I don’t know what they would have seen: certainly now we see automation has replaced brawn, speed, precision, and it tends to hit specific jobs at a time. Intelligence, creativity, adaptability have remained strengths of humans until now. They probably didn’t have that paradigm but we do: if there’s something humans could still do better, don’t we have the context to have thought of it?
The direct comparison there might be the self-driving cars I mentioned. If that succeeds, it really only replaces one type of job, just like earlier automation. However the difference is the speed it can be adopted and it’s all software so scales orders of magnitude more per new job as a creator. And in the case of Tesla those new jobs are already allocated and the rollout is well underway - just needs software switch to turn it on. Millions of jobs gone. At once.
They probably didn’t have that paradigm but we do: if there’s something humans could still do better, don’t we have the context to have thought of it?
We will have no idea what those new jobs will be, because they’re in new sectors that are only now opening up. So when the internet replaced newspapers, those paper boys became Fortnite streamers, not ISP technicians. I could speculate, but even if I guess correctly it’ll probably sound silly to us.
LLMs have terrible intelligence, creativity, and adaptability. But like most technology, they enhance human efficiency, they don’t completely replace humans. The Jevons paradox tells us that increasing efficiency will increase total demand, not decrease it.
LLMs have terrible intelligence, creativity, and adaptability
But terrible creativity is already enough to make a difference. While I’m typing this I’m also listening to a video of an ai reading an ai generated script. It’s not great: neither authors nor narrators have any reason to fear yet - on quality. But it is entertaining and I don’t have to pay much attention. It’s ai slop that is actually providing value
Maybe. But if new automation replaces menial labor (humanoid robots), drivers, and greatly reduces all sorts of paperwork and even low end “creativity” jobs, and scale vastly more than previous automation, what type of work could those new jobs even be?
They’re not repair nor development nor deployment, they’re not service economy or menial labor, they’re not any variation of driving or most gig economy, fewer are creative, fewer are paperwork jobs or even management …… what’s left are skilled labor, personal services, medical, business owners, and I can’t see any of those making up for millions of jobless people. We can’t all be plumbers or nurses
I don’t know what they would have seen: certainly now we see automation has replaced brawn, speed, precision, and it tends to hit specific jobs at a time. Intelligence, creativity, adaptability have remained strengths of humans until now. They probably didn’t have that paradigm but we do: if there’s something humans could still do better, don’t we have the context to have thought of it?
The direct comparison there might be the self-driving cars I mentioned. If that succeeds, it really only replaces one type of job, just like earlier automation. However the difference is the speed it can be adopted and it’s all software so scales orders of magnitude more per new job as a creator. And in the case of Tesla those new jobs are already allocated and the rollout is well underway - just needs software switch to turn it on. Millions of jobs gone. At once.
We will have no idea what those new jobs will be, because they’re in new sectors that are only now opening up. So when the internet replaced newspapers, those paper boys became Fortnite streamers, not ISP technicians. I could speculate, but even if I guess correctly it’ll probably sound silly to us.
LLMs have terrible intelligence, creativity, and adaptability. But like most technology, they enhance human efficiency, they don’t completely replace humans. The Jevons paradox tells us that increasing efficiency will increase total demand, not decrease it.
But terrible creativity is already enough to make a difference. While I’m typing this I’m also listening to a video of an ai reading an ai generated script. It’s not great: neither authors nor narrators have any reason to fear yet - on quality. But it is entertaining and I don’t have to pay much attention. It’s ai slop that is actually providing value
Maybe. But if new automation replaces menial labor (humanoid robots), drivers, and greatly reduces all sorts of paperwork and even low end “creativity” jobs, and scale vastly more than previous automation, what type of work could those new jobs even be?
They’re not repair nor development nor deployment, they’re not service economy or menial labor, they’re not any variation of driving or most gig economy, fewer are creative, fewer are paperwork jobs or even management …… what’s left are skilled labor, personal services, medical, business owners, and I can’t see any of those making up for millions of jobless people. We can’t all be plumbers or nurses