> In the future we will all be prostitutes
Setting aside the rather misguided and at any rate very boring implication that that there’s something inherently distasteful or bad about sex work, I’d argue that by any reasonable definition you’re already a prostitute; you sell your body’s actions in exchange for money and someone else’s pleasure and to their direction… AI need not get involved once you’ve already submitted your agency to a capitalist system.
> This is the dark truth we face as technology supplants our previously in-demand skills.
It is A dark truth… technology is already better at providing agency-less, objectified sex services than humans, and there’s still lots of room for improvement… so what happens when technology supplants sex work too?
> What happens when AI supplants workers?
What happened when electric light supplanted whale oil lampworkers? Technology has been supplanting human labor for a long time… are you only concerned because it’s your labor it’s coming for next?
> But what if the only jobs that emerge from such a shakeup are jobs in which you sell your body?
Again, that’s what jobs are,
> Is it so far fetched?
Yes, actually, but this piece does a lot of assuming the conclusion… current state of the art “AI” isn’t really going to supplant much, but it will augment (and devalue) a fair amount of human middleware jobs.
> When the only skills a worker can offer can be easily replicated by an LLM, what else will that worker have to sell I wonder?
We are a LONG way from LLMs replicating even a tiny subsection of human skills… get ChatGPT to bake a decent baguette, and maybe we’re getting there.
> A huge piece of gold that they found on the side of the road? Probably not.
Most likely what they’ll sell is their time and attention and the consumption of subsidized materiel that seeks time and attention for its own sake… which has very possibly been their main contribution to late economies for some time.