It seems like a solid set of criteria for how easily a task can be automated by AI agents is:

- extent to which correctness of solution be easily specified and checked

- extent to which new potential solutions can be implemented as text

- extent to which prior art exists online

This basically maps to software engineering and math. I think a fair bit of AI hype comes from the fact that the very architects of AI are the people whose jobs are most easily automated by AI. They think, “if my job receives this much of a boost from AI, surely every job will be the same”. Ironically it couldn’t be further from the truth… and likewise the predictions of widespread labor obsolescence

Let's assume AI is only good at software and math.

If we can use AI to write lots of good software for cheap, that software can automate away a lot of jobs.

So AI does not have to take the jobs directly, software written by AI can.

Especially if that works for software for robots.

Interesting take! I feel like 2 of them are maybe overstated:

> - extent to which correctness of solution be easily specified and checked

I don't think most software is like solving a math problem or series of math problems. Algorithmic problems are very narrow and might be more like this though, where an oracle that verifies answers as either correct or incorrect exists beforehand.

The correctness function of most software is how much users want to use/pay for it, which is a pretty fuzzy problem. Since the cost of copying software is effectively zero, software systems also tend to be be unique rather than being exactly like something else, and don't converge to be like another software system but rather diverge.

The prior art point is an interesting one. At least for applications as a whole, there isn't really prior art for a material amount of all the problems/tradeoffs a non-trivial software application embodies. For a todo list app or make a social network project, there's plenty of prior art to be sufficient to build something with an LLM system, but probably not most apps.

That's my initial intuition anyway.

> Ironically it couldn’t be further from the truth… and likewise the predictions of widespread labor obsolescence

Could you explain what you mean here?

It feels like there is one bucket of verifiable work - programming, math etc that AI will clearly excel at.

There is another large bucket of like law/ accounting/ financial analysis where I don’t have any reason to think AI won’t be super human at, but the work is more on bringing all the domain expertise into harnesses and software.

Is there aspects of knowledge work that you think AI wouldn’t excel at in the long run?

Human: I specialize in tasks in which the correctness of my solution cannot be easily specified or checked. Truuuuussssttttt meeeeee.

I'm just saying, let's not get painted into that corner completely as a species :)