Yes, they did. Or rather: everyone was forced to catch up and those that didn't just got left behind.
Those of us who saw the PC revolution still remember the time when typewriters were an everyday artifact. We also saw how everyone was forced to choose between updating or being left behind - no matter how fast your secretary was, a human with carbon paper is no match for a human that slightly tweaks a template and sends 10 copies to the printer. And a human with a calculator will always be slower than a human with Excel.
Do a plumber, a baker, a policeman need a computer to do their job? That's right, they don't. So men with computers did not "replace" those without.
Plumbers (and for that matter, all tradespeople) can get far more efficient at their jobs if they use computers to their advantage. Modern heating systems, i.e. anything above "a gas boiler that circulates water and fires up if the water gets < 70 °C and shuts off >90 °C" can't be designed these days any more without the aid of simulation software that accounts for the effects of insulation or the variety of air-conditioning systems. The more energy efficient, the more complex it gets to design and to operate. Carpenters these days don't do much measurement by hand - they design something in CAD and get exactly fitting wood parts out of their saw machines. Electricians, where do I even start with these, as modern homes are filled to the brim with smart tech. The only thing AI can't do for now is actually run cables and pipes, but give it 10-20 years and construction labor will be done by Boston Dynamic robots - we're already seeing giant 3D printers for concrete or brick-laying robots.
Bakers just the same. Most of bakery, with the exception of artisanal crafters that take pride and charge appropriate pricing, is automated these days - including the supply chain.
And policemen... just look how much they're using computers already. No more "send a chopper and a dozen cars to follow a suspect", no more stakeouts, ANPR cameras and AI are enough (there's been a HN submission a week-ish ago about that).
Yes, all of these jobs can be done by computers, but far far less efficiently - and declining birth rates will put more and more pressure on all kinds of jobs to be either eliminated entirely ("paper pushers" and similar bullshit jobs) or be replaced by computers.
[1] https://www.wral.com/story/license-plate-reading-cameras-hel...
Plumber A has a van and a phone number attached to it. They're also in the yellow pages.
Plumber B has a website with a real-time calendar of available dates and estimated rates for different jobs. They also buy relevant ads on Google and Facebook.
A is pretty much relying on word of mouth, might be excellent at their job but won't be getting much new business - young people (people under 40) don't especially enjoy cold-calling strangers for availability and rates.
I know that I'l pick B in an instant. I've called way too many tradesmen who have answered clearly while driving in traffic and then they start digging up their physical appointment notebook at the same time.
As a matter of fact, the new boiler my plumber (who has a webpage and I found online, mind you) recently installed has computer chips and circuits. My plumber seems very technically literate and knowledgeable about the tech as well.
Police offices are now using AI to catch people. Even before, they were using computers in criminology for DNA samples.
So all of the professions you listed use computers all the time for their job. Both directly and indirectly. A baker without internet, a plumber with no computer knowledge, a police office stuck using analog tools are all worse off than their tech savvy counterparts.
I can say for sure that this is simply not true. There are bakeries without websites that make a killing, while at the same time there are smaller ones in the same areas trying to drum up business online with less success.
But all things considered, having an online presence always helps your business. A fantastic bakery with a website will get more customers than a fantastic bakery with no website.
1) location
2) location
3) location
Everything else doesn't matter. Nobody goes online every day to see "Gee, I wonder which artisanal bakery I'm going to drive to today, and I'm going to make my decision based on which bakery has the flashiest website".
If websites mattered, then small businesses wouldn't have the crappiest websites ever.
If you really think bakers don't benefit from using computers, then you're just not thinking very hard. I always look up the reviews of the bakeries I go to if I'm buying a cake or something. I wouldn't risk buying something at a bakery without checking online if it's worth it or not.
>If websites mattered, then small businesses wouldn't have the crappiest websites ever.
