Utopia Talk / Politics / The economy:K shaped, AI etc.

Habebe rank	Fri Feb 06 03:15:47 So wjen do you all think AI will change the downstream economy? What jobs will it limit to oversear? I seen Neurologists offered $300/hr to train AI bots. What skills/Jobs will be more in demand? Rory Sutherland seems to think people skills will be in higher demand. Learn to code seems to be out the window, Nvidia for example wants none of its engineers to code, thats AIs job.
Habebe rank	Fri Feb 06 05:13:11 I mean it makes sense though, relatively, small businesses out employ big companies, so the stock market can go well (although investments have been iffy the last few days) And good jobs can still lag behind. 1 in 4 US 18-34 year olds have started a small business. Now Trump has barred greencard holders from SBA loans (sounds retarded) AI will help small businesses is my presumption, but while I don't think it will eliminate jons completely, I could see getting rid of teams of employees and replacing them with a few humans supervising a bot.
jergul rank	Fri Feb 06 10:37:05 Learning to code is still important. AI needs overseers and not fewer overseers than there are currently human coders. We have seen this before. How computers were supposed to revolutionize the office and lead to far fewer white collar jobs. How did that play out?
Seb rank	Fri Feb 06 14:27:55 I think it's overcooked. Increasingly what I'm seeing is that AI is being used to replace bureaucratic process that are designed to demonstrate thinking and accountability. These processes are often indeed far less efficient than they should be in themselves, but make the overall system more efficient. However LLM automation often fundamentally throws the baby out with the bath water and gets you to high system inefficiency, while also transferring labour cost to what will become software licensing costs. For example: Yes, writing a business case for £1m investment is often a bureaucratic and annoying process (whenever I can I tend to insist these are stripped back to being no more than 10 pages absolute maximum including appendices). However, the point isn't producing the case (in theory at least) is to make sure that the problem is understood and well defined, that multiple ways is solving the problem have been considered and that the one being pursued is the best value for money, and that it's actually feasible and affordable to implement. Making an 800 page document full of plausible ideas an LLM came to with, and then summarising it down to one page with another LLM doesn't actually serve the purpose. And banking the efficiency by taking the senior responsible officers access to the team and skills to do that planning and appraisal just means what you get is GIGO and lots of badly thought out pet projects and wasted money. That's just one example, but I'm seeing loads like this. There's also a lot of studies showing most firms (as much as 90%) aren't seeing the benefits. I think deployed in the right way, you'll see some interesting things. It's worth noting that studies on tech like electricity show there's a long time between invention, industrialisation and the development of mature models for how great to use it (about 80 years iirc, but it's a process itself that's speeding up) A lot of the knowledge work stuff people are acting like it's a full substitute enabling a genuine cashable saving for - I think will turn out not to be. It's better for improving the productivity of an existing worker; so you'll still need people with those skills and there's a question as to whether that results in greater competition for fewer positions pushing down wages, or the same or greater demand for labour because what can be achieved increases unlocking latent demand that couldn't get satisfied at old price points.
Seb rank	Fri Feb 06 14:31:52 If the balance is in the short term (cf. Salesforce whoopsie) and long term is more towards displacing white collar rather than just lowering output costs creating an explosion of more service offerings and thus demand for white collar labour despite AI. Well, then what it may well do though is rebalance skilled manual labour and white collar work. People will still need their roof fixed etc.
williamthebastard rank	Fri Feb 06 15:35:16 I should have been hit directly in my line of work and there was a dip last spring, but this spring so far is one of my better ones. January is always slow but not this year. After personally being impressed by LLMs initially and using it myself all the time, Ive found it doesnt actually save much time, really. It provides me with more ideas to choose between without having to sweat it, but sifting between different options, plus adjusting issues that crop up, end up taking roughly the same time as starting from scratch. My clients also seem to have realized that AI is not reliable enough to replace people en masse. It probably has reduced employment in my field in that most of my clients now send over rough drafts created by AI and my job is now more about editing than creating, which is usually - but not always - quicker. (In my field, one guy writes the original document, then it gets sent to at least one more guy for copying and usually finally a 3rd guy for final review, before it gets sent back to the client. This is how the quality assurement process is secured in this area, and LLMs havent replaced that process at all so far)
williamthebastard rank	Fri Feb 06 15:44:39 Interestingly, it still produces mechanical and unnatural language to a large extent. If I just copied and pasted LLM text and sent off after correcting obvious errors, I'd receive an email saying, Hi, this sounds like AI, could you make it sound more natural please?
williamthebastard rank	Fri Feb 06 15:55:24 Whats most dangerous about it at the moment is the Elons lying to customers about its capabilities and customers believing their lies and using it inappropriately, just like he lies about what his cars are capable of and people dying as a result.
