Hacker News Reader

Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

Such a large part of making lifelong connections in this world are from hiring people who you need to make something work. I made some wonderful connections in my previous jobs that I never would have otherwise if they could do everything themselves with AI or if I could do everything myself without them.

The fact is, automation can make life better but beyond a certain point, if hardly anyone needs anyone else, then all those wonderful connections of working together vanish. We can stil make those connections theoretically, but the lack of needing someone else removes the actuality and genuineness of the process.

I wish that everyone who created AI and who welcomes it would think about this longer-time societal impact before becoming blinded with its immediate appeal.

Sorry to say but I think making AI in general is one of the biggest mistakes we ever made.

View on HN

This is not really related to AI though?

A company that was before 400 people, can now be 200 people. But people will rarely make meaningful bonds outside of those 5 people closest to them (Dunbar's number).

It's also not unique to AI. One person with a tractor can outharvest the amount of corn it used to take a whole village to harvest. This feels just like a dressed up luddite complaint.

Dunbar’s Number is most commonly set at around 150, not 5.

Dunbar is also talking about his layers of emotional closeness, where 5 is the innermost layer.

The "innermost layer" isn't the only place where people make "meaningful bonds" however.

Well, in my example of a company being reduced from 400 to 200, you can still fill out a couple of more layers ;) – I think you are good in that company with meaningful bonds.

On a team that was 12, but is now 6, the odds you find people you relate to is effectively halved. It’s rare entire workforces interact often enough to bond in the first place.

This is such an engineer's perspective. The point is, it is not just the number of connections, but the type of connection: diversity will be removed, since you only really need certain skillsets. The people with design skills and other types of skills will be removed.

This numerical accounting perspective so widespread with engineers and computer scientists is the sort of reasoning that is bringing us to disaster.

That's good to think about. If AI tools are genuinely helpful at work than it should change the people we meet there. Instead of bonding on lower level details we'll bond on what we choose to create or our larger contributions to larger creations. So I think that we'll still have these relationships.

There might also be companies where a few people work together doing different things, that used to each be a department. They won't have their jobs in common, but they'll bond over working in a strange new type of business and the mental agility required to be responsible for so much output.

I hope, anyway!

There is an analogue to this in manufacturing as well. We lost something when we moved all of our manufacturing to whatever the race to bottom place was of the moment instead of understanding how to make our things from top to bottom.

Yeah. And that brought a whole slew of other problems (such as supply chain security and systemic fragility induced by centralization) that we just accept as worth it.

Curious to know if you believe it is truly lost because I would argue that what could be considered lost (artisan, soulful goods) still exists. Perhaps I also misunderstand "what" you believe is to be lost.

From my experience in Central Europe in no particular order:

Woodworking, shoemaking, metallurgy, even services like plumbing or an electrician are getting harder and harder to find. Building and repairing electrical machines. Refinery of oil-based products. Manufacturing of computers and circuitboard beyond the most basic.

There is no manufacturing sector, anymore. It’s all gone.

Tangential anecdotal point: I used to have an antique "home improvement" book from 1910 or so. The exquisite wood joinery that was shown there (as the achievable standard for the motivated man-of-the-house) does not exist anymore, it’s not being taught.

If meaningful connections at work go away, then clubs (books, chess, sports etc) and social hobbies will pick up the slack. Work doesn’t have a monopoly on meaningful relationships.

Work may not, but AI will infiltrate every sort of niche including hobbies and make them less meaningful for many.

Especially hobbies that have an online presence, or really require an online presence to organize.

would you have opposed industrial revolution?

Yes, I would have. Absolutely. No industrial revolution means no climate change, global warming, and the habitat destruction we see today.

No industrial revolution also means infant mortality rates of over 46%(in the US at least).

By decreasing our own mortality rate, we have increased the mortality rate of every other species on this planet. How is that fair?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com