The consequence of almost all software the loss of jobs. I've personally been responsible for many many jobs disappearing with the software I've written. AI is just another form of software and if it is at all useful, and I believe that it is, then it will eliminate jobs. That should not be particularly surprising -- computers have already eliminated entire categories of jobs.
I think the subtle point is that not all humans will replaced -- it's just that a human and AI will be able to do the work of a few humans. Same work, less people.
With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go.
My guess is as a species we'll just find something else to do, just like we always do. Who knows, maybe inefficiency will become fashionable at some point.
The way I see it if we manage to reach a level of AI strong enough to replace software engineers it means that basically anything can be automated. It's not just the end of programming, it's basically the end of jobs altogether. The consequences will be tremendous for humanity as a whole.
So I'm not really selfishly worried about this. We'll go eventually, but we'll probably be amongst the last to go. By then society will have to figure out how to deal with mass unemployment, it's already a massive issue today and it's not going to improve any time soon.
Have we? I can't think of any previous development that threatened pretty much every form of employment available.
Sure, computers removed a lot of jobs, but they also created a whole new class of them (the ones most people on this site have).
AI will remove that entire class of jobs, too, with nothing new to replace it. For a while, there'll be new opportunities for AI research, but if they actually succeed at improving AI, they'll eventually make themselves redundant, too.
The thing about AI is that software replaced people piecemeal. The report that took 1 person 2 weeks to generate now is a 20 minute batch job, but that report was run quarterly and was only 1 position. There is plenty more work to do.
We've already automated much of what is there to automate, most of our "bullshit" jobs are human communication or human reasoning. Once you fully automate 1 CSR or 1 compliance officer in an industry, you've effectively automated a large percentage of them. Instead of seeing a gradual displacement of labor, you're going to see large chunks of people become completely irrelevant. We're seeing this in the gaming industry now, where a huge focus is on AI art, aiding in (but not solely responsible for) mass layoffs.
I don't know if AI will eliminate more jobs than AS/400s did, but it will be a much more disruptive transition.
I don't think people really grasp what is going on here, people won't have any other jobs to move to, even if new type of jobs are created, AI will be able to do them too.
Just as cars replaced almost all functions horses had, AI will replace all functions we humans have.
When it comes to AI replacing jobs the biggest wonder I have is.. why is there so much talk and attention on replacing software jobs first? Software work is fairly high skill and hard to replace. Every hour that a software dev spends doing a task, they are doing some kind of work that the industry has probably tried and failed to automate, and we're talking about an industry filled with the most clever and most qualified automation-writers there are.
There's many jobs that AI will probably replace. Software will be among the last.
I don't understand why AI eliminating jobs is considered a problem. If any job can be done by a computer program it simply means that humanity has outgrown this kind of work and that nobody should do that mindnumbing crap anymore. Let's forget that the word "computer" used to mean "guy who sits in an office of an accounting firm, and adds numbers all day long".
I wonder how good middle managers can be in retail. I would guess good staff can always turn around a crisis.
And this is why I think AI will either replace all of us or just change the way we work.
Software will and does kill jobs, but only those that are easy to move around anyway. Take generated art for an example: If a simple prompt that you can send to a contractor is enough to satisfy your needs there is a good chance that you are already or will be able to replace artists with AI, but as soon as you want something more, AI alone will not be able to help you. After all an AI will not be able to thrive in an organic human environment, at least for the forseeable future.
The moment the latter is possible, it is a matter of time that AI gives all of us the option to slack off forever.
As artificial intelligence increases, the number of jobs will start to decrease. Once the job started decrease, the policy makers will step in and AI will be in handcuffed. This will result in many monotonous jobs without a learning curve for lots of overqualified programmers
“Now, in a world where AI is replacing programmers by the minute, taking their jobs and revolutionizing the way we think about code, maybe we should…”
Excuse me ?!?
I get that job loss due to AI is a common fear. But is there any hard evidence that the job market is losing “a software engineering job a minute” to AI? That’s 525600 jobs annually…
I think most businesses will struggle to completely eliminate the need for humans. Surely AI will continue to drive efficiency for those who remain employed and others will find new jobs and/or start their own businesses.
That, or all the jobs go away and then no one has money resulting in a non-functioning economy :).
This is very insightful. I'll let AI take the whole job, if it means it will just do whatever I want after. Small loss if that means lots of programming jobs disappear.
I don't find such perspectives useful because they only consider two extremes: either we keep our jobs or become jobless.
The fact is, AI is currently capable of replacing some jobs, and it will likely replace even more in the future. However, this does not mean that we will all become jobless. Instead, engineers will become more valuable as they are needed to support and develop these complex systems.
Though, the amount of engineers will be reduced for sure.
I think the subtle point is that not all humans will replaced -- it's just that a human and AI will be able to do the work of a few humans. Same work, less people.
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