> We are however, living in a unique time were robots and AI can potentially pick up the slack for whatever losses of productivity a lower population may cause.
Productivity growth is currently the lowest it's been since before the industrial revolution. AI and robotics may be revolutionizing a few specific domains. But there's no evidence that they're replacing the need for human labor any time soon.
That probably will happen at some point. But probably not in our lifetimes or even our children's lifetime. We still need able-bodied workers to run the economy.
> Large swaths of the population unemployable though... That's a real issue.
IMO the one job that is most threatened by future progress in AI is the job of software developer.
As for the menial jobs, of course nobody cares whether a human or a machine mows your grass. But I do think that most people would rather be nursed by human being than a robot. I think there will be a big increase in care-giving jobs, which would be wonderful because the world is in dire need of care-givers.
> As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility.
I'm not 100% sure of this. As a software engineer and AI researcher I actually feel that AI is more likely to replace my job before it replaces some dude hauling boxes in a truck across Colorado during a blizzard and then figuring out how to unload them into the back of a poorly-organized grocery store, or some restaurant chef working with open flames in the back of a restaurant while figuring out how to make something vegan and dealing with someone else's peanut allergy.
Robotics+AI will happen eventually, but high-paid computer-based jobs are IMO the easiest targets to replace. Human labor involves dealing with a lot of corner cases safely and it's going to take a while.
> a large section of the population is already at this point without AI.
Which section? Just about any able-bodied person can create enough value to feed/house themselves by washing dishes, stocking shelves, mopping floors, staring at security camera monitors, etc.
> Human labor will easily win on cost for many of those jobs.
A human will not work a job that doesn't pay their cost of living (or if they do it won't be for very long because that's not sustainable). If that means $20k per year, then I would guess robots will have no problem competing on cost. When the software is ready, anyway. Probably not within 10 years.
> physical labour hasn't been replaced yet in many areas isn't because AI tech hasn't advanced sufficiently
I’m a robotics engineer. There are two options. AI can either replace all jobs or it can’t.
If it can then we are all out of a job, and then the next project is how to organise society such that everyone can live a good and fulfilling life in harmony.
If it can’t, for whatever reason, then that is the next thing I will be personally working on. Simple as that.
Because of this I don’t see how would it be possible to run out of programing jobs before running out of all the other jobs first.
You are talking about ChatGPT, and LLMs, but what i am saying transcends particular technologies.
> If there's an AI tomorrow that can replace every single physical job out there, what do you think will happen? Riot and chaos in the street after about 1-2 years.
I don't think you even need to replace every physical job out there for that to be the result. I think all the ingredients needed exist right now, and I'm worried that unless the discourse about LLMs changes significantly, the perceived threat of them is enough to bring those riots and chaos.
Good. That's the goal, and we can stop inventing stupid make-work for people when that happens. Jobs aren't the goal, making robots do all of the work is the goal. You're falling into the myopic trap of assuming that the current way of things won't change along with generative AI becoming commonplace.
> What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training?
Robot cleaners, maintenance, etc... I highly doubt we will have a fully automated robot loop that takes care of themselves anytime soon, so there's always going to be a need for humans in the chain.
> In four years these people will all be using AI or they will be out of jobs. Period.
> Don't use AI => Go extinct like a butter churner.
There's a great reason to be scared of this. With enough automation, you won't have a job. Without jobs, there can't be an economy. And therefore it's game over for society as a whole.
This is more problematic than it seems, though. What if there isn't enough work in other industries to absorb the people? If AI works out as proponents want, this seems likely because lots of jobs, across a wide swath of industries, will be eliminated.
There's also the issue that not everyone is suited for every kind of job.
>>But once AI enter a job it is entirely possible that this prevents future people from pursuing it, meaning that actual people get replaced with them.... thus lowering the quality of the market which was already suffering.
>The opposite is also possible - AI entering a field would produce many new capabilities that require humans to be involved in their development, deployment, supervision, or working in supporting tasks.
A lot of humans entering a slightly different field may lower total unemployment, but parent was worried about quality, not unemployment per se.
