> It’s not that technology fundamentally is about putting people out of work.

The problem is, it has always been that way - and not just in the US. The introduction of any kind of new technology or other way of disproportionately improving corporate bottom lines has always led to job losses, the key thing is what governments do in response to it.

The Industrial Revolution for example led to widespread devastation, the shift from agriculture being the dominant employer to industry and service sectors did not (as the ag workers were absorbed by the rapidly growing other sectors), the globalization / offshoring wave of neoliberalism once again led to widespread devastation, and AI will probably again lead to devastation.

And if Sam Altman isn't arrested for his blatant RAM market manipulation... I'm pretty sure there will be either people with pitchforks at the end or he will have ushered in, in retrospective, a new era of "stuff that uber rich people can get away with".

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matchbok3 2 hours ago | parent [-]

All of those things also resulted in the massive increase in the quality of life for everyone. Nobody will suggest we ban cars and go back to horse and buggies so cowboys can have jobs.

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paulhebert 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Honestly if we went back to horses but had good public transportation as well (buses, trains, airports) it could be pretty sweet

I know most people don’t agree with that but it seems nice to me

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hnzix 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah but the transition is rough. For example when we have autonomous vehicles what are all those drivers going to do. You might saw "tough luck" but we are a society not just an economy.

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mschuster91 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> All of those things also resulted in the massive increase in the quality of life for everyone.

Yes, everyone has a modern smartphone now. Cool, thanks. But last time I checked, can't pay my rent with a smartphone when I'm out of a job.

> Nobody will suggest we ban cars and go back to horse and buggies so cowboys can have jobs.

Maybe not that, but have you looked at sustainable farming movements? In farming, there is a growing movement believing that the way we do farming - basically, ever larger and larger central operations running farms with tens if not hundreds of thousands of animals or acres upon acres of monoculture crops - is no longer sustainable, as the externalities get too serious to be able to ignore:

Biodiversity loss, land erosion (when everything is just the same crop from horizon to horizon and no bushes, wind and rain has an easy time carrying away soil after harvest), an increasing vulnerability to all kinds of pests...

But in order to get smaller, you need people again, because a tractor costing half a million dollars won't ever make the money back on a small farm.

	▲	matchbok3 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Everything you say is correct but it comes with a massive decrease in quality of life for the average person. Food will be 5x the cost, with less variety. Nobody wants to till the land anymore. Just like people 100 years ago didn't want to be hunters. Are you willing to part with your smartphone and computer? I would bet not.