To be utterly despondent about AI

Are we not a long long way from AI being able to calve a cow, fix a blocked loo, cart slurry, help an elderly person onto a toilet or make my kids tea.

Let alone the fact that all this tech breaks down. We have a lot of machinery on our farm that is designed to save labour. It does but it still needs someone to deal with the inevitable break downs and cock ups.

So the irony is that if all these worst case scenarios happen, and there’s barely any jobs and no UBI and the rich have all the money and the rest of us die in poverty then the very companies that brought in the self service check outs and the click & collect will cease to exist.
The rich aren’t going to be eating McDonald’s takeaways and self scanning in Tescos

Systems are currently being built to offer entire AI tuition, though mostly aimed at home schooling, or less developed countries. But it's certainly expected that increasing amounts of education everywhere will be done by AI, with teachers just helping out if a child has trouble, and keeping an eye to make sure the kids behave themselves. So there'll be a lot less work for teachers, and they won't need anything like as much knowledge as the computer's will know everything. Salaries will presumably reflect that.

Very apt timing, discusses UBI (amongst other things). Points out that only a very few countries will be operating the AI companies (USA, China) and only they will be able to fund UBI from taxing the companies. The rest of us will just have to hope they give us handouts.

Also points out that however many assurances we receive that they'll be so much money being generated that AI will end poverty, America already has enough money to end poverty. And poverty has not ended. In fact, it's growing. Are we really going to believe that just a few billion more and they'll start sharing?

264 - Guest: Dagan Shani, Filmmaker, part 2 | Artificial Intelligence and You

At what point will content become irrelevant and all people will have to learn is how to prompt AI?

It is indeed, but still odd sitting in governors meetings and hearing how the AI marking is really accurate and faster so pupils can get more feedback, but that they had to stop doing the written work as homework.

Im 100% on board that it's not replacing teachers bit its changing teaching.

That's very different to AI replacing teachers though

We have stories of teachers using AI to set homework, then students using AI to do homework and the teachers using AI to mark it.

I dont think its replacing teachers but its certainly interesting times.

Go on then, tell me the specifics.

You’re teaching it with every interaction.

You're not paying attention if that's what you think.

No it isn't.

Sorry, but AI is already replacing teachers.

AI won't replace teachers or dentistry. Robotics possibly could.

The company I work for is very good at making money, but it’s the employees that make the bosses the money. Trying to replace people with AI is not going to bring more money in, and as I stated in a previous post most of the stuff that can be streamlined by computers already is.

I read elsewhere a quote saying that the companies who will do the best are not the ones who replace the employees with AI but the ones who invest in AI to expand the business.

So, if we accept that AI might bring some benefits but on the whole is not a good thing….. why are we doing it?

Feel exactly the same. I’m in my 50s and feel so sorry for the young children today, who are the adults of the future. The world is such a crap place to be atm. Teetering on a world war. AI and all the changes that will bring (and not for the better). Public services in a worse state than they’ve ever been. Resilience no longer exists. I think our generation probably had the best as children growing up, and young adults without the pressure of social media.

I use it a bit at work (marketing) and it never quite gets it right. Eg creating a deck of findings from a survey, analysing a set of data, writing copy. Human intervention still needed to actually be able to apply and use it in my experience.

@happinessischocolate You haven’t said what work you do, but in a way it doesn’t matter because AI is impacting in every job sector, in good ways and bad. Teaching used to be a safe career, not anymore. Same with nursing and dentistry. I said the other day that your employer’s priority isn’t you - it’s saving and making money.

@robinibor “Pay will go down and competition will be fierce”

This is the key part I think. It’s less that AI will be as good as you at your job – it’s more like AI will be 90% as good as you, and will cost buttons. The price of labour in those sectors will drop towards zero. The price of labour in non-AI sectors will be hammered by competition.

That might be the most helpful way to think through what’s coming. We know it’s going to be like this for knowledge industries because it’s already happened to some of them, like copywriting – it’s simply not worth paying a 10x or 100x premium for the sheen that comes from having an actual human do the work.

Cheap human labour will be exploitable still in non-AI sectors and maybe we’ll see huge unexpected expansions in some of them. I suggested lots more priests, but maybe we’ll get other throwbacks too, like a revival for the lucky few of living in fully staffed stately homes?

The post I was replying to said “there will be very few jobs which can’t be replaced by AI”

that is not the same as some white collar jobs being replaced by AI

the only jobs currently affected seem to be IT and the lower level banking jobs

AI can’t fix your boiler, repair your car, or boat or motorbike. Hell at the moment the warnings lights on a car can’t even get it right half the time because the sensors either aren’t working or are detecting somethings wrong when it’s not 😂 and the computer system at work buggers up everytime it does an update, the scanner can’t detect the number 1 and the automatic door is prone to not unlocking after a bank holiday 😂

Yes but the job market will be flooded with people who would have previously gone for white collar jobs. Pay will go down and competition will be fierce. People will not be buying/ replacing things because they just won't have the money. No one will be safe apart from a few tech giants.

I'd be delighted if AI took over my job (unlikely as it involves human emotions) but how will I afford to eat?

I was told the other day by a colleague that my job would be done by AI in the near future 🤷‍♀️ why is it always people who have no idea of your job and what you do that say this shit.

In my opinion, our company employs 200 people and I’m not sure AI could replace any of them.

It might make some aspects of some jobs quicker, but anything computer related already has a decent software programme that can do the time consuming bits already.

To the people who have so much faith in AI, go ask AI some questions about a subject that you personally know a lot about, you’ll soon find there’s massive errors and yes AI could learn the correct answers in the future but from who?

I wouldn’t trust AI with my tax return 😂 but people think it’s going to replace accountants. Try getting AI to sort out a problem with HMRC for you….

AI can’t fix your boiler, repair your car, or boat or motorbike. Hell at the moment the warnings lights on a car can’t even get it right half the time because the sensors either aren’t working or are detecting somethings wrong when it’s not 😂 and the computer system at work buggers up everytime it does an update, the scanner can’t detect the number 1 and the automatic door is prone to not unlocking after a bank holiday 😂

CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-white-collar-job-loss-b9856259

https://archive.is/J78aX

CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs. Now they are giving predictions of how deep those cuts could go.
“Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.,” Ford Motor Chief Executive Jim Farley said in an interview last week with author Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind.”
At JPMorgan Chase, Marianne Lake, CEO of the bank’s massive consumer and community business, told investors in May that she could see its operations head count falling by 10% in the coming years as the company uses new AI tools.
The comments echo recent job warnings from executives at Amazon, Anthropic and other companies.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a note to employees in June that he expected the company’s overall corporate workforce to be smaller in the coming years because of the “once-in-a-lifetime” AI technology.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that half of all entry-level jobs could disappear in one to five years, resulting in U.S. unemployment of 10% to 20%, according to an interview with Axios. He urged company executives and government officials to stop “sugarcoating” the situation.