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Comment by gautamdivgi | Hacker News Reader

I would hazard that any country with a declining population will aggressively adopt LLMs because it gives their leaner workforce more efficiency.

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The whole economy might benefit but individual voters often don’t. The groups most likely to be displaced, non-senior white collar office workers, are quite large and vocal.

having it mean people voting against their best interests isn't remotely saying they won't do so.

I do not want to delve into politics here, but let's just say that having a good, stable job is among the most important concerns for voters in any country.

Having a job for the sake of a job is a particular political view, which is not universal. There are lots of countries which would be satisfied with what US calls "handouts". If AI can create wealth, and the state manages to capture and redistribute that wealth to citizens, there's no problem.

There are plenty of Americans who would take ‘handouts’ and move away from jobs. Bigger issue would be the fallout from boredom; sadly, most people don’t seem capable of entertaining themselves without work. People dream of retirement their whole lives and when they get there, they realise it sucks because they took their self worth, social life etc from their work. But education will fix that.

I am definitely more concerned about the redistribution and the bloody revolution that will happen if only a few own it all. This seems now feasible in my lifetime while I always thought I would be nice and dead by then. Rip off the bandaid though; no pause on AI, let’s go and see how far we can go.

Addendum to your comment: Seatbelts are also a horrible idea.

> sadly, most people don’t seem capable of entertaining themselves without work

What are you basing this on? People are very happy in retirement; some may long their former life but in my experience they're not the majority. And an important part of working age people in most countries are in effect not working and doing fine (and not even counted as "unemployed", as one has to be actively looking for work to be counted).

The view that work is needed to keep people from becoming alcoholics or outlaws is patronizing.

Yet it’s true, from my experience being unemployed but still being financially stable. Work provides a lot of purpose and fulfillment that isn’t so easily replaced, although definitely not impossible. A suitable replacement often looks like work, just perhaps not paid

Nah, food and a roof over your head and healthcare and education and entertainment matters. Not jobs.

That sounds eerily similar to living in a prison camp. Everything is taken care of for you and you have a minimal say in how things are run. To prevent incidents a movie is shown in the evening. I'll pass.

That sounds like an incredible way to destroy:

  - productivity
  - output
  - confidence
  - your neck if you happen to be in charge

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