Thoughts on AI and Jobs

Suspicious.

The more immediately unique thing about AI as far as employment is that through all previous innovations, the substrate of adaptation in our economy has still been the human brain. That problem-solving capacity gets encoded into different industries, processes, and products, but fundamentally the thing that keeps humans relevant is that their brains are the things doing the problem-solving, and they get to capture varying amounts of value for playing that role.

AI, at the limit, probably eliminates this role. AFAICT there's no reason that AI cannot itself become the "substrate of adaptation," and completely remove humans from the adaptation-machine that is a modern economy, at which point they (humans) will have no valid claim to that value creation.

I can agree with the author's point, but they seem oblivious to the fact that people lamenting the loss of their job is usually the politically correct way for them to lament the loss of their paycheck.

Sounds like someone who is gainfully employed. Try the alternative for a while and let us know how it goes.

Reality has a persistent ability to clarify your thinking.

Not sure it will feed my kids, put a roof over my head and look after me as I age and my body fails me though.

As mentioned below, it’s easy to feel safe and secure when one has the means, independent of their livelihood.

Let's imagine that half of the jobs or more are lost. It would create a shock for the economy as a whole, incomparable with anything that happened before.

It's a snake eating its own tail paradox. It means massive bankruptcies across all sectors and some governments defaulting on their debts. We can forget about UBI in these circumstances. Yes, OpenAI and Anthropic will pay more taxes but the economy as a whole will be uprooted.

Yes, LLMs are useful when used ethically. But when it's controlled by greedy and corrupt people, it's going to be used as a weapon to further widen the class divide between the wealthy and poor. The main reason why it has received so much investment is because greedy CEOs dream of AI as being the ultimate people replacer. All of them are short-sighted individuals only concerned with quick wins on the stock market and do not give any thought to what that would do to regular folks. If no one has a job due to AI who will buy their products and services?

The parasitic nature of LLMs takes the work of people and regurgitates an output without compensating the original creators. Without an incentive (i.e., paycheck) for people to work (e.g., code, write articles, answer forum questions, etc.), how will LLM technology continue to thrive in the future? LLMs cannot solve novel problems. That is a unique human ability that AI cannot replace now.

Yes, LLM tech should be celebrated. But when wielded and overhyped by greedy people there are good reasons to be skeptical 'AI Denialists.'

"Oh, work is undemocratic, how odd we devote so much time to it!" - do you realise what work is? That it is at the foundation of human civilisation? Most things you see around you every day are the result of someone's work.

And of course you don't present even the slightest idea how else the world might work.

I struggle to take what is ultimately an unintentional display of the author's privilege seriously. There is no political will to reverse course on 70-odd years of redbaiting that would be a required first step toward any of the changes to resource distribution that would be required to avoid the economy collapsing when jobs start getting scarce. Shoulda coulda woulda oughta, whatever, Big Money threatens capital flight whenever a modest adjustment to simple taxation is suggested. There is no future in which they willingly submit to the kind of redistribution that would be required to finance a society where work is optional.

I find using minimal-capability local models or cheap commercial models like deepseek v4 flash to be the most satisfying because I am a major partner in solving problems or simply trying to better understand the world. I do like access to very strong models a few times a week.

A friend’s son and a young tech friend in town have very different views than I do because they are struggling in a tough job market and want a competitive advantage. I am grateful that I am not in that position.

Its hard for highly intelligent people to understand that others simply DGAF. They just want their paycheck and they don't want to think about it deeply.

Thought leaders have existed since the dawn of human history. There were always scuffles at the top, but there were plenty of people that just went about their business, filling their roles and doing their jobs for the tribe.

no, we need to get rid of as many jobs as possible. whats missing is talk of a universal basic income. AI is going to get rid of a lot of jobs but people still need to eat and have a place to live. its really created a need for us to explore a system beyond the lessai fair capitalism the US has been creating over the years. tax AI and use it for building subsidized housing and food. made education free so that we can learn skills AI can't do.

The mistake people make is thinking AI is going to lay waste to almost all employment.

It may change many jobs and eliminate some but see above. If you live in a (functioning) democracy the notion is politically improbable. That's not to say there are not people who will vote against their own interests, again and again, even after being screwed each time. The point is that being politically aware, savvy and organized is an important part of surviving. This was always the case, but recent events make this starkly obvious.

On top of that AI projections are currently a form of mass hysteria or greedy fantasy, depending on if you see yourself as labor or capital. Both utterly unhinged from reality.