> Well, this one could really be problematic for everyone. We're talking about social unrest and revolts on a global scale.
Not necessarily.
Firstly it's not even clear that AI will eliminate jobs without creating new ones. It's not clear that any development in AI will be any different than the transition to mechanization in the 19th and early 20th century.
Secondly, it's not clear that even if AI were to successfully automate away labor that we would have a problem. For one, we have a demographic cliff rapidly approaching whereby a lot of countries population is falling, and even where it's not, the population is rapidly aging. There's already protests in France about raising retirement age. What if AI lets us have our cake and retire earlier too?
At any rate, if AI is busy automating away labor, then the world is getting more efficient. And that means there are more resources to support people. All those debates are worth having, but you gotta cross that bridge when you get there, if you get there.
>There are a lot of jobs that humans can inherently perform better than robots for the next few decades at least: taking care of the elderly, hospice care, community development, physical therapy, etc. Humans are wired to trust and engage with our own species over any machines that could be developed any time soon.
While this is true and one of the unintended consequences of guaranteed minimum income would be even harder to obtain elderly care, not everyone is suited for this kind of work - and if you think a large % of people who spent the last 20 years driving cabs and trucks can now go on to be a nurse or some such I don't think it's very realistic.
IMO there will soon be a new class of unemployable people - with low social skills and low enough IQ to not be trainable fast enough (one thing that is a requirement in modern economy is fast training and adaptation - no more learn one job and do that for the next 30 years - you stick around for one job for a couple of years and then your position gets automated, the company reduces capacity, relocates operation, shifts focus, etc. etc.)
So on one hand there will be vacancies for many jobs (like competent programmers right now) but on the other hand people available will not be able to enter those markets in any reasonable amount of time.
I can tell you myself - years of working on a computer over 8 hours a day have left my motor system very very underdeveloped and I have a hard time focusing on menial things, my first job was physical labor after highschool - I took months to get to the point where I could be useful and I was a work hazard during my training - the only reason I got a job there was because the manager knew me from school "internship" and he knew I could code/was a fast learner - he gave me a job before he could get an opening to move me to production planning/management. I needed the money because I was poor. But there was 0 point in hiring a person like me for that kind of work - if I was hired for that job I would be fired way before I got good enough at it to not be a hazard. On the other hand I've seen new people come on out of school that learned much faster and were just better at it. Just like there would be 0 point in hiring anyone that was good at that job to be a programmer.
> AI is not going to render everyone jobless anytime soon
EXACTLY. From what I've seen, I don't even think self driving cars are remotely viable for another 10~15 years (honestly we'd probably need general purpose AI first, and if that's even remotely possible, there's no way you're going to get a thinking sentient machine to put in the effort to do something so mundane as driving your damn car).
There are still so many things machines cannot do. They can't pick products of different sizes in an Amazon warehouse. They can't make carbon fibre (most of that stuff is still shaped by hand) .. hell even a lot of space rocket shells are still bent into shape by hand.
Ideally we'd want to see the world move away from goods and more human beings living more sustainably producing content and art for one another. But who am I kidding, we're totally going to run out of resources and/or cover our planet in plastic slurry of sludge and pollution long before then.
> I can't think of an example of AI creating jobs...only taking them.
future jobs which doesn't exist today will not be in your vocabulary or thoughts, which is why you cannot think of them. Does not mean such jobs will not exist.
The play today for the concerned, is to start owning capital as well as selling their labour. People who only rely solely on labour as their source of income will be disadvantaged, as labour is increasingly less useful.
> But where are my damn robots that I can assign task and do them reliably ( clean the garden, go get this list of groceries - or , just look in the damn fridge and go buy what is missing , and so on )?
The amusing/terrifying thing is that AI is probably going to replace a bunch of people's jobs before it can take away any of that menial labour from them.
Unless there's a robot revolution, there will be jobs. AI is not going to farm, provide elder care, or do maintenance.
And that's assuming we get to AGI, and not get stuck on this LLM plateau.
reply