To be utterly despondent about AI

Law firms are one of the things that is going to be destroyed by this. I’m an onlooker in a neighbourhood dispute in a personal capacity. One of my neighbours asked ChatGPT how we should approach it. I’m a lawyer by trade, and its answer was pretty much exactly what I would have advised – and not only was it correct on the law, it was also advising on the other side’s motivations, on strategy, etc.

I could only think ‘crikey, the jig is up’. From what I’ve seen there, then were the legal profession not heavily regulated, it would already look like what was said upthread re copywriters. I cannot imagine the public will be happy paying lawyers’ fees once the penny drops.

If it’s like email it’ll just mean we have more work and have to do everything at a faster pace 😩

YANBU OP it is very scary

I feel the same as you OP.
Mainly because I think it's increasingly difficult to know what is true and what isn't.

@Sskka Yes, I agree and I should have made that clear earlier. I meant to say that there is a huge contrast as in there won't be any similarity between the Industrial revolution and AI because there just won't be new jobs created for only humans to do (or enough of them). E.g. are law firms and advertising companies creating new roles because of AI? Not as far as I know.

I can see staff-free coffee shops opening up within the next few years (they probably already have - can't be bothered to google).

No, I think at some point it will be shaped by AI. AI is going to far out strip the human brain, very quickly.

AI is a tool. Anything you do with it ultimately needs to be shaped by humans.

The only thing I can definitely foresee is religious etc revivals as new priest classes emerge. But since the woke era was arguably the first wave of that, it’s not a development I’m particularly looking forward to.

Amen.

I find it hard to understand what the new jobs will be. The industrial revolution was (aiui) as much about creating new jobs to use the surplus labour free’ed up by the earlier agricultural revolution. You could look at it as one long process of mechanisation, first of agriculture, and then of industrial production spread over several waves as those new industries were repeatedly made more efficient.

With AI though, I find it much harder to envisage. There’ll be a certain amount of low-value labour, like cleaning the driverless Ubers, and more baristas as former office-workers have to fill their days somewhere – but then what? Won’t AI just do any new jobs too?

The only thing I can definitely foresee is religious etc revivals as new priest classes emerge. But since the woke era was arguably the first wave of that, it’s not a development I’m particularly looking forward to.

It doesn't really matter what the Western capitalists do about AI. That's not going to stop Russia and China developing their own versions, and if we don't have an equivalent AI, they're going to wipe the floor with us.

Just an example of how the world is changing:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/30/microsoft-ai-system-better-doctors-diagnosing-health-conditions-research

Er, not sure what the washer women and laundry maids would say about that!

AI is still in its infancy. What you're using now is the equivalent of creaky dial-up internet in the 90s. Didn't take that long to radically improve and for it to transform our lives in ways no one could have predicted.

Critical thought, empathy, compassion, charisma, organisational skills, leadership, teamwork, motivation, good communication, creativity, imagination.

As others have said, people were saying the same at the start of the industrial revolution (Luddites). Things have been changing for a couple of hundred years and will continue to change. Just look at all the jobs we have today that simply didn't exist 100 years ago. And all the jobs we had 100 years ago that have all but disappeared.

In the 1980s people were in despair at computers being introduced, especially desktop PCs, and worrying about all the jobs that would disappear. Yes, lots of jobs did disappear, such as typing pools and comptometer operators, but lots of jobs have been created, such as IT consultants, web designers, IT support staff, social media influencers, etc.

To cope with AI, people just need to ensure that they have as many transferrable skills as possible and try not to "Pigeon hole" themselves with too narrow a range of skills and work experience. I would also urge people to consider self employment so that they can move more easily into different working areas when they see opportunities.

You seem to be rather proving my point. You say you come from nothing, and now have lots - presumably by working? So how would you have achieved that if there were no jobs? Or if the only jobs were below minimum wage, and each one attracting 100s of applicants? And the studies are very small-scale and show mixed results, focussing more on how UBI would work in conjunction with work as opposed to instead of. And they do nothing at all to examine the long-term macroeconomic effects - how can inflation not dwindle it to nothing, especially if some people work alongside and others don't? Plus, where's the money coming from - what will Britain be producing to pay for its citizens, if we're all relying entirely on American tech to run our lives? We don't have enough money now to fund even half our population with enough to live comfortably. How will we find it easier when we produce significantly less? We don't produce enough food, energy, medication etc so we will always have to make enough money to import from other nations (or drastically cut our population). So we will always need to export stuff. But what? If an American AI machine is making everything for us? Or are you expecting Sam Altman to throw us some coins to tide us over?

