Satya Nadella on knowledge work | Hacker News Reader

Satya Nadella on knowledge work

solmaz.io

33 pointshosolmaz18 comments

I don't read this as him saying it will become factory work... He is saying that the work flows will change, like lean changed factory work. This seems like a misinterpretation of the interview?

Yes, this sounds more accurate

> He thinks that white collar work will become more like factory work, with AI agents used for end-to-end optimization.

Yeah, let’s replace every kind of human work (planning, counselling, engineering, research, plain everything), and let us make them all unemployed. And let only the owners of the tech make money.

Well if this new tech served all makind by sharing the profit, it would be like utopia. But these greedy oligarchs won’t share a single bit of the wealth that’s generated by tech. And we‘ll have tech oligarchs, as the former greek finance minister have written in his book.

I believe you are referring to Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis. Recently read it and found it to be quiet insightful. Explanation of how the the current trend is more Feudalism instead of super charged capitalism was very well done. But i don't think the solutions proposed will work out in practice.

Good read that seems more relevant by the day.

With AI, I'd say white collar work should become less like factory work. Generative AI is non-deterministic, the opposite of factory work.

The ruling class clearly does not seem to grasp the concept and believes they can fire us all and replace us with next-level markov chain auto completes.

I say they should go with it. Those companies should loose few billions just to learn.

It doesn't matter how companies actually do anymore. All that matters is the implication. See PE ratios of tech darlings. Most of that value proposition is purely hype. They can turn a profit on hype for a lot longer than you or I can last without work that's for sure. How long is your runway? Better yet, how long until you are radicalized against the system beating you down?

Meanwhile he admits that AI has generated no value so far in another interview: https://futurism.com/microsoft-ceo-ai-generating-no-value

This article is a sales pitch, the one I'm linking is what all those CEOs really think.

It is the same interview mentioned in both TFA and your link.

The two reports just chose to highlight different things, and TBH, neither seems to be hyping AI.

Headlines are, unfortunately, often intentionally fabricated for clickbait purposes. Nadella clearly believes AI is valuable today and will become more so over time. What he actually said, as the text of the article describes, is that he's uninterested in chasing benchmark results because he thinks the real goal of AI should be growing the world GDP at a 10% annual rate.

Why don't we try for once to grow happiness

GDP per capita is quite well correlated with happiness (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness). There’s reasonable concerns about microtargeting, but being able to afford expensive stuff solves quite a lot of the problems that make people unhappy.

> he thinks the real goal of AI should be growing the world GDP at a 10% annual rate.

Hum, no. He is saying the world GDP is currently growing at 10% annual rate, and for AI to have a value it would need to disrupt this and make it grow much faster.

> Nadella clearly believes AI is valuable today

Despite saying the exact contrary?

I'd argue not a single tech CEO sees AI as valuable today. They just don't want to be left in the dust IF it ever becomes valuable.

That’s categorically false, world GDP is not growing at 10%. If it was, we’d be doubling the economy every 7 years. That’s a staggering rate of growth

I'm just quoting the example that Satya used in the interview.

He just meant that AI should have a meaningful impact on overall GDP growth to be considered valuable, regardless of the actual current growth rate.

> he admits that AI has generated no value so far

He didn't admit that. From TFA:

"Us self-claiming some [artificial general intelligence] milestone, that's just nonsensical benchmark hacking to me"

He lamented the states of AI benchmarks, not that AI had generated no values.

Further:

"So, the first thing that we all have to do is, when we say this is like the Industrial Revolution, let's have that Industrial Revolution type of growth,"

He was saying the hype could only be justified when there was substantial return in terms of productivity. That doesn't mean AI has no values.

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