It seems the last mile in replacing blue collar jobs may be more expensive and more challenging (if not impossible) than replacing information workers with AI...
It seems likely that AI will either replace or augment people in the most creative fields, creating a homogeneous MUSH out of once interesting things, making us consumerist and mindless drones that simply react like amoebas to advertising, buying junk we don't need so that the top 0.1% rule the world, pushed their by their intense narcissism and lack of empathy (like Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella who are by definition narcissists for doing what they do.)
This is self-limiting. It's a sort of built-in plateau. You can't serve the whole market with anything: the closest you'll get is something like a Heinz Ketchup, a miraculously well-balanced creation with something for everyone. It's also a relatively small market segment for all its accessibility.
We cannot be made 'consumerist and mindless drones that simply react like amoebas to advertising' more than we already are, which is a LOT: whole populations are poisoned by carefully designed unhealthy food, conned by carefully designed propaganda in various contradictory directions. We're already at saturation point for that, I think. It's enough to be a really toxic situation: doesn't have to threaten to be far worse.
The backlash always happens, in the form of more indigestible things that aren't homogenous mush, whether that's the Beatles or the Sex Pistols or, say, Flamin' Hot Cheetos. The more homogenous everything is, the more market power is behind whatever backlash happens.
This is actually one argument for modern democracies and their howling levels of cultural tension… it's far more difficult to impose homogenity on them, where other systems can be more easily forced into sameness, only to snap.
Is that image of a child being assaulted by terrorists real or fake? To the victims, its real, to political powers it fake, to mega corporations, its money.
The world we are headed into, accelerated by huge leaps in technology like AI, will be a sorry, pathetic, unforgiving world, that amplifies suffering and nullifies humanity.
Is that what has happened so far in your life? Technology has messed it up for you ?
Don't bully people into not expressing critical thought by emphasizing that they have their basic physical needs met. We should be critical of society, even if on the surface it seems pretty good.
We also have more advanced psychological needs such as the need to depend on others, and that is what is at stake here.
Wouldn't the poverty rebuild these communities ? I mean the hardships make people rely on each other right?
I don't entirely doubt what you're saying either, but I'm not so sure I see what you see.
Seriously, we're a long way off technological utopia. Even if we had some type of AGI/ASI that was self-aware like in movies ,there's little if any evidence to suggest it will just work for us and make sure you're ok.
Going back to the 90s probably would.
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty...
Why don't you go ask the 189 million people that since 1990 have avoided hunger if they agree?
A lot of people in southeastern Asia and China are working in industry and live tens time better than subsiste farmers just one generation before them exactly because the niche trinkets they make can now be sold on instagram.
AI tooling seems to be allowing for more time on creativity and less on rote work.
If that continues to play out creativity inevitably drives more collaboration as creativity cannot thrive only in a silo.
On the other hand access to information has given me more independence, and this hasn't been a bad thing. I do rely less on others, like my parents, but I still love them and spend more time having fun with them rather than relying on them.
I do understand what you mean, it just doesn't like up as all negative to me.
I also think open source AI will destroy any feudalistic society. These companies like MS are going to have a problem when their own technology starts to destroy their value add.
Look ad Adobe and some of the open source video and graphis editing AI software, there goes one fiefdom.
Except in the shovelware games industry and the instagram ad scam industry where is AI actually, currently, threatening to take away jobs?
Also there's areas where it's quickly becoming a required skill set, so it's not that it's replacing people but that the people there are getting their skills obsoleted. All the molecular biologists I know that used to joke about how they picked biology since they suck with computers and hate excel are at a high risk of getting left behind right now, especially with how steep the improvement's been with protein design models like RFDiffusion. Though by latest rumors it looks like the vast vast majority of biologists involved in protein work have already started using tools like alphafold and esmfold so it does look like people are adapting.
> The job cuts come as businesses waste no time adopting advanced AI technology to automate a range of tasks — including creative work, such as writing, as well as administrative and clerical work.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-job-losses-artificial-intell...
