As I understand it, white-collar work at all levels is eliminated, as are creative pursuits (art, music, etc), and we can finally return to humanity's true calling - manual labour.

This but unironically. I'm hoping I can get into the skilled blue collar labor before it gets flooded by the hordes of unemployed AI researchers circa the 2030s (likely 2028 lol). No I'm not even kidding

I wouldn't sweat about it.

In my ~40mln country the construction sector (that includes renovation, landscaping etc.) outnumbers the IT sector 3:1.

Lead times for having things done around here are ridiculous, which is why I believe the former can absorb half of the latter with little change in salaries.

Yeah skilled blue collar labor is insanely stupidly expensive. I do want a flood of them so that the current scammers in most of the skilled blue collars get devalued.

No, you do not get to charge 500 USD to change an anode rod on a water heater if I have the damn rod. That's a 20 min job MAX and the only reason I'm calling you is that putting on the stupid plumbing tape at the end is annoying for me

I understand guild warfare and the hatred of labor unions the moment that I have to deal yet another actually-should-be-in-jail levels of scamming from yet another dentist.

Y'all think that AI researchers should go to jail for hallucinated citations? Dental surgeons should go to jail for selling homeopathic remedies (ask me how I know!)

I'm wondering if I get fired from my corporate middle-do-nothing job I could become a skilled blue collar worker. My point is, someone who both at the same time can put tiles and won't fuck up the pattern could be very valuable. I assume one year maximum to learn ins and outs.

Why would you assume you can become a skilled blue collar worker in a year?

> I do want a flood of them so that the current scammers in most of the skilled blue collars get devalued.

Same here. A friend of mine had some interior finishing done by two guys - one was a drinker, the other - a smoker (not tobacco).

After several missed deadlines and significant cost overruns, the drinker had to go, because he would go AWOL too often. The smoker stayed, because he responded to yelling and threats of lawsuits.

> Y'all think that AI researchers should go to jail for hallucinated citations?

I don't want to start this conversation because to me if we were a proper branch of engineering, a lot of us would be in jail already.

> Dental surgeons should go to jail for selling homeopathic remedies

I respect the hustle, but he could have just went with vitamin C supplements like my guy. He's a doctor(like all denstist here) and those pills legitimately contain proper amounts of vitamin C. Only difference is that I can get the same thing for 1/4 of the price at any pharmacy.

Who will need your labour if everyone else is unemployed?

Landlords, probably. The only people you have to keep paying even if they don't do anything and nobody is employed.

landlords need people to pay the rent. Or to spell it out more precisely : the construction/housing industry off of which land lords extract value needs external value creation to still exist AND give revenue to spend to a large population. "Houses are for people to live in" may be a communist slogan right now, but it's also very basic macro-economic reality.

When someone is living in the house, the landlord can get the rent. Either voluntarily, or by force through the courts. Even if nobody is employed.

If nobody is employed, then nobody has any money to live in a house, and the landlord doesn't get any rent.

The landlord then has the right to make someone homeless, for no benefit to anybody, just out of spite that he isn't getting rent.

Sure. But he still doesn't have the money to buy the labour the OP was wanting to sell. Which was the point of the argument: If you think AI will destroy most white collar jobs, learning a trade won't help.

enjoy learning the job for 3 years before gettin replaced by the cheap floods

Wait for the robots taking manual labor. Maybe there is some value in nursing them?

Magically, spending money on datacenters and gear makes working code fantastically appear from the aether and so engineers can be paid the same as janitors. That's what the suits believe now.

They can believe whatever they want but the reality will hit them soon enough.

The problem is that decision-makers/owners are often too far away from the essential operations of the value chain and instead seek confirmation based on vibes and copying what others are doing.

Yeah, irony put asisde, I believe that the reality is that people who already have power will consolidate it even more. Regardless if you were an average engineer, mid-level manager, consultant, whatever, you will be thrown under the bus any day. People can make up any identity and philosophy of entrepreneur/vibe engineer/manager/hardcore engineer/guy who run away to trades/anything but it doesn't change the fact that an average Joe is economically not viable in the current setup and he can't do anything particular to turn the tides.

My theory: AI is making companies move faster or be left behind. Too many managers usually means bigger red tape.