To think AI is not the same as the industrial or internet revolution?

[Wonderbug81]

I see a lot of arguments that AI will shift jobs to other things (like data or prompt engineering for example).

But AI is getting smarter all the time, probably to the point where the prompts become redundant. Entire films can be made without directors, actors or editors just for starters. Robots can probably do a lot of skilled work including building homes or even building the machines that are used for self service tills!

I think it's a much bigger shift than anything that's gone before... so what happens to society then?

Be grand.

Things will change, but we'll all keep working away on our little hamster wheels, albeit on slightly different hamster wheels to before.

I think it’s going to be seismic and we haven’t really scratched the surface of what it can do for us yet. I’m both excited and a one bit terrified..!

I don’t think this shift is anywhere near the same scale as the Industrial Revolution. Before then, almost the entire population worked in agriculture! There was no film industry. There were no supermarkets. There is a much bigger variety of jobs now and yes many will be automated by AI, just as many other things have been automated by humans over the last few hundred years. And humans will find other ways to be productive and add value to the world and each other, just as they always have.

AI is an exciting tool if you think about how it can potentially be used and the things it can unlock. For people who sit and doom monger and hark for the days of doing things that are no longer necessary then yes it will be a bad thing.

Yep, it will be a huge within the next 10 years. A seismic shift but who know where it will lead...

But there were other jobs to move to. E.g. new factories albeit often in urban areas. Farming didn't disappear entirely either. And there were still other industries and roles that continued, from nursing to law.

In this case AI is expected to reach every single sector and make many jobs obsolete.

I'm just trying to get my head around it all.

People still collect vinyl...
People still play violins and pianos...
People still paint for fun...
AI may change the workplace but people aren't going to stop wanting handmade or hand designed things. If anything I think they will just become higher quality and value.
People are always terrified of new technology 'cheapening existence'
People were terrified of the printing press.. of teaching the general public to read and write.. etc etc
There's always this wierd attitude that whatever the NEW thing is it's going to make humanity lazy and redundant and we are all going to hell in a handbasket.
Well we haven't gone to hell yet, in fact the standard of living and educational standard of everyone on the planet has mostly continued to improve...
I just don't think AI is going to be the NEW thing that finally causes our downfall tbh. I think it's just the main NEW thing of our generation, so like for the whole of human history, it's the thing that makes us worry coz it's our NEW thing 😆

But there were other jobs to move to. E.g. new factories albeit often in urban areas. Farming didn't disappear entirely either. And there were still other industries and roles that continued, from nursing to law.

Well yeah but you're making it sound like moving to those new jobs was easy. It wasn't and it led to seismic population change.

Farming didn't disappear but hundreds of thousands of people were 'cleared' (aka 'starved') off the land. And there still will be other industries and roles that continue. Nursing probably will continue and to be honest, speaking from recent bitter experience, I'd love the black and white AI experience off a lawyer...

Humans will adapt and change and develop. But there will be a couple of generations that find it very, very difficult. If that 'levels up' on a global scale then fair play, but obviously its hard to be balanced when you suspect the biggest losers will bee our children's generation in the developed world.

Yeah so I think this too to an extent - the human touch will become more valuable. I'm just not convinced it can support a large scale of people displaced by AI. For every person willing to pay the extra money for handmade items, others won't be able to afford to.

So is it going to benefit the elite, both buyers and sellers, and create a lot of challenges for everyone else?

I really want someone to show me it's going to be Ok, honestly, and I hope I'm wrong, I just can't entirely see it at the moment.

Not suggesting it was easy, but it was possible because there were alternatives. But all sectors are affected by AI, unlike farming/industrial work.

They're talking about AI robots being able to do precision surgery and dentistry (albeit in 10-20 years). So I don't hold out much hope for others in the sector. Perhaps where a human touch is needed, particularly with kids etc but for routine stuff..?

Perhaps AI is the tool we need to finally get rid of capitalism? Maybe it leads us towards a completely different system...

