning. It just launched yesterday.

Theres more to it than jobs, there are ideologies and fundamental global power at stake.

Chinese have 1b people. How many very very bright exceptional people do they have? The percentage of extreme mathematicians is only ever less than 1% who can work on this sort of stuff.

In the western world we are fragmented and don’t work 996 like the Chinese do.

Google “996 Chinese work hours” and after, DeepSeek if you want to know more.

It’s not looking pretty in my view. If you know, you know.

Story not strip. Missed editing window.

Oh yes, Tony the housekeeping robot - Satisfaction Guaranteed was the title of that strip as I recall - brilliant story!

AI is coming to my team, but it’s not going to be as all singing all dancing as we thought. It will probably be a work in progress as it understands more what we need from it. But the headcount saving won’t be happening yet as humans will to check what it’s creating as it won’t always be right, especially at first. It is a good thing, as we pay people to copy and paste data at moment, so case creation by AI will solve that. Yes there will eventually be job losses, but makes sense to move with the times, and AI could save small businesses a lot.

Appreciate there is this element. But for the foreseeable future at least though, art forms including live dancing and living singing, human acting I don’t believe will be replaced. Listening to a show / watching it on a screen is good in many ways but just can’t replicate a live in person experience, which is why people spend a lot of money to have that live experience. A hologram ballet dancer? Hologram west end shows? No more pop stars just hologram ones, hologram concerts. Just can’t see it.
People love to marvel at human talent and how far the human body can be pushed, how humans can make a song sound wonderful together or how amazing a dancer is- how far they can bend, stretch balance and move. That’s all part of the draw of going to see something live.
Compeitive sports is the same- will there be hologram olympics? Hologram football matches with made up hologram teams? Will we all be cheering on a team totally invented by ai rather than real people? Will you see a football match ‘live’ via a huge hologram but in total surround sound and in 3d?
Maybe you won’t go out at all and all sports and shows and plays and musicals etc are done from the comfort of your own living room with a headset of the future. Totally immersed in another world with thousands of others in their own living rooms on their own headsets.
However, we are a long way from that. The next couple of generations at least are safe I believe where anything creative / human insurance is concerned.

Except that the safety measure don’t recognise black and brown people as people. It’s less effective at identifying us.

There was something in the paper yesterday about how the police are using AI, i only skim read it but it will “type up” witness statements, auto filling various forms. Apparently it’s doing the work of the equivalent of 4000 police officers each year allowing officers to do other stuff and for victims to be dealt with quicker.

They would mostly scroll on their phones all day rather than birdwatching etc