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.

I have been involved in an AI related project at work in the last few weeks. It’s the first time I’ve taken it seriously.

i have learned a ton in the last few weeks about how to use it effectively. I’m not really scared of it anymore, instead I see how it will enable me to do a better job. I want to make sure I have up to date skills on how to use it so I’m not one of the ones left behind.

It’s not going to actually replace many people or jobs. It is going to mean 1 person can do what might today be considered 2 or 3 or more people’s jobs. In the short term that will cause reallocations of people from 1 job to a different one. That will be bumpy, but it’s not going to mean lots of people aren’t working, it’s going to improve productivity.

I have a shorthand definition of AI-

Think of it like a baby with near perfect language skills and access to everything on the internet.

It can't think, it doesn’t know anything, it doesn’t understand anything. But if you ask it a clear, well structured query it can give you extremely detailed answers. You still have to be the one figuring out what to ask it and whether the answer makes sense.

Learn to use it well and you will have nothing to worry about.

Duplicate

I don't like the way it is, a threat to the creativity of artists. My son is a musician who writes his own songs and music but now anyone can write a few words, type them in and a song is written for them.

It will evolve, therein the danger.

They used to pay musicians to do advert music & similar - no longer.

Well increasingly no longer, not fully.

It’s in its infancy indeed. It will zoom off leaving us all in the dust.

What sort of timescale are we looking at? What will its capabilities be, conservatively, in 20 years?

As I understand things, that'll depend on many factors:
What human-led directions it goes in;
What self-led directions it goes in;
Whether they crack the affordable quantum computing challenge;
How much power is available;
Whether governments will throttle its usage.

And a lot more besides, I'm sure. There are so many considerations to weigh up, and governments are notoriously slow to take action on developing phenomena. They're also terrible at co-operating, which would likely be required for any sort of managed evolution.

It's tempting to imagine AI could solve the problems of power, computing, management of its own development and constructive social/economic strategies. But I don't see that happening.

It is very possible that the world will run out of ideas - seriously! Even the most brilliant AIs reshuffle pre-existing work, they don't originate. Before long, all the work available for reshuffling will be the work of AIs, which are already derivative. With things getting stale, human opportunities could arise in doing fresh things in original ways, purely to generate new seeds for AI. That would be weird.

It’s not going to actually replace many people or jobs.

AI absolutely will replace jobs. Huge numbers of jobs.

It's already happening.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/25/ai-models-may-be-developing-their-own-survival-drive-researchers-say

Umm...... 😳

Governments are not slow at all - it is the new arms race. No country will want to fall behind.

The impact of jobs is already being felt. Young people are struggling to find jobs and at present are probably being helped out by their parents more than they were 10/ 20 years ago. It will only take a small step in that direction to have a serious impact on jobs because people will stop using the service industries etc due to lack of income. Those businesses will fold and then people will scrabble for the remaining jobs in other sectors which will also continue being replaced by AI.

No one is safe and the impact will hit everyone as pay will plummet due to over supply of the workforce.

@robinibor

Totally agree. No one is safe.

The real issue is if/when ‘it’ becomes self aware & that’s what, conservatively 100 years in future?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/28/patrick-gelsinger-christian-ai-gloo-silicon-valley

What could possibly go wrong? 😬

And people wonder why some of us are worried.....

Just came here to post that exact same link. What the FUCK, who are these fucking nutters?

In what kind of time frame is predicted?

Even if any of this magic was possible (it’s not, it’s marketing), we won’t have the energy for it. Partly because of their massive use of it.

In news today 17,000 jobs gone at Amazon due to AI

There's the well known case where AI taught itself Bengali: https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-ai-bengali#

In one report it apparently reached fluency in about ten minutes.

Yes, they were quite open about the job losses being down to 'leaner practices' due to AI. They were almost celebrating it in fact.

How can people still be in denial about this? We're only at the start of it, yet major job losses are already occurring on a regular basis.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/iba-2025-justice-minister-calls-for-debate-on-ai-judges/5125004.article

Yikes.

fucking hell en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots

Yep. It's dangerous and people don't want to think about it .....

I think that list will increase dramatically over the next few years, sadly.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/robot-home-care-nhs-dementia-uk-b2860948.html

Not exactly AI, but in the same sort of sphere.

Honestly, very conflicted. On the one hand, can see the uses. On the other, think human contact is important and it's going to be too easy for people to think this should be the whole way forward.

Hmmmm.