And you still have no answer for the people in crummy little high-rises in dodgy neighbourhoods. (If it matters, I am not one of them. But I think it is important to consider others, especially those less fortunate.) How do they get out of their crummy flat? Yes, it would definitely be hard now, but I would personally like to see it made easier, not made even more impossible. And there are many ways to make it easier. But UBI is very definitely not one of them, it can only cement people forever in whatever position they find themselves in when the switch comes. Great for you and I, not great for very many others.

I totally get it, what annoys me is that there’s absolutely nothing democratic about it.
We’re being pushed into using a system that we’ve not even voted for or asked if we want it. It’s going to change society as a whole and it’s being decided by a huge company headed by a small number of individuals who think they know what’s best, how about asking us.
It’s a dangerous precedent to set, no control, government just happily going along by being influenced by these huge companies, (nothing new there), but the audacity to assume they know what’s best.
Has all the pros and cons been addressed before choosing to use an IA system? As per I don’t think governments or ordinary people for that matter have even really grasped how much this will change how we interact in the world. Yes, it’s a useful tool and will offer a great deal, but what will be the cost? Surely, such a huge decision should be made by all not a few.

You would be able to earn money. Frankly, without being rude, you probably wouldn't be able to buy my nice big house right now, even with all the current 'opportunity', education and an open job market. Most people who don't receive enormous inheritance will not go on to be able to afford those things. They will save and possibly, if they are lucky afford modest homes with good savings and various safety nets. Even that is out of reach for most people. The people I grew up with, on the shithole council estate I used to live on, will likely never have even that. The odds of them becoming wealthy are staggeringly small. Most of the time it isn't even about intelligence or skill, it's sheer luck that allows somebody to climb out of that situation or sometimes it's from taking risks, by starting a business for example with either low start up coats or risking what little savings they have, more fail than succeed. If it was that easy right now wouldn't everybody be living in big posh houses having just pulled themselves up by their boot straps and worked hard? Of course they would. I watched generations of my family work doing backbreaking labour and working all hours. Several even went on to develop work related disease which ruined their quality of life and retirement was merely being allowed to finally sit down, too sick to ever enjoy it.

Anyway I digress. The idea with a universal basic income is that nobody would live below that baseline. plenty would be able to live over it. I am all for it as I've heard it worked very very well in trails, though I recognise that their would be pitfalls and it would need to be implemented slowly and carefully. The fact is, it can't be any worse than the other option, which is a massive job loss, recession, possibly even with a war economy, and we have families homeless and people starving in the streets. Standards of living we haven't seen in this country (on the whole, I'm sure their are outlier cases) since over a century ago.

I hope it’s fine. I can see a world where things just feel way easier. I also don’t want too many people to be redundant.

Who will own in all likelihood and how many jobs will be created?

Apologies if this has already been addressed but to my mind the danger of AI is that it only knows what it has read on the internet and most everybody knows that the internet is full of rubbish. The internet was created by average (white men) people and it full of angry (not necessarily factual) rants.
So for the same reason, so many people I know in all industries are rejecting it because it's known to be full of wrong answers and 'other peoples' ideas'. No one can trust it for maths and if it can't even do maths, the former forte of computers, what can it even do.
And I can see @NoraLuka 's point that the future is so far ahead in some ways that we can't even imagine it. Remember COVID when seemingly safe jobs like hairdressers, driving instructors, flight attendants/pilots and similar were suddenly out of work?
And the biggest lesson that COVID taught us: in person is actually better...

It could be a terrible thing in the long run, or it could be fine.

People had just as valid concerns during the Industrial Revolution. And with computers becoming mainstream. In both cases the world changed quite drastically, but people adapted.