If websites DIDNT matter, these small businesses would not have websites at all. I'm not saying you need a good website. You just need any website for discovery. Your example actually supports my arguement - why would small businesses be wasting time with websites unless it helped them?
You wouldn’t risk spending on $7 on a loaf of bread to try out whether a bakery is good or not?
I’m sorry but that just sounds ridiculous on its face. The average reviewer has no taste to begin with.
> You just need any website for discovery.
No, what they need is to claim ownership of a Google Maps entry and a Yelp page. I don’t know if I’ve ever visited a bakery’s website in my life, but I've found plenty by searching Google Maps.
You're just doubling down on your own stupid argument and not providing any interesting rebuttals to what I'm saying. The reviewers are wrong, Yelp is wrong, the internet is wrong, bakers CANNOT benefit from using the internet! Go get your birthday cake from the first bakery you see, I don't care. You're not really raising good points. If anything, you're just highlighting how little you know about using the internet to find new businesses. The fact that you've never visited a baker's website just means you either don't care or know about picking high quality products when it matters. It's a you problem, not the baker's problem.
Still don't get why they need a website. An out of date menu showing prices from the 2010s, I guess? Just look them up along with reviews on Google Maps or Yelp and call them to order the cake. But hey what do I know, I've only done it dozens of times... this past year alone.
You saying "I've never needed this and I never tried it, so I don't understand why anyone else would" isn't exactly a robust argument. In fact, why would I bother listening to your opinion on a feature you've never even tried? Most websites have info about hours, prices, products, FAQs that are up to date. Your mental model of what's in a website is wildly off, especially in 2023 when everyone's on social media.
Oh yeah there's a nice bakery 400km from here… I'll just go there rather than the usual one down the street! /s
Idk what to tell you. Based on your example (only search results for bakeries are 400km away), the problem is where you live, not the internet.
Again, it sounds like your little town or wherever you live is just lame. If there is no competition, there's no reason to innovate. I'm sure every business in your (real or hypothetical) town is years behind the curve in every metric if your only factor for patronizing a business is "well, it's the only one close by".
> your little town or wherever you live is just lame
I'm sure you're aware that the term "lame" is offensive, discriminatory, and should really be avoided?
I get a strong feeling that you were bullied in school when you were a kid.
Enjoy your fantasies mr internet bully :D
And police is already a heavy user of computers
Plumbers need to order stuff online, manage invoices, have an online presence to get and communicate with customers, have digital instruments that might feed into their field laptop.
Bakers use digitalized machines and have their recipes down to an almost exact science. They use computers all the time to calibrate stuff.
Yes, mostly. Very much so the police officer, which is why they generally have, for decades, had a computer terminal built into their patrol vehicles.
But, yes, modern workers (and esoecially business owners) in each of the other fields often use computers, even if not for what you might consider the core defining part of their job, for parts that are practically important to doing it in the modern environment, even if its just the computers almost everyone carries in their pocket.
But in reality you'll see that poorly run businesses can end up continuing for decades.
So we have entered into this weird situation where Hollywood actors and writers are demanding huge compensation for work that is becoming relatively cheap to produce with new technology. It is going to be interesting to see this play out.
Thing is, while actors can be replaced or massively augmented by AI, writing by definition cannot until we have actual AGI solved. No matter what you ask ChatGPT, its outputs are as finite as its training material is.
And even for actors, people are already beginning to loathe too much CGI, see the decline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As long as there are enough people actually preferring live humans, Hollywood execs can get f.cked with their dreams of collecting the hundreds of millions of dollars they pay actors for themselves.
I don't think that's a high bar. Maybe they prefer A class live humans, but there are certainly plenty of "filler" holes that most people won't ever perceive as missing.
You're obviously not aware that "computer" was a profession, a job before becoming a machine, just watch the "Hidden Figures" movie. Have you seen a human computer later?
Certainly for a whole host of tasks.
> Did programmers with google search and stack overflow replace programmers without these?
