You say that as if understanding and stating requirements in a non conflicting way isn't the primary skill of a programmer anyway.
Where do you think all the renewable energy is coming from, its coming from large teams of crews installing those wind turbines and solar panels in the wilderness.
Every electrical transformer in the US is going to have to be upgraded, to accomodate for surges in demand from EVs.
The housing price crisis, once regulation is fixed, people will still have to build them. Robot construction workers ain't coming any time soon.
All of these are massive sources of employment. If AI really does automate a large chunk of white collar jobs, corporate profits will skyrocket, and so will government tax and private investment (Profits generally end up in investment funds somewhere), and the above sectors will absorb that investment.
Now, will the transition look pretty? Will your office workers make an easy transition to physical labour? No. But neither did the coal miners find 'learning to code' easy.
Time to buckle up, the tsunami comes. Also, if you can use AI, you are already safer than most of the white collar jobs, so we shouldn't be the ones crying the hardest.
That said, I don't see this mass transition happening from white collar to blue collar for a very sizable part of existing white collar. In many developing countries, white collar is a of a considerable age. There's skill/capability/physical issues as well as a social/cultural aspect. You're telling people that their educational investment is now worthless and are hereby demoted to the working class. May be correct, true and just, but expect social unrest.
The US is already spending $1 trillion on infrastructure, $1 trillion can hire 10 mil people digging ditches for a year, and when subsidizing gainful employment (ie, only subsidizing 20% of the wages), can probably generate 50 mil jobs. If AI is that impressive, expect the government coffers to swell so much it can spend $1 trillion on infrastructure every single year.
The US can easily absorb $30 trillion in total of infrastructure investment + housing construction, rebuilding itself to say Chinese standards. This wasn't possible previously because of cost and labour shortages. Now it is.
The future isn't all roses, but pretending it'll be some sort of apocalypse, is just another form of coping, excusing yourself to understanding the reality.
No the US is not. I urge you to read the damn bills not the Headlines. No where in any of these "infrastructure" is even 10% of the money being spent on actual infrastructure...
>>If AI is that impressive, expect the government coffers to swell so much it can spend $1 trillion on infrastructure every single year.
Where on earth do you get this.... Where in the history of anything has that been true. Where do you expect this money to come from... Corporate Taxes. Please ...
and most of them do not pay even a fraction of what information jobs pay. The 100K welder that I see tossed around all the time is like the $300K dev, sure they exist but that is not the median.
>>Every electrical transformer in the US is going to have to be upgraded, to accomodate for surges in demand from EVs.
Which is ironic given there is an extreme transformer shortage in the US, and the manufacturing supply chain that builds many of the components for transformers is actively being reallocated to build things for EV's
>>The housing price crisis, once regulation is fixed,
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA good one... I hope you are not serious
>>Robot construction workers ain't coming any time soon.
I dont know about that, Several innovations from Concrete printers, to rammed earth homes look very interesting. Then there is a "FlatPack" home trend, and several other innovations that could very well reduce the number of blue collar trade jobs as well
>>All of these are massive sources of employment.
Employment yes... High Income No, they also destroy the body so you really need to be in a supervisory, manager, or other such role by the time you are 50-55.
>>and the above sectors will absorb that investment.
That has never been true in the history of humanity, and it will not be true here.
>>>Will your office workers make an easy transition to physical labour? No. But neither did the coal miners find 'learning to code' easy.
This is one of the worse misconceptions people have, very few if any "coal miners" learned to code.. This does not happen. That is not the transition
The transition from Mining to Information was a generational thing, a family that was 3 generations of miners, well the 4th generation learned to code.
The miners move to other blue collar jobs, they became truck drivers, plumbers, welders, factory workers, etc.
>>Also, if you can use AI, you are already safer than most of the white collar jobs,
You are delusional if you think that.
Actually a lot of them didn't transition to anything. They stopped working and went on welfare or disability.
The idea that rather than losing jobs, it will compliment us and even enable millions of new "non-programmers" to start programming, I'm puzzled where this demand actually would come from? What would they even "build? And can you imagine the absolute nightmare of millions of people producing "code" with zero background in programming?
In a sane world, this could be a humanitarian moment where we redirect our human capital to things of a less commercial nature, say human care. We don't live in that world though.