this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Except I'm able to replace 2 content creator roles I'd otherwise need to fill with AI right now.
There's this weird Luddite trend going on with people right now, but it's so heavily divorced from reality that it's totally non-impactful.
AI is not a flash in the pan. It's emerging tech.
@SCB The Luddites were not upset about progress, they were upset that the people they had worked their whole lives for were kicking them to the street without a thought. So they destroyed the machines in protest.
It's not weird, it's not just a trend, and it's actually more in touch with the reality of employer-employee relations than the idea that these LLMs are ready for primetime.
Luddites were wrong and progress happened despite them.
I'm not really concerned about jobs disappearing. Get a different job. I'm on my 4th radically different job of my career so far. The world changes and demanding it should not because you don't want to change makes you the ideological equal of a conservative arguing about traditional family values.
Meanwhile I'll be over here using things like Synthesia instead of hiring an entry level ID.
@SCB The Luddites gave way to Unions, which yes were more effective and gave us a LOT of good things like the 8 hour work week, weekends, and vacations. Technology alone did not give us that. Technology applied as bosses and barons wanted did not give us that. Collective action did that. And collective action has evolved along a timeline that INCLUDES sabotaging technology.
Things like the SAGAFTRA/WGA strike are what's going to get us good results from the adoption of AI. Until then, the AI is just a tool in the hands of the rich to control labor.
How is this at all on topic?
Yeah man unions are cool. That's irrelevant to this discussion.
Not everyone can flex into new roles. Have some compassion for those who get left behind. The lack of compassion in your response actually causes you to look conservative.
I have compassion. I think the government should invest heavily into retraining programs and moving subsidies.
I don't think we should hold all of progress back because somebody doesn't want to change careers
Edit: retraining, not restraining. That's an important typo fix lol
The lack of rationale and reason in your response actually causes you to look conservative.
What if we were finally able to get insurance companies out of healthcare in the US? Thousands would lose their jobs, but millions would suddenly be able to get care. So much money would be saved, but so many people would suddenly be out of work.
I don't know about you, but I hate paying several hundred dollars a month (and 100s or 1000s if I actually get care) to prop up a whole ass middleman between me and my care.
Anyway, my point is we can't keep old systems only for the sake of preserving jobs. The guy you're replying to is short sighted and relying too heavily on a language imitation program, but he's essentially right about not keeping jobs just because.
@new_acct_who_dis Yeah, but that wouldn't hurt as much because all the people out of work would still have healthcare.
AI displaced creatives will lose their healthcare.
You could use this kind of argument for almost anything. For example if we stop burning coal, many coal miners will lose their jobs. That doesn't mean that we should keep burning coal.
@Freesoftwareenjoyer interesting you mention stopping burning coal. Because mining and burning coal is bad for the environment.
Guess what else is bad for the environment? Huge datacenters supporting AI. They go through electricity and water and materials at the same rates as bitcoin mining.
A human being writing stuff only uses as much energy as a human being doing just about anything else, though.
So yes, while ending coal would cost some miners jobs, the net gain is worth it. But adopting AI in standard practice in the entertainment industry does not have the same gains. It can't offset the human misery caused by the job loss.
I agree, but isn't that the job for the government?
I think the problem is education. People don't understand modern technology and schools teach them skills that make them easily replaceable by programs. If they don't learn new skills or learn to use AI to their advantage, they will be replaced. And why shouldn't they be?
Even if there is some kind of AI bubble, this technology has already changed the world and it will not disappear.
@Freesoftwareenjoyer Out of curiosity, how is the world appreciably different now that AI exists?
Anyone can use AI to write a simple program, make art or maybe edit photos. Those things used to be something that only certain groups of people could do and required some training. They were also unique to humans. Now computers can do those things too. In a very limited way, but still.
@Freesoftwareenjoyer Anyone could create art before. Anyone could edit photos. And with practice, they could become good. Artists aren't some special class of people born to draw, they are people who have honed their skills.
And for people who didn't want to hone their skills, they could pay for art. You could argue that's a change but AI is not gonna be free forever, and you'll probably end up paying in the near future to generate that art. Which, be honest, is VERY different from "making art." You input a direction and something else made it, which isn't that different from just getting a friend to draw it.