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

Well yes, back in the dark ages when I had a three year old that was my only choice. But after a particularly long day when I was feeling uninspired I'd definitely have been tempted to ask Gemini for help if I'd had the choice.

I read a great quote 'AI won't take your job, someone who can code AI will.'

What will happen when there are millions of unemployed people, people who can't afford a roof over their heads, elderly people and people who are too anxiety ridden to do anything? Where will the money come from to feed and house the people who are obsolete? There'll be no UBI because the rich shareholders need all the money. Will people be just allowed to die off due to no health provision? Starve because of no food? Be euthanised? Will we all be housed in huge refugee type tent villages and spend all day scratching for food on the ground? Only the very rich will survive.

To be fair, there are plenty of stinkers written by human hand!

Seriously, though, I agree that the creative industries are under great threat from AI. I’ve long wondered whether we might need some law about labelling works produced by/with AI: a bit like country of origin or ‘free range’.

I wonder how this will affect the stock market?

And banks?

If people don’t have a salary they can’t get a mortgage.

Mortgage loans make up a big part of a retail bank’s earnings.

So would that sector just dry up? No more lending, no more house buying?

And would nobody move up the ladder?

Don't fall for the hype, so far, AI is ok at summarising things but that's about it.

@Dappy777 I understand part of your view

but what are we going to live on if we are not masters of tech? Which the majority of us won't be.

I’m a marketer and I think my job will be pretty much non existent in a couple of years time.
Already companies are getting AI to create their photos and write their content (poorly) to save money on personnel, and there are fewer jobs around.
I need to think about retraining in something that AI can’t do - any ideas?

Just make one up? Less carbon-intensive. (I was going to say less energy-intensive but I hate doing bedtime, it’s knackering!)

The transition between pre AI world and AI world will be bumpy initially, as we figure out how best to use it in our lives and workplaces. But I do think that life as we understand it now will be vastly different once it becomes part of everyday life. Think of big innovations such as the TV- in the 50s and 60s you had barely any channels and sometimes one tv per street. Nowadays the TV is an immersive experience that means we no longer have to sit around twiddling our thumbs.

The same with the internet- look how different our lives are now because of that. AI will be the same, we’re probably around 1999 if you were to compare with the WWW timeline. In 1999 you had AOL chat and Amazon was still just a rainforest. Who could have known that the WWW would shape our lives as much as it has nowadays.

Oh sh*t @Chiseltip as an admin worker I'm buggered. 😱

You won't lose your job to A.I

You WILL lose your job to someone who uses A.I better than you do.

It's going slower than I expected (as a lawyer). There are a lot of tedious manual things which could be done by AI and I have seen no evidence of any reduction in actual man power required to do these tasks, depsite law firms throwing cash and slick presentations at the problem. It will come but it's not there yet so I think I will probably manage to slide into retirement before it comes for my job thankfully!

About 30 -40 years ago people said computers would take over all the jobs. They didn't, and neither will AI.

One of the main reasons people read is the sense of connecting with another mind/consciousness. When I read my favourite authors, it's like meeting up with an old friend. P. G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Aldous Huxley, etc, each have a distinctive voice. You could line up some random paragraphs by, say, Dickens or Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy, and I'd know immediately that it was them. Most people could pick out passages by their favourite authors. Like I said, they'd just know the voice. This is why people read biographies. I've got biographies of Evelyn Waugh, the Brontes...all sorts. And not just biographies. I have Oscar Wilde's collected letters, and also the collected letters of Patrick Fermor and Robert Graves. I've even got Virginia Woolf's diaries. And I read them because I like the complete person, not just the words they put together. AI books wouldn't interest me one tiny bit. They would be, quite literally, soulless.

It will change society. Within five years there won't be any call centres. Most receptionist jobs will be gone. Pretty much any customer service role will no longer exist. This isn't speculation, it is absolute certainty. The applications are being perfected as we speak and ready for roll out.

Virtually all.admin jobs will be gone, as will all junior legal positions. Knowledge will become a worthless commodity. You won't be able to charge anybody for your expert opinion because they will have access to something vastly more "intelligent" than you.

The movie and TV industry WILL be gone within the next ten years. If you work in this field in any capacity, get out now. If you don't believe me, go on YouTube and watch the short movie "The Heist", it's entirely A.I generated, no actors, sets, costumes, camera operators, nothing. It gives you a glimpse of what is to come. So no more TV presenters, news readers, actors, writers, that whole industry is now over.

And that's just the start.

We are not ready for what is coming. It will devastate society, there will be mass unemployment, and nobody has a clue how to manage it. We will no longer be the smartest people in the room.

And yet Labour plans to cut benefits. Make it make sense.

Books are all very well, but if your three year old demands "a story about a pink crocodile who goes on an adventure to Cornwall with my fluffy unicorn Errol and me and fights pirates" and won't go to sleep until she's heard it then AI can be a lifesaver.

I’ve just had an argument with a bot on MOONPIG 😝 even though I know it’s a bot I still lost my temper with it!

If AI does wipe out most jobs, would that really be such a bad thing? If we all had wonderful, fulfilling careers, maybe it would be regrettable. But we don't. In my experience, most people hate their job. In fact, for quite a lot of people, work ruins their life. Because of bills, or the fear of living in a dump surrounded by noise and violence, they grind away at a job they hate with people they hate and it sucks the life out of them. And even the ones who enjoy their job often find the stress makes them ill. Countless marriages are wrecked by work. Someone has an obnoxious bully for a manager, or a loathsome work colleague, comes home in a filthy mood and takes it out on their partner and kids. Happens every day in every street.

AI is very energy intensive so it could end up off limits to all but super rich and cronies

At the moment people with DC in trade and practical apprenticeships are the most cheerful. Most jobs likely to be taken by AI are lone homeworking ones which aren't good for people psychologically

I'm annoyed by Google AI automatic summaries as you can't see where the info is from. With likely growth of misinformation people might give up on internet altogether

My scattergun thoughts

The out-of-work masses on generator treadmills. Gives us something to do for our new robot overlords.

As well as effect on jobs, my concern is the energy usage needed. What with electric cars and increased of AI - servers etc in use - where is the production of this additional energy going to come from?

Another author here! Terrifyingly I was chatting to a dad on the school run who says he uses AI for his DC’s bedtime story. I’m like, have you heard of books?

Lots of people don’t care about badly written books but they do tend to buy in volume. And lots of people do and always will care about good stories – it’s human nature to tell and to crave stories. I haven’t seen any AI yet that can do what my favourite authors can and in other situations, I haven’t seen it do much at all – I don’t use AI for lots of reasons, including climate impact, but if I forget to add “-AI” to a Google search I’ll get its stupid suggestions. You know, you’re looking for a midweek dinner idea and Google AI will go “Lots of dinner recipes involve ingredients. Try cooking with ingredients to make something healthy and quick. Dinner is a meal. Enjoy!”