It already has been revolutionary. Most people do not understand what AI and how it had pervaded every aspects of our lives. Alexa? Email filters? Shopping recommendations? Streaming services? GPS? Apple Watches/fitbit? Face recognition? Social media? Google search? Banking?
Then more niche: art restoration, farming, healthcare, law ...
all these have either been made possible or greatly improved by the use of AI.
Sure there are areas where people every, like generating writing or art or movies - but AI can't be original. It can't be investigative. Not yet anyway!
It's brilliant at processing fast and using other technologies. But it can't make something new. But everyone uses AI every day in the modern world.

This would be very interesting. I suspect the billionaires would stop it from happening though.

People need to remember in this, our first-world country alone, there are around 3 million people who don't use the internet. Worldwide there are billions.

Plus, AI is primarily learning (so far at least) from the internet - which is pretty crap. So it's going to have a warped, stereotypical, somewhat nasty idea of what human culture is that is very 21st century timebound. Yet my great-grandmother was born in 1888, she was a Victorian. Her influence in my family remains strong, and it's probably the same for many people. So AI misses all that and will be slightly off-key.

Another issue is, it's very discernibly American. Ask it to write something persuasive and it's so wrong for UK or French culture for example.

Don't believe all the hype (which comes from the people who expect to profit from it). Think of it as a spreadsheet on steroids. It might be great for crunching data, but ask it for something humanities based and it just echoes the most typical pop culture - just like all the other pop culture.

What worries me is is its ability to falsify video and photos - media we've been used to thinking of as irrefutable.

We do need to shift our thinking, but also not get too excited over the changes it will wrought. It's just more tech, a machine, like mobile phones which I think a lot of people are getting very bored of now.

People getting together, changing the way they live and interact with each other and the world, now that's exciting.

I think it will change a lot of standard middle class professionals in law, banking and finance. The models now where you need junior staff highly paid will disappear. It’s good for those some way into their careers, but bad for midlife and those starting out.

Law firms in the City have business models which are unsustainable. AI will transform the model so junior lawyers will be expected to perform very differently and arguably to a much better standard. Big firms are already making a lot of investment - charging for AI that never gets tired, never leaves to another firm, and can address millions of scenarios and liabilities, and can draw on more and more data means the young lawyer has to be a skilled manipulator of AI sufficient to prove their commercial worth. All coming in the next five years

Has anyone actually watched an AI produced film?? I can’t imagine it’s very good. The acting will not be great and it will look like AI.

There is an AI producer 2 minute film/advert where everyone has balloon heads. It’s soul less.

They'll get better. Look at where AI was even 2 years ago.

The Coke Christmas ad this year is entirely AI. Mango already uses AI ads with AI models.

It's only going to grow.

Yes interesting points about who specifically will be most affected.

I dont quite get what this means. Like did AI decide a Christmas ad was needed based on previous data, created it and then sent it to the right places, or was there still quite a bit of human input, that said to AI we need an ad, it needs these themes, tweaking it, publishing it.

I keep trying to get my head around what AI I'd but not quite getting there.

I read, that AI won't take your job, but the person who uses AI will. Can't remember who said it, but that made sense.

Don't conflate AI with robots. Robots are still very expensive. They've been around for decades but they won't be displacing most workers.

AI has a long history of under-delivering. One of its limitations is its voracious appetite for training data, something we've already started to exhaust.

Remember when we were all going to lose our jobs to offshoring, and whatever came before?

An ad like Coke usually requires around 50 people (from script writers to production to marketing) plus locations.

This one would have taken 5 to 10, all from a computer. Yes someone has to prompt it and over see it all, but there's little need for editors, sound technicians, actors, settings (locations are also usually paid for). Everythinh had been generated by AI.

Klarna announced 1000 job cuts recently so they could use AI instead. Now imagine of all companies did that.

The quote you mention certainly applies to some people, but some jobs won't exist and will be replaced by AI.