Most of these idealistic pieces about AI seem to come from senior, established or wealthy people who aren't very exposed to the labor market. In that view, the question of AI and its transformation is almost philosophical like this piece.

It's more a question of survival if you're labor though. It's very transformative tech but it's coming at a time when the scales are heavily tilted in favor of capital over labor, the government is the most corrupt its ever been and AI is going to make that much more extreme. It doesn't matter how amazing the technology is if all the benefits are going to accrue to the same few people who already have everything and destroy everyone else's bargaining power.

So far I've seen

- AI make a number of programmers redundant and their work is replaced with code of dubious quality and uncertain ability to maintain. The same is true for QAs and designers.

- young and old replace human friendship, and fostering their social skills, for conversations with their AI bot

- people avoid using their brain or practicing their skills in favour of asking some LLM

- people's work stolen, with possibility of an AI subscription in return

- the laws on hacking and thief ignored

- a school of dead girls blamed on AI

The main benefit I've seen so far is that, since Google turned the web into a SEO hellhole, using AI to search is much nicer than wading through javascript-heavy, heavily-tracked, websites for a morsel of information. And there's some nice free translation and OCR tools now.

While it is certainly right, I also find the take to be a bit fatalistic. Nothing in this world is set in stone and everything can be changed if someone just injects enough energy into doing so.

This usually doesn't happen, as things often aren't as bad as they may seem, because lethargy and inertia are a thing and of course because self-preservation is an instinctual thing in humans. It could though.

As long as the status quo isn't defended by an infinitely scaling robotic enforcement war machine, physical leverage is always available. Just - depending on the scenario - at a steep price, of course.

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A lot of the bad in the world hinges on effective PR, insisting that the bad is inevitable and resistance is futile. You're supposed to feel this exact despair and choose to do nothing.

Don't support the bad causes by merely replicating it. (Which is not to say that we shouldn't be talking about these real differences you've pointed out, but we should probably do so differently.)

Well sure, but labour isn't going to get much done by pretending that it isn't happening or making moral arguments. I'm put in mind of all the various powers that collapsed in the face of European colonialism - feel, argue and say whatever at some point only the massive power gap matters.

These AI don't get tired, they are still improving at unbelievable rates that can't really be matched by a human and they're already good enough to do most intellectual tasks to some sort of standard (often quite high). Attempting to assert the primacy of meat-based thinking is not going to get very far at the rate things are going.

Don't worry - elite overproduction will cause a revolution and put an end to that.

Is mathematics research even a job you pursue if survival is the question?

It was certainly not ideal that the end of ZIRP and the emergence of AI occurred simultaneously.

But, even as someone who is "labor" the one thing I appreciate about the situation is that the level of bullshit in companies has significantly declined.

Everyone seems hyper focused and results oriented. Maybe just my bubble.

AI isn't going to destroy labor if anything it makes an avg laborer more productive

Most people who oppose AI don’t oppose it because it’s so good it can replace us. They oppose it because, in their own words, they think it’s hype and it doesn’t work. The first step is to collectively agree that yes, AI is powerful and it can replace us at work. Then we can speak about how to protect livelihood. How does one even have a discussion when the other side doesn’t even believe in the capabilities of AI?

Edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted because there are replies literally taking the exact position that I'm saying is more prevalent.

> the government is the most corrupt its ever been and AI is going to make that much more extreme

This is cynical fatalism. Western governments have been overrun by neoliberal zealots for decades, and they've changed Government's purpose to near total obeisance to private interests. But Government doesn't have to be this way. If we don't want all future decision-making to be concentrated in AI/Robotics behemoths - or more accurately in a handful of oligarchs running AI companies - we'll need renovated and extremely strong Governments and institutions meeting the principles of democracy again (representation of citizens, not companies).