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

[Themarchoftime]

Obviously, am aware of AI's presence for some time. But I'm shocked how AI features seem to be on all platforms now, email/web etc, and how many roles are being diminished by the use. It seems week on week it's progressively spreading.

Someone who works with AI suggested to me that it's happening so much quicker than anyone expected, that we could all be looking at no jobs across many sectors in 10-12 years.

This has totally depressed me, especially as I'm early fifties, looking to skill up/change roles! And scared me, a bit, also for my kids.

Am i being a catastrophic thinker?

i was reading about mr bates and the post office and part of the prosecution was that computers were infallible and therefore the subpostmasters were lying. It’s all if that in combination which is concerning eg if facial recognition software is considered infallible.

The real misery of all tech is the way it hides human work. So much tech with and without AI claims to make things quicker and more efficient when it does nothing of the sort - humans just end up working around all the shortcomings, mistakes and shitness of the tech without any recognition of the effort that takes. So-called autonomous vehicles are a great example of this hideous phenomenon - at the current level the car does the driving but the human has to stay vigilant and take over at a millisecond's notice if something goes wrong. The irony is that this is the exact thing humans are absolutely terrible at - they simply cannot stay alert over a long period of time when nothing is happening - they switch off, meaning that when the car starts ploughing into a pedestrian they notice too late. Of course, it's the accident is then deemed the human's fault because they were responsible, despite the fact that the whole task set them up for failure. I observe people using tech all the time and it is soul-destroying to see how often software causes problems rather than solves them. AI will just make that worse. Now, instead of waiting on the phone for hours to talk to a person who doesn't have a clue how to help you, you'll instantly get sent to a bot who doesn't know how to help you, with no way of actually getting to anyone who knows anything.

Tech bros are arrogant idiots who like to paint themselves as geniuses. They know nothing and they make tech that is ridiculous and pointless. AI will just add speed to the ridiculous pointlessness.

You know what really gets to me? When I've observed someone spend 20 precious minutes fruitlessly trying to convince Excel not to fuck up the date on a spreadsheet, 99% of the time the person will say 'Oh I'm so rubbish at this' rather than saying 'Gosh this software is a real piece of shit isn't it?'

If something is supposed to help you and it doesn't, that's not your fault, that's the fault of the people who designed and developed the software. Too many people accept shitty tools because politicians are too old to realise that they're being hoodwinked by tech idiots in hoodies who believe they are the next messiah. When I saw Starmer's speech about AI I could have cried. It was so stupid.

Yes it turns out you don't need a load of overpaid tech bros to do this stuff. And it's not free speech apparently, wow what a surprise

AI is probably one of the most dangerous things humanity has faced for centuries. It goes beyond the threat to jobs it threatens the way we think, the way we interact with each other. Anyone cheering it on (yes you Starmer) needs their head examining.

it is so easy to manipulate- I could write essays in this. But it is basically the beginning of the end for humanity

AI is making my life a lot easier, speeding up a ton of routine tasks I have to do! It is broadening my role (so probably eliminating roles elsewhere) but also making my role more indispensable because I now do so much with my extra capacity?

its a funny one and I agree that careers advice is not keeping up

What are you talking about? How does that relate to AI?

@MayaPinion of course it's relevant. What we need is UBI but Labour are making it very clear with their drastic cuts to benefits that this will never ever be implemented! Can't push people into jobs that aren't there........