This time, it's different.

Previous revolutionary technological advancements disrupted many people but then created even more new jobs and greater overall wealth related to the new technology.

Personally, my career didn't even exist until I was over 30. I couldn't have been involved in it earlier before. My general not technical liberal arts education prepared me to jump in when as soon as the change happened.

That was then. This is now.

AI will be a massive job disrupter (which is a massive understatement) but will other than a small number of AI manager types for the super skilled, the majority of those disrupted will not find that AI leads to new career paths.

I'm sure glad I didn't bother to learn to code! 

Totally agree.

Automation decimated manual factory work from the late 1950's onwards

AI, when it becomes truly intelligent, will decimate white collar work.

It will also be used a weapon of war as evey invention by humanity has.

Won't end well I fear.

The only thing im sure of is that universities will lose business big time because they cant keep up the lie that everyone needs a degree. I can’t predict the job market because nobody knows its just speculation what the result of AI will be

Basic income to everyone.

Elon Musk has stated it and so has Sam Altman and many others. 

 

Problem is: If you were making over 100K all your life, how do you accept that you need to downsize your life to the same as everyone else? 

 

There is basically no more hierarchy in society when this happens apart from the billionaire class. Then everyone else is "equal". No more middle class or upper middle class or moderately rich. The accountant who was making 100K is now equal to the cashier at Wal-Mart. 

 

A lot of people's egos will take a major beating. Some people might commit suicide when they come in to work one day and they're told their 250K a year job (and the high status that went along with it) is being replaced by AI. 

 

And as Elon Musk said, "how do you find meaning" when there is no work?

 

A lot of people never had meaningful work, so they're ok. It's the ones who did who might suffer the most. 

 

 

The government might step in and regulate AI jobs. 

27 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

Basic income to everyone.

Elon Musk has stated it and so has Sam Altman and many others. 

 

Problem is: If you were making over 100K all your life, how do you accept that you need to downsize your life to the same as everyone else? 

 

There is basically no more hierarchy in society when this happens apart from the billionaire class. Then everyone else is "equal". No more middle class or upper middle class or moderately rich. The accountant who was making 100K is now equal to the cashier at Wal-Mart. 

 

A lot of people's egos will take a major beating. Some people might commit suicide when they come in to work one day and they're told their 250K a year job (and the high status that went along with it) is being replaced by AI. 

 

And as Elon Musk said, "how do you find meaning" when there is no work?

 

A lot of people never had meaningful work, so they're ok. It's the ones who did who might suffer the most. 

 

 

Basic income is a bad idea for governments. Everyone who has savings will just put the free money into bitcoin

9 minutes ago, angryguy said:

Basic income is a bad idea for governments. Everyone who has savings will just put the free money into bitcoin

It's an unaffordable concept.   It would cost $5 trillion to give $ 50,000 per year to 100,000,000 people.  I'm assuming 1/3 of a 300,000,000 population.  

I already have two friends who have lost their income due to AI, and I'm just one guy. Imagine just how many have seen their income stream reduced to a dribble. Neither of these two will be able to get rehired. Too old, both in their 60s, but still need to work.
It's not going to get better.

It's going to be a very different future.

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

I'm sure glad I didn't bother to learn to code! 

 

Programmers are still doing quite well.

 

The uptake from tech companies for programmers is still very rapid, in case you do not know.

 

IMHO, it is still too early to say what the result may be.

 

But, there are many who are willing to shed their premature opinions, already....

 

You might like this guy...for example....

 

 

We will all become painter's and philosophers, sitting on a rock in a meadow and contemplating the world, the universe, and everything. Yeah, right.

 

If virtually nobody is working, there is no tax base. If there is no tax base, government has no income and producers have no customers or consumers. AI will be making stuff that nobody has any money to buy because they have no income, unless government introduces a UBI, but government has no tax payers to fund it.  Vicious circle.

 

Government must therefore control the value of "money" and strictly control supply as well as demand - resulting in a Marxist Utopia of equity for us all - except of course those elites of the Inner Party. Money will be a programable CBDC, obviously.

