Comment by phpisthebest | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phpisthebest | Hacker News Reader

>>Just as tractors made farmers more productive ...

really, that is example used? If AI will do to development was tractors did to farming there is not going to be many developers left.

>>today’s AI the potential for the loss of certain jobs, yes, but also, if history is a guide, a future in which a great variety of more highly skilled work

Ag -> Industrial -> Information transitions were all supported by a mix of massive expansion in population, mass migration of populations, and globalization of economies

information -> automation / AI transition does not seem to have these 3 things in the same way. Globalism is slowing or reversing into protectionism. Migration is still high but seemingly for different reasons (geopolitical) as people displaced for war, crime, or climate and critical for this discussion population growth as SLOWED way down, and it expected to reverse about 2040.

This means people looking at the historical models for how these tech disruptions played out are very flawed in their "everything will be just fine because Farmers became factory workers, and factory workers became developers"

Current economic models may not play out like they did in the past. History may rhyme, but it does not actually repeat.

Also lets not forget the terrible way society in general handled these previous transitions that resulted is massive amounts of suffering for the people displaced. "Learn to AI" can not become the mantra of the day like "Learn to Code" did....

My prediction is we will see a MASSIVE increase in wealth gaps, and extreme decrease in standard of living in most of the industrial world (we are already seeing this in a limited way) leading to more and more political instability

Yep. Farm. Factory. Office. The end. There's nowhere to go, not for this amount of people.

The idea that rather than losing jobs, it will compliment us and even enable millions of new "non-programmers" to start programming, I'm puzzled where this demand actually would come from? What would they even "build? And can you imagine the absolute nightmare of millions of people producing "code" with zero background in programming?

In a sane world, this could be a humanitarian moment where we redirect our human capital to things of a less commercial nature, say human care. We don't live in that world though.

> it will compliment us and even enable millions of new "non-programmers" to start programming

You say that as if understanding and stating requirements in a non conflicting way isn't the primary skill of a programmer anyway.

Electricians, plumbers, nurses, construction workers, manufacturing, there's an absolute ton of blue collar jobs out there short of people.

Where do you think all the renewable energy is coming from, its coming from large teams of crews installing those wind turbines and solar panels in the wilderness.

Every electrical transformer in the US is going to have to be upgraded, to accomodate for surges in demand from EVs.

The housing price crisis, once regulation is fixed, people will still have to build them. Robot construction workers ain't coming any time soon.

All of these are massive sources of employment. If AI really does automate a large chunk of white collar jobs, corporate profits will skyrocket, and so will government tax and private investment (Profits generally end up in investment funds somewhere), and the above sectors will absorb that investment.

Now, will the transition look pretty? Will your office workers make an easy transition to physical labour? No. But neither did the coal miners find 'learning to code' easy.

Time to buckle up, the tsunami comes. Also, if you can use AI, you are already safer than most of the white collar jobs, so we shouldn't be the ones crying the hardest.

In 1985, there were about 170,000 coal miners in the United States — the peak of over 800,000 was in the 1920s. There simply isn’t a comparison in the scale there.

Coal miners weren't the only blue collar workers replaced, there were 20 million US manufacturing staff at its peak, now its down to 12. All offshored. That's 8 million alone.

The US is already spending $1 trillion on infrastructure, $1 trillion can hire 10 mil people digging ditches for a year, and when subsidizing gainful employment (ie, only subsidizing 20% of the wages), can probably generate 50 mil jobs. If AI is that impressive, expect the government coffers to swell so much it can spend $1 trillion on infrastructure every single year.

The US can easily absorb $30 trillion in total of infrastructure investment + housing construction, rebuilding itself to say Chinese standards. This wasn't possible previously because of cost and labour shortages. Now it is.

The future isn't all roses, but pretending it'll be some sort of apocalypse, is just another form of coping, excusing yourself to understanding the reality.

>>The US is already spending $1 trillion on infrastructure,

No the US is not. I urge you to read the damn bills not the Headlines. No where in any of these "infrastructure" is even 10% of the money being spent on actual infrastructure...

