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

The pace of change is scary. I attended a talk and the guy said that the amount the internet changed things since the 90s will be similar with AI but condensed into 3-6 years.

Wish it was the same for me. I work really quickly and I am good at what I do!
However, small businesses who normally approach me for web copy, blog posts, newsletters etc are now using AI.
The quality to me is appalling. Bland with absolutely no personality, it’s just churned out, and so every website ‘reads’ the same.
However, if a business can use something for free they will use it.
I am in my 50’s, I have a long-term health condition and a major disability and as a result I am housebound and a lot of the time bedbound. It is the only ‘skill’ I have left.

Also doctors; the fact is that you can have an AI database that can have much more data than even the best consultant.

AI is being used in the Civil Service. I think it will make a big difference, again, cutting junior level jobs. And it will make decisions on benefits, fines, tax etc on the operational side of government. It's already started.

Jobs will gradually change over time like they always have.

I know a self employed copywriter who's printing money atm because she works at ten times the speed using AI. People keep telling her she'll be unemployed soon and I guess we'll see, but right now it's quite the opposite!

I agree. It's going to eat the junior end of the profession alive. Partners in firms will love it for the increased profits in City firms where the rates of pay are now ridiculous.

Law is a creative profession though and so there will be a role there. It's just going to be a lot smaller.

I doubt that it has replaced any single job on a simple human-out-AI-in basis. But within teams it will already be true that five people working with the benefit of AI can do the work of six without. Vacancies won't get filled. That has been happening in the legal profession for a while.

Elon, is that you…?

I haven’t personally seen AI do anything useful yet and I’ve seen several examples of it being useless.

Can anyone give an actual example of someone who has lost their job due to AI?

Does the AI 'know' it hasn't helped or how frustrated you are by it all.

The bots on customer service support are a nightmare and worse than rubbish. Most of the time I just go round and round in circles.
Lots of times if you don’t use the correct keywords it has no idea what you’re talking about.
Sometimes I imagine a droid Star Wars world and I’m sad.

Yes read it. As you say terrifying.

Also read a short story by J G Ballard called Having a Wonderful Time in which AI and automation have taken over most jobs and all the unemployables are being shipped off to massive holiday complexes all over the world, except they don’t realise it, they think they are going on a normal holiday.

There's also the push to make all communication virtual, rely on chatbots and removed customer facing roles. Worked for a housing association where they really are trying to replace people with software that automatically messages, chatbots, analytics, anything that means they can dump a role. You have no idea of the chaos this has caused and that digital literacy is a real issue for many, meaning if they don't engage virtually they really have little hope of contacting anyone!

Exploded, not exploding.

On the subject of needs to supply, they expand to fill the available production. The capitalist economies need to provide enough consumption to consume the goods and services produced. Billionaires can't exist in a vacuum (they can exist in gated communities in impoverished countries, but they're still dependent on a functioning international economy).

Either everything collapses completely (not impossible) or the capitalist system keeps its consumers' heads above water.

It’s also about people feeling like they’ve done a good job and accomplished something.
bored people with too much time does not make a happy society

The issue is much greater isn’t it. Those jobs that AI are replacing aren’t just entry level they are the training level. How will you learn if these aren’t the jobs available?

Or of course you can continue to deny, distract and try to look cute, but it isn’t working very well. Nothing is now.

That’s your reaction and your choice of question?

When I was born, not that long ago, the population of Britain was 50 million. Now officially it is 70 million and reliable estimates put the true figure at 80 million.

The world population was about 3.5 billion, now it’s over 8 billion.

So that exploding population. So now perhaps you can consider the question, which is what human needs are left to supply? Or the implicit question of whether this will lead to a world any of us want to see, of improved freedom justice and equality and all that is good?

Exactly!

I actually re-read the Robbie story a few weeks ago.

And the one with the hunky housekeeper robot. 😁

So was I. By now Robbie the Robot should have been doing my housework.
Instead I have been doing housework all day, and Robbie is taking my job!

I find it fascinating - but I was a bit of a fan of old sci-fi in my teens so real, 'self aware' AI, or Isaac Asimov style housekeeper/nanny robots, is more what I think of when people speculate about the future 😁

It is moving fast and I think it will get faster. If we could rely on the powers that be to use it in ways that help humanity I'd be excited, but... well...

Tbh, I feel that it's completely ridiculous that people still have to be afraid of losing their jobs and not having to work.

We (as a society) are actively making work, creating demand etc, just so that there is work, so that people can be stuck in work because they need to eat. It's circular and it really feels like we could have moved past it by now.

If only tech was used to better everyone's lives, instead of a few.

I think the point is that this is only the beginning. The AI is learning how to be better all the time, including from all the interactions you have with it which - to you - seem pointless or haven’t worked. Come back in a year, two years, 5 years and the lovely lady will be out of a job. As will the van driver.

What exploding population?

That’s not how QVC works. It’s not like spot advertising.

You don’t need a person at all in a spot ad. A pack shot and a slogan will do. It can be just about brand recognition. Some ads have simply been dominated by a colour (Cadbury’s purple, Virgin Airways red etc).

QVC is all about personal recommendation and demonstration.

I’m tired of seeing this lazy excuse for not thinking and maintaining the status quo.

What human needs are there left to supply the need for all these ‘new jobs’? The Industrial Revolution supplied standardised goods cheaply to the newly impoverished. Computers have provided greater possibilities for entertainment, largely taken up by men in bedrooms wanking or playing video games and being as aggressive as possible towards women and girls. Oh and a load of marketing crap.

What is there possibly left that AI can supply and how are humans who have no inheritance going to live in a world of exploding population with every inch privately owned?

That’s true in principle. But the technical difficulties with quantum computing mean that its practical, wide application is to our time what the moon landing was to Isaac Newton’s: centuries away.