 

Government knows that idle hands make the devil's works, so a restless proletariat will not be tolerated. We won't be allowed to sit around and plot the overthrow of tyrannical power - expect enforced physical activities, compulsory membership of propagandised organisations, and government endorsed (enforced) use of Soma type drugs to keep us placid.  Think Huxley's Brave New World.

 

We will all be euphoric and happily sing Kumbaya while queuing for the next bowl of soylent green. 

Well 25% of working age adults in the UK don't work now so maybe the transition won't be so bad.

Just beware the rate of change.

 

Also, be aware that the rate of change, in itself, is also increasing....

 

We can think of this as the SECOND DERIVATIVE....

 

 

 

In other words, change is happening at a faster rate than any society can cope.

 

Therefore, expect to see a final breakdown in society.....

 

The Final Breakdown....

 

 

35 minutes ago, FolkGuitar said:

I already have two friends who have lost their income due to AI, and I'm just one guy. Imagine just how many have seen their income stream reduced to a dribble. Neither of these two will be able to get rehired. Too old, both in their 60s, but still need to work.
It's not going to get better.

It's going to be a very different future.

I also know someone who started a business that Intuit wanted to buy for a tidy sum 3 years ago. Now he wishes he had taken the offer. He is closing his business at the end of the year. AI made his business obsolete.

People losing their jobs to AI will accelerate.

Tax income will drop

Companies using AI will have a surge in profits

Cash in circulation will continue to drop

Consumer spending will decrease

Everyone will suffer except the rich will get richer.

There will be riots

 

 

Skilled trades have nothing to worry about and almost zero debt when starting.

The idiots with liberal arts degrees will still be idiots.
If people can't see the change thats coming and plan for it, well, they deserve what they get.

26 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

People losing their jobs to AI will accelerate.

Tax income will drop

Companies using AI will have a surge in profits

Cash in circulation will continue to drop

Consumer spending will decrease

Everyone will suffer except the rich will get richer.

There will be riots

 

 

I agree with rich getting richer, which is always the case anyways.

 

lefty predictions are meaningless. Makes me more confident than AI fears are exaggerated

2 minutes ago, Slowhand225 said:

Skilled trades have nothing to worry about and almost zero debt when starting.

The idiots with liberal arts degrees will still be idiots.
If people can't see the change thats coming and plan for it, well, they deserve what they get.

Your humanitarianism is a breath of fresh air in these difficult times.

 

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

Basic income to everyone.

Elon Musk has stated it and so has Sam Altman and many others. 

 

Problem is: If you were making over 100K all your life, how do you accept that you need to downsize your life to the same as everyone else? 

 

There is basically no more hierarchy in society when this happens apart from the billionaire class. Then everyone else is "equal". No more middle class or upper middle class or moderately rich. The accountant who was making 100K is now equal to the cashier at Wal-Mart. 

 

A lot of people's egos will take a major beating. Some people might commit suicide when they come in to work one day and they're told their 250K a year job (and the high status that went along with it) is being replaced by AI. 

 

And as Elon Musk said, "how do you find meaning" when there is no work?

 

A lot of people never had meaningful work, so they're ok. It's the ones who did who might suffer the most. 

 

 

It's all opinion now, but I tend to agree with yours.

 

I think the disruption that is on the horizon is unlike anything humanity has ever faced. When manual labor was in surplus 800 years ago, the Bubonic Plague cleared away the excess and brought serfdom to an end. When McCormick introduced his combine, farm workers had the factories of the Industrial Revolution to absorb them. Today, the job an obviated worker might seek will already be performed by an AI agent, so he has no where to go.

 

There will be some good to come of it, but good is relative. For example, doctors will be unnecessary, as AI agents will know more, can diagnose with fewer errors, and can tailor treatment based on one's individual gene expression/metabolism/etc.

 

I think universities will disappear, as what good is learning something that qualifies one for a job AI does better. Education will be online, and for education's sake only....kind of like current degrees in "Women's Studies" or "Communications" or "Psychology". Mentally stimulating, perhaps, but useless in terms of income.

 

Currently CEOs are so excited that they can cut employee costs with AI, failing to see CEOs will also lose their job to an AI agent. Nobody needs an inflated and expensive ego in the corner office.