Also true for many tasks too, a programmer who refuses to use these resources for certain types of work will be an order of magnitude slower in many cases and will be replaced by programmers who aren't.
LLMs are just beginning to become useful, but there will be a point where they're indispensable, those who refuse to use them will eventually find themselves falling behind. It's will eventually become equivalent to a programmer who refuses to move off punch cards or refuses to use modern version control.
They will be useful for a set of tasks but all of the people hyperventilating over this being the new industrial revolution might consider calming down a little.
The high priests of capitalism have been blaming lost jobs on automation since forever - largely because this narrative makes a convenient, impersonal scapegoat.
Then there was a short, sharp "it's going to change everything" hype cycle that lasted no more than a few years followed by a trough of disillusionment that coincided with the recession that was around 2003 or so.
I thought almost all parts of the cycle were exaggerated from the part where it was a curiosity for nerds to the "pets.com craze" where "the high street would disappear completely".
With LLMs it's very similar but rather than a meaningful shift in technological development underpinning it it's something more like a parlor trick with a few practical applications.
What makes you think this, I'm assuming you've tried gpt-4? I've personally gotten a lot of productivity out of it. Assuming it gets a lot better, I don't see how it's not going to minimally become an indispensable tool, and at maximum completely transform the future of humanity.
It reduced my productivity when I used it.
Between having a slightly faster and slightly customized version of google vs. being sent down misleading rabbit holes, the latter won out.
I found a few niche use cases where it proved useful but it was all out of proportion to the hype.
I've paired with other people who were bullish about LLMs using them and witnessed them falling down rabbit holes. I found the whole experience bizarre - it was like seeing a new "social reality" take precedence over what was happening in front of our eyes. Computer says yes.
I have found GPT-4 very useful for understanding concepts and solving specific problems in programming, science, maths, psychology, relationships, and producing creative writing, by having conversations with it, going back and forth deeper into these topics. But I would never use it as an API reference. Raise it up to the conceptual level and you will be surprised at what it is capable of.
GPT and friends are very impressive, yes; if you’re also impressed by your intern blindly copying stack overflow.
I can't understand why you compare it with an intern copy paste, it's simply absurd to compare. Looks just a way of reducing the argument and drawing parallelism where there are none. Yes, some people use it to program, No, not everyone uses it for programming
Which problems do programmers have that only AI could help with?
Some people don’t have that luxury.
Humans with AI wont cause the extinction of humans without it... but there will be a elevation of "class" for those with it.
Humans become the expandable operator of the tools that do most of the work.
These people don't sound valued to me
First, humans don't deliver 100% accurate information, so let's keep the bar at something reasonable. Secondly, complete products are not necessarily the only value of LLMs. LLMs are pretty solid when it comes to helping break out of some sort of creative block. Think about it this way - when you're trying to creatively solve a hard problem, what is one of the best mechanisms to help? Perspective changes. LLMs are extremely helpful when assisting with perspective changes (driving/helping iterate on different creativity tools like combination, association, etc).
I can't get the full article to load for some reason - but so far I seem to see people mostly arguing that LLMs will do the work for us and it will be amazing or subpar, etc - but neglecting, which I assume is the point of the article, that LLMs will be a co-pilot for humans and assist in ways like perspective shifting to find faster/better/more innovative solutions.
Water, food, clothing, a place to call home, dignitary.
Replacing is a strong word. There are many people who live Tech agnostic lives.
When I leave Seattle and SF, most strangers I talk to haven’t even heard of GPT.
This is HN so we’re biased towards specific problems.
However access to quality food, water, electricity, internet, shelter, sanitation, opportunity still remains a problem for a large chunk of the population.
And LLMs which are fundamentally next prediction algorithms don’t make a huge difference to someone’s survival ability.
Did programmers with google search and stack overflow replace programmers without these?
It doesn't and it won't happen in any time soon.
How could humans with probabilistic LLM which cough up hallucination replace humans without it when the answer to my previous two questions are NO.