Comment by camgunz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by camgunz | Hacker News Reader

I full on don't understand why we're building this stuff, whether it's autonomous driving to put truckers out of work, AI teaching assistants to put teachers/tutors/professors out of work, coding assistants to put programmers out of work, AI article writers to put journalists out of work, AI image generators to put artists out of work, AI video generators to put the film industry on ice, AI accountants, marketers, ad nauseum. Is the idea "well sure we'll put 90% of people out of work, but the very-well-known-to-be-well-functioning-government will do... something to fix it, something that definitely isn't tax away the millions I earned putting everyone else out of work to support everyone I put out of work"?

This is a total reshaping of society at worst, and a huge transfer of wealth with almost no steps at best. How does anyone working on this justify causing unemployment on a mass scale while collecting a huge check? Is it just "progress gonna progress?" Do you really believe that justifies all the consequences? Is it, "if not me/us then someone else (worse)"? Then why aren't you giving control of these tools to the workers? Why are you profiting so handsomely?

This is nuts. Normally I don't go full communist rant, but a few hundred people (presumably some of whom read HN) are about to destroy our society without asking a single one of us, and with absolutely no regard for the consequences.

Don’t fall for the hype. Self driving cars have taken far more effort than a few hundred people for a decade and still aren’t replacing jobs in any meaningful capacity. Books still go to editors after spellcheck and grammar check exist etc etc. Hell Dishwasher is still a job at most restaurants even decades after effective washing machines were invented, automation is just slower than generally portrayed.

Generative AI is still terrible at producing content people would actually pay to access. It’s hit the commissions market because the commissioner has some idea they want and someone who knows how to do the promos can make a lot of images quickly. Yet, Disney animation isn’t laying off anyone these images don’t suck but they’re also not good enough yet. Give it 40 years and who knows but that’s not tomorrow.

In terms of programming yes in very specific situations these things can improve productivity, but so can new libraries etc. It’s a long way from actually replacing programmers because what they are good at is what there’s examples that are close to it in the training data. Ask for a basic weather simulation using different atmospheric gasses and it’s not going to know what to do.

How can you stop it? If company A refuses to build it on moral grounds, company B will.

It is reshaping society in much the same way the industrial revolution did. Luddites resisted change, for precisely the same reason people aren't happy about AI, and it's now a derogatory label.

It's much better to adapt to a changing world but precisely what that entails is still up in the air.

I'm tired of the comparisons of "the industrial revolution" and the "printing press", I don't see those as comparable to what's happening here. Although Devin isn't this, there's a reason people refer to AGI as our last invention.

The same way we pinched off a cottage industry of mustard gas manufacturers: you ban and tightly regulate it.

Why does tech believe there should be no constraints whatsoever on what we build? Either our "change the world" pitches were completely inflated--what we do is meaningless dross--and we don't need to be regulated, or our mission statements were bang on and like any world-shaping thing we desperately need need to be regulated. You can't have it both ways.

Should we regulate to prevent jobs from being replaced? Wouldn't that make us less competitive with countries that aren't willing to artificially cap that?

I'm not against AI regulation on safety grounds but I'm not convinced it's a good idea to try to use regulation to preserve jobs. That feels like it would have much more damaging longer term consequences.

> Should we regulate to prevent jobs from being replaced?

Not at all what I'm saying. What should they have done? Not trained on code they weren't explicitly licensed to do so, and only given access to workers.

The message of companies offering "productivity gains" (or outright replacement: "Hire Devin") to workers is "we're only interested in putting you out of work; how you pay your mortgage and get health care is your concern; call your congressperson". The fact that they're pushing hard to replace workers and flat out stating that their business models are illegal under current copyright law says everything about their offering: hey big business, if we put a carve out in copyright law your SWE headcount goes to zero; call your congressperson.

Hence my original--earnest--question: do you all who are working on AI honestly think the government will fix this?

The government is not this abstract concept, we choose (mostly) what happens there. If enough people complain, or are affected, changes will be made from a legal POV. If enough people lose jobs, yeah a government program might appear to help with that.

If this were true Roe would still be the law of the land, we'd have meaningful gun control, a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, a stronger response to climate change, etc. etc. This stuff all has > 60% support, but there's practically no hope of it passing. Tells you everything you need to know.

You could say exactly the same thing about all forms of automation. We build machines to do work, often that work was already being by people which is part of how we came to know it was high value enough to be worth automating.

People will adapt and find new things to do just like they did in the first, second and third industrial revolutions already.

The industrial revolution didn't really make any work obsolete though. It just augmented human labourers so that they were more productive freeing up people up to pursue other types of work.

Humans still need to do agricultural labour, the only difference is that machines mean less humans need to do that as a percentage of the population.

AI doesn't improve human labour productivity, but makes it obsolete in a similar way to how the combustion engine made the horse obsolete.

What exactly are you going to do of economic value when an AI can do everything the human mind can do?

I'm a software engineer; I'm aligned with automation in my bones and my very soul. I want workers to reap the benefits of it though, and that's plainly not the pitch of these companies. Every response in this thread is "progress gonna progress", which takes exactly zero responsibility for their own actions in bringing about that progress, or accepting any agency at all about how that progress takes shape.

EDIT:

> first, second and third industrial revolutions

These killed and maimed millions of people

No one knows what an economy where AI does all the labor looks like.

In such an economy, it may be that we can become communists! One of Marx's ideas was that technology will liberate man from labor. In actual historical Marxist societies, slave labor and coercion were widespread. But, in the future, if all labor is done by robots, far-left, restributionist policies may be viable because there's no humans being exploited (except, ironically, the humans who invented AI -- the people you're criticizing). In such a communist utopia no one will have to work, people will just have hobbies and hang out.

Are we heading towards this sci-fi scenario? I doubt it. I'm just trying to make two points: 1. when we imagine a future world with AI, there's no reason to imagine that it's a bad one and 2. it could be the case that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" becomes a viable credo in an imaginary post-AI world.

transition period might be turbulent. If the AI would start with automating and mass production/construction of housing, cars, food and cheap electricity then that would be a better solution than UBI, but looks like we starting with automating creative jobs. There is some hope with current progress in robotics though.

Well put

> a huge transfer of wealth

This right here, this is 90% why.

With 10% of "what this button do?"

Couldn't agree more.

Thankfully I believe this is largely just overblown hype. Silicon Valley has gotten way too high on it's own supply of bullshit and the AI craze is that being taken to the next level of insanity. Regardless, the tech industry is amoral at best. We are so obsessed with "can we" (or rather "can we convince a VC that we could") that we never take the time to stop to consider "should we".

Ultimately, watching tech find new and innovative ways to fool and to fleece people has, at times, almost made me feel shame that I've been part of this industry for almost 25 years now.

We are addicted to the idea of disruption and the monetary rewards that come with it. Generally we don't care if we sink the rest of the world in the process either.

Damn shame, that.

There is now way this is overblown hype. This is real- And the progress on AI capabilities is exponential with no signs of slowing down.

Agree that we don’t think enough about it.

We jumped the shark long ago, we (technologists) have been contributing to this for decades: we’ve benefited handsomely from the consequences with our big salaries and hero worship. I don’t disagree with your broad point but you’ve had your head buried in the sand for a long, long time if you think society is “about to” be destroyed.

You don’t understand why companies build stuff to save other companies money?

You're not saving money; that would be deflationary. You're making money and putting millions of people out of work.

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