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emp17344 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, it’s… fine. Useful in a limited capacity. Not the machine god, but not machine Satan either. The reality is kind of boring.

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vablings 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This summarizes mostly how I feel about it. It's a tool like any other tool we have advanced since the beginning of human civilization

Machine tools replaced blacksmiths

CNC machines replaced manual machines.

Robots replaced CNC machine tenders

CAD replaced draftsman (and also pushed that job onto engineers (grr))

P&P robots replaced human production lines.

The steam train replaced the horse and cart

This is a tale as old as time itself

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datsci_est_2015 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What do LLMs replace, pray tell? More like moving from a screwdriver to a drill, rather than replacing the carpenter all together.

Also note that there are inventions that may “replace” some part of a process, but actually induce a greater demand for labor in that process. Take the cotton gin, for example, which exploded the number of slaves required to pick cotton.

	▲	cindyllm 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
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kerblang 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Those were deterministic rather than stochastic

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	▲	bigstrat2003 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Exactly. People love to compare LLMs to power tools for carpenters and smiths. But if my miter saw had a 20% chance to produce cuts at a 45 degree angle when I have it set for 90, I would throw it out so fast I would leave Looney Tunes style tracks. A tool which only sometimes does its job is worse than no tool at all.

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bitwize 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This isn't even our first AI hype cycle. That happened in the late 70s-80s. Every lab and agency needed Lisp machines to teach computers how to identify Russian missiles—or targets. The "GOFAI" techniques did not live up to the expectations of them, but they settled into niches where they were tremendously useful, and life went on. The same will happen with today's matmul-as-a-service AI.

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steve_adams_86 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't see the threat from AI as capitalist at all, but more so feudalist. I mean, if things go in the direction of the worst-case scenario. It seems like the power potential transcends the problems of capitalism entirely.

But for now it's strictly hypothetical. Nothing I'm doing with AI matters enough to really make any statements about a broader scale in my field, let alone in entire economies.

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heavyset_go 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Capitalism is just feudalism that works for the merchant class

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plagiarist 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Capitalism is feudalism but with raw generational wealth instead of generational wealth with divine right characteristics.

	▲	steve_adams_86 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I see some overlap, but I think it's more complex than that. If we conflate the two so easily they lose meaning. Certainly, some people have that experience under capitalism. I think there are systemic failures which lead to life experiences that are probably not all that different from some peoples' experiences in feudal society, both at the top and bottom of the hierarchy. The more I think about it though, I'm not sure feudalism is the right analogy. Serfs had a purpose and were depended upon. In a society where AGI is in the hands of a few, it seems reasonable to believe that there wouldn't be a need for serfs at all. Labour would become utterly irrelevant. You'd have no lord to be bound to. You'd be unnecessary. I imagine the transition there would be some brutal form of capitalism, but the destination would not be fuedalism. I don't think we have a historical analog for that hypoethical destination.

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vrganj 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If we wanna go full-on Marxist analysis it is an attempt of the capitalist class to finally rid themselves of their dependence on labor and their pesky demands like sick leave and fair wages.

Through that analysis, one can also explain why the managerial caste is so obsessed with it - it is nothing less than an ideological device. One can also see this in the actual deification happening in some VC cycles and their belief in AGI as some sort of capitalist savior figure.

I see the point and don't disagree with it, but I find that framing is not the most compelling to the audience here...

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mattgreenrocks 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah. Oftentimes get crickets here when I talk along those lines. Can't tell if apathy, learned helplessness, or obliviousness. Regardless, devs seem like an extremely docile labor group based on how they react to this and other economic pressures.

	▲	plagiarist 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We will all be shocked at the rug pull after it has finished training on all our high-quality feedback for code it has written.

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Human-Cabbage 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is correct at the firm level and breaks down at the aggregate level, which is where it gets interesting.

At the firm level, automating away labor costs is obviously rational. But capital in aggregate can't actually rid itself of labor, since labor is where surplus value comes from. A fully automated economy would be insanely productive and generate basically no profit. So the capitalist class pursuing this logic collectively is, without knowing it, pursuing the dissolution of the system that makes them the capitalist class.

You don't have to buy any of that to notice the more immediate mechanism though: AI doesn't need to actually replace workers to discipline them. The credible threat of replacement is enough to suppress wages, justify restructuring, and extract more from whoever's left. That's already happening and requires no AGI.

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brookst 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

AI is more likely to destroy capitalism than it is to increase inequality.

Ten years ago, what would it have cost you to build a Jira clone / competitor? Today one person can do it in a week, at least for the core tech.

In a year, only the very largest companies will pay for that kind of infrastructure tooling.

We’ve just started seeing the democratization of software and the capitalists are terrified.

	▲	plagiarist 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I just don't know how to explain that you won't be destroying capitalism with AI. You have a subscription.