It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay.

$20/month in return for measurable reductions in quality of life is not an amazing deal. It's "Heads I win, tails you lose."

Or maybe, if you're thinking of it as an enabler for a side hustle or some other project with a low probability of a high payoff, it can slightly more optimistically be regarded as a moderately expensive lottery ticket.

That's not pessimism; it's just a realistic understanding of how the tech industry actually works, informed by decades' worth of experience.

> I don't think this will happen

Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.

> It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have

Yeah, companies that develop and push this tech definitely have this in mind.

> I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something

I am not surprised because I didn't write anything like it.

It's also worth nothing that the "our" in that sentence is just SWEs, who are a pretty small group in the grand scheme of things. I recognize that's a lot of HN, but still bears considering in terms of the broader impact outside of that group.

I'm a small business owner, and AI has drastically increased my agency. I can do so much more - I've built so many internal tools and automated so many processes that allow me to spend my time on things I care about (both within the business but also spending time with my kids).

It is, fortunately, and unfortunately, the nature of a lot of technology to disempower some people while making lives better for others. The internet disempowered librarians.

  It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with.

edit: also the solution here isn't that every one writes their own software (based on open source code available on the internet no doubt) we just use that open source software, and people learn to code and improve it themselves instead of off-loading it to a machine

What happens when they decide it's a national security threat and an act of domestic terrorism to use AI to undermine commercial dependencies? We're all acting like AI isn't being invented within the context of and used by a fascist regime.

Economy is going to collapse with the war anyways. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE&t=247s)

> Otherwise, a lot of hungry people revolt and you have violence against these businesses.

With shrinking and aging population?

> the only danger is people...

Simply put, no it is not.

But on the reverse, the first danger with AI is people.

Over the longer term it will look like this. The rich 'win' the world by using AI to enslave the rest of mankind and claim ownership over everything. This will suck and a lot of us will die.

The problem is this doesn't solve the greed that cause the problem in the first place. The world will still be limited in a resources of something which will end with the rich in a dick measuring contest and to win that contest they will put more and more power in AI and they connive and fight each other. Eventually the AI has enough power that it kills us all, intentionally or not.

We'll achieve nearly unlimited capability long before we solve the problem of unlimited greed and that will spell our end.

Keep guessing