The CEO of IBM says A.I. is going to replace ‘clerical white-collar work’ | Hacker News Reader

The CEO of IBM says A.I. is going to replace ‘clerical white-collar work’

fortune.com

35 pointsRickJWagner46 comments

Remember back in the day when writers predicted that as computers and machines replaced humans it would lead to more leisure time for everyone, a 3-day or less workweek, and all that jazz? Why hasn't that happened? Why do the benefits of automation only accrue upwards and not across society?

Because (as the old Latin proverb has it) the strong do what they want; the weak suffer what they must.

Man I wish there was an easy answer to that. I think because workers have not succeeded in making it a priority. Sure we can blame politicians too, but there’s a mentality that it’s out of our control to make it happen, and who knows, that could change. A lot of unemployed white-collar workers would be a huge force for change.

Because until we cook up an acceptable UBI and solve scarcity of basics, you are competing with (increasingly) everyone on earth (as international borders decrease in relevance), and there's always someone willing to debase themselves for a wage lower than yours.

Automation isn't cheap either. We see very real divides today where it is still a lot cheaper to have people in a sweatshop do things for basically no pay rather than get a multi-million dollar robot to do the same.

In societies like America which fetishize hard work and hustle culture, and where tremendous struggle is still present or a vivid recent memory in the minds of people, UBI and guaranteed basic quality of life are a tough sell.

Unpopular opinion I know, but instead of UBI, I would rather see the state create fulfilling jobs for unemployed or underemployed. Many people need meaning, purpose, and the need to feel productive. UBI doesn't address any of that.

Like the CCC?

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/great-depression/civilia...

I didn’t realize this occurred at this scale.

Honest question: why aren’t the USA and Canada continuing to do this? If we are still enjoying the fruits of that effort today, was it not well worth the investment? Would it not serve the economy in the short term as well?

Or perhaps this does still happen, more or less, and I just don’t understand government programs well enough.

It seems we have countless environmental initiatives worth throwing people at for living wages. Is the problem maybe that these initiatives require labour that’s too sophisticated today?

I like the idea. There is plenty of opportunity to give more care and attention to babies/children, the sick, and the very elderly, to start with. And that work can’t be automated.

No it doesn't but the theory is that people will be inclined to work all the same. Something we have to hash out going forward.

Work house's dont provide meaningful or fulfilling jobs either, there are many branded work houses already doing this in the economy, some are even listed on stock markets.

Isn't that just the Victorian workhouse all over again?

I wasn't envisioning work-houses, although thanks for mentioning that because I wasn't aware of the concept. I am talking about meaningful jobs like as mentioned before, taking care of children/elderly. Public works, art, beautifying areas of a city or town, additional teachers and staff at schools (which seem to always be short-staffed)

that literally has happened. many many people are depressed and anxious all day because they play video games and doordash food into their mouth.

there are 20 million millionaires in the USA. tons of success, tons of people investing in the companies creating this wealth..

what.

Humans, like many other animals, are also competitive by nature. Whereas previous standards were to secure resources for the day, the week, the month, now you play the game to secure resources for the decade, and the future generation.

And once you secure shelter, water, and food, you move on to trying to secure education, healthcare, and legal/political protections. And once you have that, you move on to securing it for your children, family, and further members of your tribe.

Thanks for explaining that.. huh?

I am expounding that the benefits of automation and technology have been spread, but because humans are wired the way they are, we start competing for the next thing.

The automation and technology did make it much easier to achieve a high quality of life from 1980, but we are now aiming for a high quality of life of 2023.

That's terrifically reductionist, and quite probably false. There's really no good living reference from which to draw that supposition that we're competitive by nature. The marginalized groups of nomadic hunters have been displaced into territories scarcely able to support them. Illiterate and prehistoric people are invariably framed in our own context. Despite that there is a fair share of diversity, fair enough to say something like "human nature is what we make of it" and in the most literal sense, it is something we elect to comport ourselves with.

In any case even if you were correct it does not mean we had ought to act as such. That is the naturalistic fallacy in whole.

I think there are plenty of living references to come to this conclusion. Jealousy naturally leads to competition. Most animals form hierarchical groups. Little children are competitive (take away stuff from others, look only for own needs etc.)

My God. You really live in a bubble and don't know how the other half of this country lives do you?

> other half

Flip that and you can argue that the first half (half!) of the population lives in a way that would be viewed as leisurely less than a century ago.

If anything, that makes the polarization even bigger, because the other half has every right to ask "why not me" and resent.

I think GP's comment however had a tone of "despite all those luxuries, people are actually wasting their lives", which is another angle to the whole situation.

Both are true. The "K"-shaped recovery post-pandemic only increased wealth disparities. Inflation further robbed average working people of purchasing power, effectively giving most people salary cuts in the form of soaring prices. Real purchasing power of the other 95% keeps falling.