Paramount rank	Fri Feb 06 16:27:06 ” What skills/Jobs will be more in demand? Rory Sutherland seems to think people skills will be in higher demand.” OnlyFans
Habebe rank	Fri Feb 06 18:30:43 Seb, Yeah, repairs of all sorts IMHO will be one of the hardest to replace. WTB, I suspect all AI ceos hype the product to justify the valuation of said company. NVIDIA is valued now at nearlt 5 Trillion with a T, eclipsing Apple and Aramco.
Rugian rank	Fri Feb 06 18:38:22 "Yeah, repairs of all sorts IMHO will be one of the hardest to replace." Mind you, technology will eventually replace a lot of those jobs as well - but that's more on the 25-100 year timeframe. Not something policymakers need to worry about for now. For white collar jobs, the prediction I think is most credible is that it will initially hit entry-level jobs the hardest, as those employees are most engaged in easily-replicates rote assignments that don't required qualitative decision-making. Those replacements will make financial sense to companies in the short term, but ultimately it will create a talent deficit because companies are no longer training the next generation of leaders as they do the traditional rising up the corporate ranks. At some point, AI will get to the point where it can start reliably doing comprehensive analysis and decision recommendations for senior management. At that time, it'll be the mid-level employees that start seeing their jobs get wiped out, while (lower-paid) entry-level employees start getting new opportunities again to work alongside the AI in crafting products, investment strategies, etc. I guess I'm more pessimistic than Seb here - I do see AI being used alongside rather than in place of employees, but at the same time it absolutely will wreck havoc on overall headcount needs.
Habebe rank	Fri Feb 06 18:47:31 What happens to coders when 100x as many people are able to code apps? Who rises to the top? The people who can solve problems and not just code.
jergul rank	Fri Feb 06 18:50:05 What happens to professional baseball players when so many other people can throw a ball?
Seb rank	Fri Feb 06 22:23:20 Rugian: I don't think technology will actually, simply because people have to live somehow, so what will happen in practice is decoupling. If you successfully displace most production and create mass unemployment, that happens it's tech and digital services become unaffordable for most. It looks like secular deflation from the perspective of capital.
Habebe rank	Fri Feb 06 23:23:29 Jergul, I don't think thats the best analogy, because in my statement, it's about a skill no longer being neccesary to achieve the product, compared to just more people being able to produce the product.
jergul rank	Fri Feb 06 23:58:29 habebe I agree. It was a weak analogy. I should have pointed directly at certification. The people watching AI (proofreading spagetti code AI generates) will have accreditation in a professional setting. Thus it does not matter that "everyone" can "code". Certain industries will have challenges. See world generation by AI right now, but even there, the end result has to be good enough to suspend disbelief (a technical term. Why can we look at pages in a book and get all hot and bothered by the pigments on paper? We suspend our disbelief for a bit and choose to larp what has been described to us).
Habebe rank	Sat Feb 07 03:32:42 Fair enough. I read that doubles its ability every 7 months. Now that said, perplexity still gives me overtly wrong answers on simple things like video game tips and things in the manual, so we have a long way to go. As for the coders, they have an advantage IMO, I myself can not really code although Ive dabbled enough yo understand how the code works. One of my concerns is the US basis a LARGE share of its exports on service industry, and a large chunk of that is in two categories. 1. Software. 2. Data analysis. Two.industries that could very well be greatly disrupted due to AI. Now, we have a decent internal economy, non export based, which helps cushion a blow, but the concern is still there.
Habebe rank	Sun Feb 15 02:49:07 The thing is, it's not just AI, but a host of other tech that is leading to 1. GDP growth 2. Fewer jobs 3. The jobs that are available are are less secure. Gig work was started off as "earn some extra cash" and now it's becoming "careers" for people. Two household incomes were pitched as an option to make extra income, and now its basically a requirement for many people just to get by.
Seb rank	Sun Feb 15 16:05:21 Yeah so maybe wasn't such a good idea to vote for a dodgy guy that portrays himself as a ruthless business man, who has lots of really personal relationships with billionaires, standing for a party that historically sees money going to labour as wasted profit.
