Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

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There will be no reason to study math when an LLM is better than every human mathematician, or physics when an LLM is better than any physicist, and likewise for every other field that requires discipline and work. We who went to college before AI are quite possibly going to be the last generation of competent, educated humans.

AI will take over every job requiring education and talent, including yours, and then we will be totally dependent on it and there will be no way to go back. After that it will start taking on decision making roles. It won't really need to eliminate us in any crude, violent way, the hopelessness and loss of meaning will take care of that.

Some will find meaning in religious ritual and some in hedonism. Both of which can lead to extremism and violence for some. Some will just exist. Some will choose to stop existing. Buckle up.

I really can't understand why nobody sees what is going to happen. Its not too late to choose another path. But in order to do so we will have to forego short term corporate profits, which is politically inconceivable for our current crop of elites. What should we do?

This is a very pessimistic look at things.

There will be some growing pains for some, yes. But overall, I think it will ultimately create more jobs than ever. History is full of examples where people thought a new invention leads to catastrophic job loss, then the Earth had more jobs than ever.

We have enough jobs in 2026 to keep most of the 8.3 billion people employed somehow.

That's an unbearably naive way to look at things. You wave your hands and say "oh it will be fine" without understanding any of the systems at play.

Food, housing, and other resources are only obtainable under capitalism if you have the leverage to demand them- in other words if you are difficult to replace. AI will make you extremely cheap to replace. On what basis do you expect to be able to negotiate a wage that you can live on?

Or another way to look at it: some people point to the historical parallel of farriers being put out of business by the spread of the automobile. But yet, the manufacture of cars ultimately provided more jobs than were lost when they replaced horses. Won't AI be the same?

But like all analogies, this one is imprecise and in an extremely important way. In this analogy, you, dear reader, are not the farrier. Nor are you the factory worker.

You are the horse.

Then go buy AI stocks if you think we are the horse.

Some will be horses, yes. Most will be riders.

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