> Like, what's the point, if the next AI can do it in 5 seconds?
Post-work society is an inevitability if we don't destroy our planet.
> Like, what's the point, if the next AI can do it in 5 seconds?
Post-work society is an inevitability if we don't destroy our planet.
If we had something like a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but for work, I think meaningfulness would be the top of the pyramid. For most people in the world, not going hungry or affording housing are reasons enough to do work. Getting to do work you find meaningful is truly a privilege.
None of these people question whether their jobs are really necessary for the few things we really need: food, shelter, warmth, health etc.
A couple of generations ago most women were employed in the least bullshit job of all: running a household. But now they're all wage slaves too. So yeah, it does work.
Highest violent crime rates:
Memphis, Tennessee: ~2,400–2,500 per 100k
St. Louis, Missouri: ~2,000–2,100 per 100k
Detroit, Michigan: ~1,700–2,000 per 100k
Little Rock, Arkansas: ~1,600–1,800 per 100k
Baltimore, Maryland: ~1,600–1,700 per 100k
Oakland, California: ~1,400–1,900 per 100k
New Orleans, Louisiana: ~1,600–1,700 per 100k
Birmingham, Alabama: ~1,600–1,700 per 100k
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: ~1,100–1,600 per 100k
Cleveland, Ohio: ~1,500–1,600 per 100k
Most popular holiday destinations:
New York City, New York
Orlando, Florida
Las Vegas, Nevada
Maui, Hawaii
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
San Francisco, California
Miami, Florida
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
New Orleans, Louisiana
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina/Tennessee
https://coolidgelawfirmaz.com/crime-increase-over-the-holida...
Highest overall crime rates:
Memphis, Tennessee
Oakland, California
Portland, Oregon
Detroit, Michigan
Seattle, Washington
Denver, Colorado
Albuquerque, New Mexico
St. Louis, Missouri
Little Rock, Arkansas
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Many of the same places, it turns out, and now the overlap with popular holiday destinations has dropped from 1 to 0.
It would be fun to get to post-work society, but hard to imagine atm. TPTB won't let it happen
Soon we will have some machines that can replace 50% of jobs, and this will happen basically overnight...
It's not "a lot of jobs", it's "all jobs".
WWI: -20 000 000 extra mouths to feed
WWII: -80 000 000 extra mouths to feed
WWIII: you extrapolate
• Lots of people aren't aware of what the models can do.
• They also aren't paying attention, and getting their attention is hard.
• Their impression of AI was formed by cheap low quality AI like free ChatGPT as of two years ago, Google AI overviews or Microsoft Copilot. So they think it sucks.
• A LOT of executives got burned by early pilots that overpromised then failed. Enterprise IT is a wasteland of dead AI pilots.
• Their IT systems are difficult to connect to models because they lack proper APIs or auth systems. Note the huge emphasis on fast computer use in the Astra announcement. A lot of work can only be done by clicking things.
• Executives don't want to let employees go, but aren't sure they can find new work for them either.
The last point is worth dwelling on. HN is full of socialists who imagine corporate executives as cigar smoking top hat wearers who chuckle all the way to the bank. The reality is more mundane: most executives don't want to lay people off and will fight hard to avoid doing so.
The average person in a position to make an AI project work either isn't incentivized with stock - this is often the case outside the US even for quite high ranking execs - or they are but don't believe laying people off will raise the share price enough to be worth the pain.
Also, executives often measure their success and self-worth by how many people report to them. Laying off half their department, even if it gets them a monetary bonus, would lead directly to a loss of social status as they can no longer say they manage 1,000 people but only 200, which matters if their social circle are all managers too (and for their wives, girlfriends, etc).
Layoffs suck and people HATE doing them, which is why companies often resort to forced percentage based layoffs to get managers to do it. If the incentives aren't there, the average executive will just sit on obvious AI deployment opportunities and/or deliberately sabotage them because getting rid of people is just all downside for them with no upside.
So institutions have enormous inertia. Model capabilities will run far ahead of what is actually used in reality, and this will continue for decades. It does mean that startups have a better chance than ever of outcompeting much larger incumbents though, as not hiring is far easier than firing.
These are productivity increases, sure, but still are $2000, $8000, $14000 of labor.
And doesn't count continued increase build time, more features, maintenance. The $20/mo SaaS isn't going away, and work can't pay you to endlessly tinker on fun internal projects and save $1200 of subscriptions for your $120k/yr salary.
It's fun, but SaaS is going to shift to more feature rich and we're going to see a ton of smaller projects that were pains to get started that can now work in a short amount of time.
Companies are going to get a huge surge of random internal projects and have to debate whether all the upkeep is valid for the pet projects, or if it's people fucking around at an untold scale.
"I am the best economist in UK!"
Is it?
I can't see a future in which almost every system (both physical and virtual) are not automated and optimized by autonomous entities.
What do you do when everyone is out of a job?
If you don't want pitchforks and riots in the streets, you give everyone UBI and housing so society doesn't collapse.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...
> The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.
As much as I’d love UBI to happen, in current geopolitiks it’s a no-go. People are not happy with having what the others have.
The beach houses, mansions, mountain views could be vacation places, or used as libraries, or simply dismantled for the materials.
The "slums" on noisy roads could be eliminated entirely and used for something people don't need to be at.
We'd move to a more equal distribution of assets closer to the middle line.
Stop hiding behind rainbows and say what you mean.
The world is a fucking mess and they still believe in fairytales.
Ah yes because these AI companies are just gonna give away the models for free that I use with my free computer and free smartphone while I eat with my free food in my free apartment.
Will the AI choose to give you those freebies? It will if you behave.
we should be more concerned by post-wages society
Work will always exist regardless how useful it is