To be utterly despondent about AI

[AnotherGreyMorning]

and our future?

Jobs becoming obsolete. People unable to earn a living.

Villains harnessing for their own ends.

It will all move far too fast and at sophisticated levels for even the most dedicated to manage.

Governments will be stunned by it. People will really suffer.

I just feel quiet dread because whilst life will be great for the wealthy and those who are protected, for the vast majority, I think it will be hellish.

They said the same about washing machines, and other such new fangled ideas.

Washing machines did not take over so very many jobs. And at such a speed. And this is just the beginning.

But this is exactly the fears when the Industrial Revolution wiped out so many manual jobs. Yet I’m pretty sure you would agree that child labour in factories was a good thing to move on from.

adapt.

Well, it’s inevitable so hand-wringing isn’t going to achieve much. And I’m pretty sure similar things have been said with every technological innovation.

Get on with adapting to the changes.

If you’re really concerned, start articulating your point of view through lobbying and advocacy.

The same, and worse, was said about the internet in the 90s.

AI can be a useful tool, BUT you still need intelligent, educated humans to check its veracity. It is still far too US-centric. It lies, perhaps not deliberately. It does not provide accurate, factual information. It only responds, so not proactive.
I am not too concerned at present.
If you are concerned, why not learn more about it and become a certified AI practitioner?

Yes AI may be streamlining some jobs. But someone still needs to program and maintain these AI tools. So jobs will be available, just in a different field. Which is why I think it’s important for our kids to go in to STEM and technology in general in order to keep up with the change. Technology is not the enemy - it can really revolutionise and streamline things that are costing too much / take too much time / are associated with too much bureaucracy.

But what about when you are reading books and you've no idea whether this is an original work written by a real person (who has done or experienced what they write about) or whether the book was scraped from other books and then cobbled together by AI with no exernal fact checking?

Look at the current furore over The Salt Path, and that was actually written by a person! Who can you trust when most books will be written by an AI that has no idea about actual human behaviour?

People said the same in the eighties about robots !
the nineties about the internet
before that and after that same … same lament, different tune !

you may as well be despondent that the sea tides move in and out !!!

move with it, or be left behind
don’t catastrophise and you will feel better

AI needs, and always will need, human interaction. Best thing to do is get on board with it, people need to start understanding its capabilities more and the younger generations should be using it in their daily lives to build skills. It's not going anywhere. AI will replace some jobs, others it will transform. But it will also create new jobs.

Well the cellphone has basically destroyed society so I don't think OP is too far off?

My partner is a copywriter,and he's gone from earning £2k a month,at least,to nothing/the odd £200 every now and then.
I don't think people have realised the extent of job losses as AI progresses.
There is a warehouse opening local to me,which was expected to provide thousands of job opportunities,but as it turns out,it's going to be mainly AI run.
I'm very concerned about how many jobs will be lost to AI,not just now,but for our sons and daughters.
I'm all for progress but I genuinely think AI will ultimately end the need for humans.

I feel the same op. No one I speak to seems to be that concerned. The changes will be nothing like the 80s/90s and millennium bug etc..

AI will be a huge in the not too distant future. I am worried for my dc and their future job prospects too.

The government is not doing enough to stop the AI takeover and put some guard rails in place 😔

People talk about previous Industrial Revolutions but the life expectancy was much much lower then. I’m wealthy so unlikely to be affected but it does worry me. It’s taking out the middle jobs and that’s the first time that’s happened before. So jobs at the v bottom and top will remain but the middle will be squeezed. The talk of a living wage via benefits is all v well but having millions of unemployed young males across Europe cannot be good.

That's a bit different though. How many people were put out of jobs when people started to have washing machines in their own homes compared to the amount of graphic designers,lyricists, illustrators, writers,song writers, composers, etc that will be put out of business by AI??

Brilliant example. I was talking to someone about copywriters last week. The issue with AI is you can get it to do the grunt work but you need an expert to review and finesse it. But people don't realise it so the art and skill is lost which will happen with everything. Journalism is a really great example where want is classed as a journalist is a very low bar

phones have changed the way we interact socially, I agree not always for the better however

As an immigrant I remember buying scratch card mobile cards with minutes on them that allowed me to call my grandparents for a limited amount of time for a lot of money. Now I can video call them in seconds and share that I got engaged, my baby was born, someone close to me was passing away. That’s invaluable.

Blind people can hold up their phone camera up to an object and the phone tells them what it is.

Hard of hearing can connect up their hearing aids to a phone which processes noise around them to clearly translate a conversation

You can call for help when you’re lost, you can get directions, you can order food when your mobility is reduced

it’s really not all doom and gloom.

Humans are very good at adapting. That’s why we are so successful!

YANBU ... I am sick of it. Stuff being written by it, pictures being drawn by it, and even songs can be written by it. Then there's the fake AI videos on Facebook and the like, where a 'kind man' saves a tiger cub's life, or helps a distressed giraffe, and it turns out to be shitty AI.

I am baffled that so many posters aren't arsed about it. It's literally stealing peoples careers and businesses, and conning people. I hate it.

They're really not! We have adapted beyond our evolution. We are so far where we should be, processed food, lack of human relationships, surrounded by chemicals, not at one with nature, sedentary, too much technology thw list goes on. And as a result look at the mental health of most.

I know what you mean. But the truth is that the world doesn't stay the same.
I don't love it either but don't want to be one of those older people who resists change.

I don't know about utterly despondent, but certainly worried. There could be a sensible path if corporations were made to pay out to support the societal and economic consequences of mass automation, but that's never going to happen given, y'know, capitalism. It's not a given it'll take jobs en masse, it may not be able to get good enough to be viable and other support roles may evolve, but yeah, I'm on the pessimistic side, most of all perhaps about the environmental cost, which is huge.

‘They’ really didn’t

Not quite the same as AI but there are now driverless taxi services in parts of America. But, they still need to employ cleaners to make sure the cars are in a decent state.for the next users
People shopping online meant that a lot of shops closed and workers lost their jobs but there is still employment in warehouses
When self driving lorries become a thing they will likely still need human "ride alongs" to male sure the lorries can navigate tricky sections
Copywriters/translators are being replaced by AI but you still.need someone at the end to come in and "check" the work. Sometimes it's such a mess it's as much work as fixing it from scratch but the perception is they are only adding to the AIs work.

So AI etc isn't making human jobs obsolete. It's making it easier to downgrade what people do and portray it as something that is less skilled and should pay less. That's the real trick.
I'ts a bit of a conspiracy theory but I was suspicious when there was a huge push in the manosphere podcaster space to talk about how different men and women are and how women are better at X,Y but men are much better at A,B,C,De and thats why they get paid more and we should be honest about that. All the "male" supposedly more important skills (from coding to heavy lifting) are things computers/machines are better at. So all the skills that are left to humans are the low value ones. Bros got played.

I’m no history expert, but weren’t there millions of jobs created after the Industrial Revolution?