This is an automated archive.
The original was posted on /r/singularity by /u/CKR12345 on 2024-01-10 09:04:18+00:00.
There’s no way around it. This is not hope, as for many people this will likely mean an initial dystopia, which some are already experiencing.
A select few occupations have value in so far as there is a human doing them. Take for example a psychiatrist, yes, there will definitely be AI psychiatrists in the future, but this occupation is valuable mainly for the discussion you can have with another human being.
Think of most occupations though, surgeons, accountants, programmers, engineers, and many others, the main value in these jobs is the in the task being completed, and the human element is relatively negligible and easily replicable in AI systems.
When AI + robotics are better, faster, cheaper, and safer than human beings, any repetitive job that doesn’t primarily require human connection will be wiped out, some faster than others, but nothing remains stagnant, especially in the face of societal evolution.
We’re already seeing artists and language experts panic about what’s to come, but it’s not a mainstream conversation yet because so far it’s affecting a minority of the population, and unfortunately, the world we currently live in doesn’t really incentivize compassion, or empathy, or looking out for each other, in fact it seems we’re more fragmented and polarized than we have been in a while, eventually though, and I would predict in 5 years, when more jobs are automated, and the amount of unemployed people is too significant to ignore, this will be the beginning of the phase change.
To those who would argue Labour in infinite and we’ll find new jobs, I find this laughable with all due respect. A few moments of contemplation would help you realize that if jobs are being automated due to AI and robotics being better by almost every economically valuable metric, why would we not tackle those new jobs with AI and robotics as well?
This is different than past industrial revolutions, we’re not just making machines that will make it easier for us to work, we are creating highly intelligent models soon to be embodied in humanoid robots, we’re creating our replacement, at least in terms of labour.