"Wealth Inequality in America" politizane

The differences between 1. what people think wealth distribution looks like, 2. what people think distribution should be, and 3. what it is. These are 3 very different histograms.

https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

"How Wealth Inequality Spiraled Out of Control" Robert Reich

https://youtu.be/wOI8RuhW7q0

Huh, what do you expect?

Those predictions came from who exactly?

Assuming that their vision was well-intentioned (insofar as having the government subsidize GPS development was well-intentioned by selling them the fact that it could not be extended to support commercial use), those predictions were fundamentally flawed without understanding the cynical side of human nature.

Also we have constant progress of automation and technology since thousands of years already, so there would need to be a reason why this step out of all steps suddenly elevates us to Eden.

This deserves an answer. It's not this step. That step was back in the Industrial Revolution. Prior to that, humans relied mostly on muscle power. Either our own or animals. Sure, there were watermills and other things, but those were location-dependent. For tens of thousands of years the only reliable way to get things done was for a human or animal to lift, pull, push, or whatever.

Now comes the AI, or really LLM, revolution. All the mental gruntwork humans are still stuck doing, underutilizing their brains, can now be done by computers, so the hype says.

Between the massive reduction in the need for physical labor and the removal of the need for mental labor, why shouldn't people be living a much more leisurely life? Why should the fruits of labor reduction only accrue upward, while billions are still chained to jobs producing those fruits?

Greed is why.

Further automation destroys jobs.

The very top gain efficiencies of production and immense wealth, while the bottom lose more and more opportunities without magical, handwaving "better" or "other" jobs.

Only because we choose to let it absolutely no reason for us to move closer to a 0 zero sun game society.

This is true. Aaron Swartz convinced Lawrence Lessig of the problem begins at the top of the political system.

Unfortunately, there is no solution to (peaceful or agro) reformation from within because of entrenched forces: the prostitution of power through campaign financing and lobbyist). Nonviolent but disruptive means are essential to attain such changes that cannot be had through voting or pleasant requests. Those with large piles of money will defend it and plausibly order the state to commit violence against those who dare challenge their established order of things.

(Predominantly) Americans have to stop being so individualistic, push back against aspirational billionaire and popularity seeking, and start finding respectful discourse between different views and take deliberate, collective action. National strike perhaps.

> Why do the benefits of automation only accrue upwards and not across society?

it is benefiting across society - the availability of goods that would not otherwise have been available is the benefit, not direct financial gain.

The people who do get direct financial gain are the ones that invested their capital into producing the automation and tools.

As for why isn't everyone doing 3-day weeks, the answer is that almost everybody still has wants that could not be fulfilled by automation, and that as basic wants are fulfilled, they get higher and more wants that aren't just basic essentials, which leads to more work to fill back up the work week.

> availability of goods

Doesn't help much when so many are working full time or more just to afford food, clothing, and shelter. And sometimes not even all three.

> they get higher and more wants that aren't just basic essentials

Key word: wants. Which takes us back to the problem of why people who have fulfilling, rich lives are socialized to feel the need to have 'more'

IBM has been wrong about these types of things many times in the past.

Unlikely. Clerical work mostly requires to handle messy input data from humans. It is hard to automate this. Jobs that are easy to automate often already have been automated with non-AI processes.

Instruct gpt is pretty good at transforming messy input data to structured one.

Try it out.

One of the BDRs at my company had a boring task of transforming paragraphs that describe individuals role company location etc from natural language to an excel table. He decided to let chatgpt do it for him. Basically gave him the columns he wants (including calculated columns like the state code instead of its full name.) And the raw text.

gpt did it perfectly on the first go.

Thanks, will have a look!

> Instruct gpt

What is Instruct gpt?

Gpt3 fined tune to follow instructions.

OTOH, that input is messy because it is "only" humans dealing with it. If the imperative to enable AI in clerical work gets stronger, there will be an equally strong imperative to clean up the data.

Once the data is clean, you can use non-AI algorithms.

Regulators tend to take a dim view if you rely on probability models to process your data. Therefore, AI algorithms are only helpful when you do not necessarily care if the results are correct, for example, in marketing.

It's precisely the handling of messy data that chatgpt excels at. Plenty of people use it to normalize arbitrary data even now. You should look up the examples, you'll be surprised.

I remember working at IBM and attending an All Hands where someone from HR came in to speak about the future where everyone at IBM would be contractors. She espoused the benefits to IBM. Seemed out of touch as she never discussed how it would benefit the employees. Obviously the good ones would leave to work for companies that valued them, and didn’t treat them like disposable commodities.

IBM MBAs have a history of dreaming about destroying their employees - the only thing standing between them and their bonus.

Watson got layed off too? Ruthless.

I think he means himself

Many times IBM predictions failed. I thing we don't relay on them

Won't AI also replace CEO like him, too?

AI will replace CEO and most other executive staff before it replaces professional employees. They won’t let it happen, but the capability will be there and sooner or later businesses with worker / stakeholder guided AI leadership will significantly outcompete human leadership.

Good.

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