>>If AI is that impressive, expect the government coffers to swell so much it can spend $1 trillion on infrastructure every single year.

Where on earth do you get this.... Where in the history of anything has that been true. Where do you expect this money to come from... Corporate Taxes. Please ...

You're absolutely right about blue collar needing a revival, there's an enormous amount of work to do there, and it's a type of work near impossible to replace with AI. Further, I'd say that we need to better appreciate these jobs, in compensation and work conditions.

That said, I don't see this mass transition happening from white collar to blue collar for a very sizable part of existing white collar. In many developing countries, white collar is a of a considerable age. There's skill/capability/physical issues as well as a social/cultural aspect. You're telling people that their educational investment is now worthless and are hereby demoted to the working class. May be correct, true and just, but expect social unrest.

Don't worry, nanobots will take that over next. They already have bots designed that fish their way through pipes.

>>Electricians, plumbers, nurses, construction workers, manufacturing, there's an absolute ton of blue collar jobs out there short of people.

and most of them do not pay even a fraction of what information jobs pay. The 100K welder that I see tossed around all the time is like the $300K dev, sure they exist but that is not the median.

>>Every electrical transformer in the US is going to have to be upgraded, to accomodate for surges in demand from EVs.

Which is ironic given there is an extreme transformer shortage in the US, and the manufacturing supply chain that builds many of the components for transformers is actively being reallocated to build things for EV's

>>The housing price crisis, once regulation is fixed,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA good one... I hope you are not serious

>>Robot construction workers ain't coming any time soon.

I dont know about that, Several innovations from Concrete printers, to rammed earth homes look very interesting. Then there is a "FlatPack" home trend, and several other innovations that could very well reduce the number of blue collar trade jobs as well

>>All of these are massive sources of employment.

Employment yes... High Income No, they also destroy the body so you really need to be in a supervisory, manager, or other such role by the time you are 50-55.

>>and the above sectors will absorb that investment.

That has never been true in the history of humanity, and it will not be true here.

>>>Will your office workers make an easy transition to physical labour? No. But neither did the coal miners find 'learning to code' easy.

This is one of the worse misconceptions people have, very few if any "coal miners" learned to code.. This does not happen. That is not the transition

The transition from Mining to Information was a generational thing, a family that was 3 generations of miners, well the 4th generation learned to code.

The miners move to other blue collar jobs, they became truck drivers, plumbers, welders, factory workers, etc.

>>Also, if you can use AI, you are already safer than most of the white collar jobs,

You are delusional if you think that.

>The miners move to other blue collar jobs, they became truck drivers, plumbers, welders, factory workers, etc.

Actually a lot of them didn't transition to anything. They stopped working and went on welfare or disability.

Stop telling people to find new work and start talking about UBI and short work weeks. No one needs to work 40 hours now, and AI makes that even more useless.

Agree. All historical comparison to prior disruptions are invalid.

The reason they are invalid, is that all prior disruptions were narrow, were followed by periods of stabilization that allowed people to plan and reason about their lives.

AI is the opposite in this regard, it is broad and there is no period of stabilization. It is continual acceleration.

AI is a skill/technology replication machine. This concept has never existed before. The impacts are not relatable to anything else.

The implications go far beyond jobs as well. The potential cultural and societal impacts are equally as disturbing. I've written in detail about some of those possibilities here.

https://dakara.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-end-to-all-things

I completely agree. I do not understand why some people are downvoting you. Everyone on this site (assuming at least 95% are developers) should conceptually understand that AI to office jobs is nothing like tractors to farmers. Before AGI it's an arms race between what skill can humans acquire that AI can't yet simulate. After AGI there is no contest.

It's crazy to me how I have memories of AI discussions from years back where this crucial difference was well known and acknowledged. But right now it feels like half the people are turning a blind eye to it on purpose.

Yes, I've described it in the article above as

"Climbing the skill ladder is going to look more like running on a treadmill at the gym. No matter how fast you run, you aren’t moving, AI is still right behind you learning everything that you can do."

Because they are, because they don't want to acknowledge that reality is bleaker than they pictured.

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