2. Photographers (Check out Photo.AI). I know a local photographer who takes nice portraits for businesses. Now people can use this service for their headshots. (You may argue that it's good for people but at which point does it remain good if NOBODY can use their creative talents to make a living.)
3. Writing. Many websites are now using writers to write their articles. That means they hire less writers. Again, you can say that it makes society more efficient and I guess it does for consumers, but those people such as copy editors will have to find new jobs.
You may say that new jobs will be created but we have not seen such a versatile tool that can take away so many jobs at such a quick pace before. Moreover, will the world really be a nice place to live in if most of the creative jobs or at least jobs involved IN producing something nice will be left to machines?
What about Hollywood and their desire to replace writers and actors? You may say that Hollywood is dead anyway, but I'm sure it's about to get a lot worse...
5. Programmers
7. Composers, hired musicians, eventually singers, producers
Why do these people deserve protection from automation any more than all the millions of people who worked other jobs tat were eliminated by automation up to this point?
You got it!!! All those other people DO deserve protection from automation! But our society made a mistake and pushed them out. Many communities were destroyed by efficient automation and guess what, efficient automation via cars and vehicles is what caused our most immense disaster now, the climate crisis.
We made a mistake by creating so much automation. We should strive to recreate smaller communities in which more creative AND manual tasks are appreciated.
Those exist?
So you're volunteering to become a stoop-labor agricultural serf, then?
Why are you the one who gets to decide how much is "too much"?
> And nothing about removing automation implies going back into serfdom.
Sure, just because essentially every society above the level of hunter-gatherers has had some kind of peasant/serf/slave doesn't mean that your utopia will.
But that's not the way to bet, my friend.
/s
My "Plan B" is becoming an electrician.
When we're getting rid of assembly line jobs, or checkout counter staff, or data entry clerks, or any other job that we know is demeaning and boring, we can convince ourselves that the thousands/millions put out of work are an unfortunate side effect of progress. Oh sure, the loss of jobs sucks, but no one should have to do those jobs anyway, right? The next generation will be better off, surely. We're just closing the door behind us. And maybe if our economic system didn't suck so much, we would take care of these people.
But when creatives start getting replaced, well, that's different. Many people dream of moving into the creative industry, not out of it. Now it feels like the door is closing ahead of us, not behind us.
What we're getting instead is the automation of those creative endeavours, while leaving a "gap" of repetitive, mind numbing work (like labelling data or doing basic physical tasks like "picking" goods in an Amazon warehouse) that still has to be done by humans.
Hand weaving is a creative endeavor, but almost no one makes a living from hand weaving today. People still do it for fun, though.
The upside there is that most people are able to afford more than two sets of clothing (one for daily wear, one for church, weddings, funerals, etc.).
That is why we should be cautious about technology instead of inviting it with open arms. It is a question we should continue to ask ourselves with more wisdom, instead of relying on our mass global capitalistic system to deliver easy answers for us from the depths of the profit motive.
I don't care if I have to pay megacorps for a right to my modern conveniences, if that means they extend to more and more people. Monsanto can take all my money if no one ever dies of starvation again. Microsoft can take all my data if we never have to do rote tasks again.
I also disagree that scarcity creates conflict and pain. Scarcity limits growth, which means it limits our expansion, which is good because other creatures have to live here too.
Every war in human history (and there have been a lot of them) was fought over control of scarce resources. Sure looks like scarcity creates conflict and pain to me.
I'd take a few wars here and there over what we have now any day. Even if it means I die. It would be much better if humanity's population were limited.
It's a shame your argument devolved into eugenics so quickly.
Everything is good in moderation, and with AI we are taking our efficiency past that good point. AI not only takes jobs away from creatives such as illustrators and can be used for identity theft, it also is removing the reliance that people have on each other.
Society is held together because people need each other. People meet each other through needing each other, and this is what makes local communities strong. AI takes that away so that the only entities we need are big tech like Microsoft, Google, and other soulless organizations.
It is a descent into feudalism, where everyone will pay big tech for basic living necessities (first option, later a necessity, like the smartphone).
If a man or woman wants to live independently of big tech, it will be harder and harder now, and we are losing are sense of what it means to be human through the immoral actions of these companies.