| ▲ | frchalli 2 days ago |
| > The only reason to reduce headcount is to remove people who already weren’t providing much value. There were many secretaries up until the late 20th century that took dictation, either writing notes of what they were told or from a recording, then they typed it out and distributed memos. At first, there were many people typing, then later mimeograph machines took away some of those jobs, then copying machines made that faster, then printers reduced the need for the manual copying, then email reduced the need to print something out, and now instant messaging reduces email clutter and keep messages shorter. All along that timeline there were fewer and fewer people involved, all for the valuable task of communication. While they may not have held these people in high esteem, they were critical for getting things done and scaling. I’m not saying LLMs are perfect or will replace every job. They make mistakes, and they always will; it’s part of what they are. But, as useful as people are today, the roles we serve in will go away and be replaced by something else, even if it’s just to indicate at various times during the day what is or isn’t pleasing. |
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| ▲ | belorn a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| The thing that replaces the old memos is not email, its meetings. It not uncommon for meetings with hundreds of participants that in the past would be a simple memo. It would be amazing if LLMs could replace the role that meetings has in communication, but somehow I strongly doubt that will happens. It is a fun idea to have my AI talk with your AI so no one need to actually communicate, but the result is more likely to create barriers for communication than to help it. |
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| ▲ | kalterdev 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The crucial observation is the fact that automation has historically been a net creator of jobs, not destroyer. |
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| ▲ | zarzavat 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure, if you're content to stack shelves. AI isn't automation. It's thinking. It automates the brain out of human jobs. You can still get a job that requires a body. My job doesn't require a body, so I'm screwed. If you're say, a surgeon or a plumber, you're in a better place. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > Sure, if you're content to stack shelves. Why this example? One of the things automation has done is reduce and replace stevedores, the shipping equivalent of stacking shelves. Amazon warehouses are heavily automated, almost self-stacking-shelves. At least, according to the various videos I see, I've not actually worked there myself. Yet. There's time. > AI isn't automation. It's thinking. It automates the brain out of human jobs.
You can still get a job that requires a body. My job doesn't require a body, so I'm screwed. If you're say, a surgeon or a plumber, you're in a better place. Right up until the AI is good enough to control the robot that can do that job. Which may or may not be humanoid. (Plus side: look how long it's taking for self-driving cars, how often people think a personal anecdote of "works for me" is a valid response to "doesn't work for me"). Even before the AI gets that good, a nice boring remote-control android doing whatever manual labour could outsource the "controller" position to a human anywhere on the planet. Mental image: all the unemployed Americans protesting outside Tesla's factories when they realise the Optimus robots within are controlled remotely from people in 3rd world countries getting paid $5/day. | |
| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ForHackernews 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, AI is automation. It automates the implementation. It doesn't (yet?) automate the hard parts around figuring out what work needs to be done and how to do it. The sad thing is that for many software devs, the implementation is the fun bit. | | | |
| ▲ | bigfishrunning a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Except it isn't thinking. It is applying a model of statistical likelihood. The real issue is that it's been sold as thinking, and laypeople believe that it's thinking, so it is very likely that jobs will be eliminated before it's feasible to replace them. People that actually care about the quality of their output are a dying breed, and that death is being accelerated by this machine that produces somewhat plausible-looking output, because we're optimizing around "plausible-looking" and not "correct" |
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| ▲ | OkayPhysicist a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That observation is only useful if you can point at a capability that humans have that we haven't automated. Hunter-Gatherers were replaced by the technology of Agriculture. Humans still are needed to provide the power to plow the earth and reap the crops. Human power was replaced by work animals pulling plows, but you only humans can make decisions about when to harvest. Jump forward a good long time, Computers can run algorithms to indicate when best to harvest. Humans are still uniquely flexible and creative in their ability to deal with unanticipated issues. AI is intended to make "flexible and creative" no longer a bastion of human uniquness. What's left? The only obvious one I can think of is accountability: as long as computers aren't seen as people, you need someone to be responsible for the fully automated farm. | |
| ▲ | _DeadFred_ a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | 'Because thing X happened in past it is guaranteed to happen in the future and we should bet society on it instead of trying to you know, plan for the future. Magic jobs will just appear, trust me' |
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| ▲ | jstanley a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > At first, there were many people typing, then later [...] There were more people typing than ever before? Look around you, we're all typing all day long. |
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| ▲ | kllamnjro a day ago | parent [-] | | I think they meant that there was a time when people’s jobs were: 1. either reading notes in shorthand, or reading something from a sheet that was already fully typed using a typewriter, or listening to recorded or live dictation 2. then typing that content out into a typewriter. People were essentially human copying machines. |
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