To be utterly despondent about AI

When you put it like that it does seem as if importing a million new people a year, in the face of job apocalypse and all the turmoil that that that will bring, might not be a great idea.

Yep why are there so many threads splitting the two issues and rarely do people say hang on they kind of work together.

I listened to an institute director say even in research people are so siloed they’re panicking / focusing on small section and not talking about cross over

If bonkers means knowing the world is about to undergo a revolution, pass me my bonkers badge. I’m going in eyes open and prepared. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/futurist-adam-dorr-robots-ai-jobs-replace-human-labour

Just to add to the debate.

@Tangfastic71 I can understand the fears around AI but I was wondering why nobody mentioned the potential positives. Could you expand a little on the advances made by AI you mentioned.

It will indeed be interesting to see how all of these 'super wicked' problems ameliorate or compound one another over the next few decades. I suspect it won't be as simple as one cancelling out another though.

Falling birthrates and everyone becoming unemployed because of AI can't both be a problem though? I never understood how people are panicked by both. The two together would cancel each out. Pick an apocalypse and stick with it!

What on earth do you think I could do about it? Identifying an issue doesn't automatically mean you have a workable solution. See also global warming, pandemics, falling birth rates, skyrocketing national debts, etc.

But you still haven't explained how?

I am worried about generative AI and the current lack of understanding and guard rails to minimise the bias…but we will catch up - technology already exists to eliminate bias using synthetic data.
The truth is, AI…and I mean that as the broad umbrella of which generative AI is a part…has huge and significant beneficial impacts to society…already in the last 20 years we have seen incredible advances in medicine because of AI.
Some jobs will be lost…that is inevitable and it’s particularly difficult because Gen AI has happened so fast.
I would tell any children to focus on maths, data science and computer science if they want to be part of AI job growth.
And there will always be jobs that are too expensive to replace robotically.
And taxing the robots is an option! I would like to see companies paying an automated decision levy. Banks have been using AI for decades to make credit risk decisions

Robot tradesmen might one day join the robot uprising and kill us. But they wont ask to use our toilets. Which I learned on Mumsnet is a terrible thing... So probably a huge take-up.

im out, I swear half the people on this thread are bonkers

Not at all. I know it may come as shock but at least now you know what is coming.

No, they didn't

Yeah and watching Glastonbury on tv at home is easier than going there, but it’s not really the same is it.? 😂

people go to southampton boat show because they want to, it’s certainly more fun than staying at home and doing everything through VR

im out, I swear half the people on this thread are bonkers

Mine already has an alert system. Like it or not, gas boilers will be a thing of the past anyway.

You don't think in the future that your heating system will have an integrated microchip that will alert you to any errors?
And yes, it would be easier to then send round an AI bot to fix the issue

Via Virtual Reality.

How can they touch the boat?

"I understand why [schools] may push AI. For one thing, it's cheaper," he said, although David Game College denies this is a cheaper approach than its traditional teaching, saying it has actually hired more personnel to run the course.

Not actually cheaper in this instance though perhaps it will be in the future.

What can normal people do?

They aren't the same at all, AI is very problematic, and bad for the environment too. Rich people won't be better off than they are now bc a big divide isn't great for society either, you just have to cordoned yourself off more from the riff Raff, which isn't something I would want to do.

The erosion of human interaction is extremely worrying.

It's creeping in through so many avenues.

Boundary setting is all well and good in problematic relationships, as is "going NC" in abusive situations but there is an increasing trend to take these things to the extreme, and to be unforgiving of the least perceived transgression. There is a huge lack of trust and even paranoia, an assumption that every interaction may be underpinned by nefarious intent.

In terms of therapy people seem to think that AI is the answer because it's not a "biased" human, yet it is programmed by biased humans and to feedback what a person wants to hear.

At least with a good human therapist there is oversight and accountability, and a choice.

In the article about job interviews, one of the younger interviewees cited a preference for an AI interviewer to avoid the stress of dealing with a human.

Are we really going to be better off psychologically if we simply eliminate "stressful" human contact? What scope then to evolve and grow and learn to navigate the world?

Mumsnet is full of people banging on about resilience and "having to do things we don't want to do", be it in school, the workplace, or the rituals that mark out human life (or death - apparently funeral days are numbered, as they are a money wasting exercise that don't really benefit anyone - people on a couple of other threads have been breathtakingly cold about that). Yet, funnelling every aspect of oneself into a digital repository that appears to agree with your own perspective, with that data, sometimes very personal data, being fed back - where exactly - because it is being fed back - is apparently ok, because it saves us from "each other".

It gets more dystopian / boiling frog at every turn.

I'm not upset about AI, it's greed and unfettered capitalism which are the problems.

Pictures? We’re talking AI - there will be virtual boats that any of those 100,000 people can look at and touch, can shrink or enlarge, from the comfort of their own homes or offices. Much more convenient and cheaper for many than travelling to Southampton.