 

I fully agree society will be totally bifurcated, with only two classes: the Musks and Altmans of the trillionaire class (who are now making decisions they have no right to make about all of our futures), and the 99.99999% who live off a basic and equal income.

 

People who work trades have a little more time, but as robotics get better, plumbers jobs will disappear, too.

 

I think how people will adjust to losing meaning will be a function of current age. It will be much easier for those under, say, 35, who think watching endless TikTok videos all day long represents a life well lived. AI agents know how to control those people. Elders will be more difficult to control, and self-aware AI agents might determine the planet is better off without those who cannot be pacified with the kind of banal drivel currently available on TikTok.

 

There are enough experts and insiders (e.g., Geoffrey Hinton, Roman Yampolskiy) who are of the opinion AI might eradicate human beings, that it must be taken seriously. Guys like Altman are too intent on becoming trillionaires and gods that they chose to ignore the unknown, but potentially extinction-level, risks.

1 minute ago, angryguy said:

I agree with rich getting richer, which is the case anyways.

 

lefty predictions are meaningless. Makes me more confident than AI fears are exaggerated

 

Incidentally, I'm not a lefty, I'm not from the former colonies and my voting in elections has always been the right.  It does appear that the right in the former colonies has become something quite extreme.

2 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Incidentally, I'm not a lefty, I'm not from the former colonies and my voting in elections has always been the right.  It does appear that the right in the former colonies has become something quite extreme.

No idea what youre talking about. Youre a socialist euro

3 minutes ago, angryguy said:

No idea what youre talking about. Youre a socialist euro

 

Lol, you're funny.

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

How will societies deal with the massive job losses from AI?

No worries, just leave it to ai to figure it out as it will find a way to eliminate the competition by reducing the human population.

6 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Lol, you're funny.

Americans have diverse opinions but from my experience here mostly all euros are the same

2 minutes ago, angryguy said:

Americans have diverse opinions but from my experience here mostly all euros are the same

There’s uniformity in the socialist sphere.

3 minutes ago, angryguy said:

Americans have diverse opinions but from my experience here mostly all euros are the same

 

Then you should get out more.

Here's a parlor game:

 

There's a tall, cold glass of Trappist Ale sitting in front of you on a sweltering afternoon. You're really thirsty and the beer looks perfect. There's a 1% chance it has a fatal dose of cyanide in it.

 

Do you accept the risk and drink it?

 

Maybe AI and the coming singularity contains a 1% risk humans are eradicated. Do we accept that risk and put no restrictions on AI?

 

Of course this parlor game is an unfair example. In the beer example, each of us has an individual choice as to whether we quaff it down. In AI, the decision for all of us is being made by trillionaire wannabes like Sam Altman.

If the early results are any indication, there will be a huge increase in the jobs to clean up the disasters caused by poor AI training and lazy application.

 

Google: AI slop.

 

 

AI is being embraced as an efficiency tool in workplaces.

Many of my younger colleagues rely on AI to write their memos to clients or much of their reports. I am old school and do it myself. Takes longer, but I know  what I wrote if I am asked about it. However, the AI users are able to do more work than I can and are able to attach it in our electronic filing systems quicker. My takeaway is that it can be a big help to relieve the bureaucratic burden for many professionals who have to document discussions and activities in  accordance with regulatory compliance.

 

Airlines , telecommunication providers, utilities and even  medical clinics are using AI to  screen calls and online inquiries. and to try and answer basic inquiries . It is being used to check files and documents for errors.It is a supplemental tool that can free up workers so that they spend less time on bureaucracy.  I am about to implement a verbal note keeping system that will be AI based. This should allow me to more easily document my working files and should reduce errors.

 

I think this is what the primary use will be for the next 5 years or even 10 years.

 

9 minutes ago, Patong2021 said:

Many of my younger colleagues rely on AI to write their memos to clients or much of their reports. I am old school and do it myself. Takes longer, but I know  what I wrote if I am asked about it.

When you write it or research it yourself you learn it. When you have somebody or something else do it for you, you don't.

2 hours ago, Fact said:

It's an unaffordable concept.   It would cost $5 trillion to give $ 50,000 per year to 100,000,000 people.  I'm assuming 1/3 of a 300,000,000 population.  

You will own nothing and be happy. Won't need money. According the WEF.