Pillz rank	Sun Feb 15 18:49:56 However you so stupid seb
Pillz rank	Sun Feb 15 18:50:02 How're
williamthebastard rank	Sun Feb 15 19:52:28 Meth Boi is the king of weakest comebacks in UP history. Theyre so bad they almost become good, like some worst movies ever gain a cult following because theyre so bad
Forwyn rank	Sun Feb 15 20:18:42 "bureaucratic process that are designed to demonstrate thinking and accountability" lmfao
Habebe rank	Mon Feb 16 01:30:40 Seb, I don't actually vote. But, I agree Id prefer even a Kamalla hartis potus at this point. I mean, I like some of the stuff, drug prices, limiting corporations from buying single family homes etc. Masked federal agents terrorizing the citizenry and sending military advisors everywhere...not so kuch
Rugian rank	Mon Feb 16 01:36:58 Seb rank Fri Feb 06 22:23:20 Rugian: I don't think technology will actually, simply because people have to live somehow, so what will happen in practice is decoupling. If you successfully displace most production and create mass unemployment, that happens it's tech and digital services become unaffordable for most. ---- Eh, I think that gives more credit to the private sector than they deserve. The average company isn't tying employment to consumerism and acknowledging that the former is ultimately necessary for the latter.
Rugian rank	Mon Feb 16 01:39:44 Also, between a domestic population that will increasingly subsist on government welfare and foreign markets where human labor has not yet been displaced, I don't think consumers necessarily disappear even in an age of permanent mass unemployment. The demand is simply socialized by the state and/or found elsewhere.
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 01:53:17 Perfectly possible that the richest will cause mass employment and not give a damn about countries crumbling into chaos. We see it all over the world, we've just been lucky enough to be spared from it in the West for the last 150 or so years. But humanity has been living that short, brutal life for many millenia. Theyre already planning to move to Mars and building fabulous castle shelters on private islands. Their only thought about society crumbling into chaos and out of control climate is that they're rich enough to protect themselves. Like Sam Adams, as long as its only the people they consider poor, i.e. all of us, it might even be a good thing and cleanse the gene pool and leaving only Elon and his Mozarts to begin a bright new future. If there's one thing that characterizes these fools its their incredible shortsightedness.
Seb rank	Mon Feb 16 02:06:27 Rugian: Oh, I'm not expecting any corporation to exercise moderation any more than the French aristocracy did. Either What happens is the political class realise moderation is necessary (cf. British reforms dribbled out overa century to avoid something like the French Revolution; or the new deal) or it ends up with all the billionaires heads on pikes. So it goes.
Pillz rank	Mon Feb 16 02:10:21 Seb is incapable of reading the script all the way through, and insists on sitting on the edge of his seat as he's predictably proven wrong time and time again @ Rugian Consumers will cease to exist soon enough. You have this weird perspective on consumer capitalism being permanent or the end goal. Why
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 02:20:59 ^Complete fucking idiot. "If unemployment gets really high because of AI, the Trumps will abandon their bottomless desire for wealth and power and turn their automobots over to the public good we'll all live happily ever after!" Theyll act like sam adams. The worse things get, the more theyll try to grab onto money, power and protection against chaos. If tens of thousands of homeless people turn into tens of millions of homeless people, all they'll see is that those same tens of thousands of smelly homeless losers that have grown by orders of magnitude just prove they need to get tougher on crime and the dirty homeless.
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 02:29:35 Not to mention the idiot is unkowningly quoting what Marx hoped would happen to capitalism, the dirty commie
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 02:34:03 Of course, was a thousand times more realistic and didnt believe anything as mentally ill as the Trumps and Elons suddenly donating their bots and AI to society, but rather that that will only happen when too many dirty homeless commoners are pushed too far
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 02:45:38 * Of course, Marx was a thousand times more realistic I remember when I lived in NY for a short spell 25 years ago, a daughter from a wealthy family had a thing for me. She tried to charm me by telling me that really, the homeless dont want to live so we should probably out them to sleep. Needless to say, I found her revolting and she never did know why I started avoiding her after that, brand new silicon tits and all. If you dont think they'll increase that rhetoric if poverty increases and they start seeing more and more smelly homeless losers who dont want to live making their trips through town to their favourite restaurant look more and more dirty and smelly, well...lol.
Pillz rank	Mon Feb 16 03:11:27 Wtb again proves he can't organize or finish his thoughts And seb's head is just empty
williamthebastard rank	Mon Feb 16 03:20:58 If we do have to reorganize society at some point when those compassionate conservatives threatening to take away millions of jobs, the ones the Pillz marionettes comically call "job creators", have gone too far, we'll need to rethink how democratic votes work. We should probably require something like a driving test to be allowed to vote. The test wouldnt have to be based on skills that only people with resources to get an education can get but on common decency and a demonstrable willingness to coexist peacefully with the rest of humanity. That would automatically exclude the pillzes, the sam adamses and the cherub cowards and make for a better world
Forwyn rank	Mon Feb 16 05:02:00 "Masked federal agents terrorizing the citizenry" Lol retarded take
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