[gjsman-1000]

> This is the worst imaginable end-stage capitalism dystopia, in which the only ways to make money are the grueling physical jobs like nursing and commercial kitchens (if you work in a field like that, you have my deepest respect).

Having worked a physical job on a scaffold 13 stories in the air while wearing a respirator on a sweltering summer day and grinding out mortar joints, I can’t help but feel that this would actually be a general positive good for society. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me even if it would be an extremely painful tearing-off-the-bandage for many people. There’s too many desk jobs right now, and it’s a statistical fact that we cannot maintain current standards when the Boomer generation finishes retiring. There’s too many chefs in the kitchen and not enough diners.

It’s particularly because I witnessed how extremely disconnected desk workers are from the real, on the ground, physical labor and reality, in often unintentional ways. A recalibration back to reality for them would be a painful net good in my mind. If every desk laborer had to do 2-3 years of hard, grueling, physical labor; we’d be living in a very different country, and I think a much better one. I think too many people have been disconnected from physical labor (which would have been normal for 99%+ of our ancestors) for far too long and we could use a little fresh air.

[XorNot]

I'm just plain extremely unsympathetic to the entitled, rent-seeking view of the world that a bunch of white-collar workers turn out to have: "help someone is going to automate my job and other jobs might be harder".

Like...I am a white collar worker, but god damn I cannot think of a more pathetic complaint.

[Xenoamorphous]

> help someone is going to automate my job and other jobs might be harder

More like “help, someone is going to automate my job and there won’t be jobs for everyone”

In a hypothetical scenario where 30% of the current workforce is decimated by AI (white collar jobs), what makes you think the demand for plumbers, aircon unit installers or fruit pickers is goong to go up and absorb all those lost jobs?

[stakhanov]

I think, in some way or another, the economy will settle into an equilibrium where everyone is doing some kind of paid work, but if we automate away the enjoyable work and the difficult-to-automate work happens to be the type of work that's less enjoyable, then all our lives will be less enjoyable.

We've seen this play out in history with the various productivity-increasing technologies in manufacturing. I imagine that being a member of a crafts guild producing their wares in Renaissance Florence was a more fulfilling existence than being a modern assembly line worker who basically just fills in the difficult-to-automate gaps between the machines on an assembly line.

There are essentially two ways of using technology: One is where technology becomes an extension of your body (and, with AI, your brain) and puts more powerful means at your disposal to do what you want to do and have an effect on the world. The other is where your role in life is reduced to being a mere part in a machine -- someone else's machine.

And it's not in each individual's power to freely pick and choose how they will end up relating to technology. This is rather the result of societal-level forces, and there will be many people who will see their quality of life diminished by recent advances in technology.

[defrost]

Adding substance and example to the peer Murano comment

Lino Tagliapietra is a g'damn wizard.

I've had the pleasure of working with him in both Australia and New Zealand and I can't see his skill set being AI replicated anytime soon.

I dare say when it is we're all doomed. :-)

https://www.linotagliapietra.com/artist/biography

[JumpCrisscross]

> imagine that being a member of a crafts guild producing their wares in Renaissance Florence was a more fulfilling existence than being a modern assembly line worker who basically just fills in the difficult-to-automate gaps between the machines on an assembly line

I was in Murano last summer. They probably have more global demand for their handmade wares than they’ve ever had in history.

[stakhanov]

> ...more global demand

Maybe in absolute terms, given the expansion of the total size of the economy through history, but I can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today.

In the Renaissance, artisanship was an economic necessity and a political system. Nowadays it's a weird meeing of supply-and-demand between the elites among the buyers and the elites among the sellers. Only the elites among the buyers can afford to buy goods that have been produced in a less economical way than functionally/aesthetically equivalent alternatives, just for the bragging rights connected with filling one's home with handmade stuff. Only the elites among the sellers can withstand the competition among those wanting to be such sellers.

Obviously those elites' point of view shouldn't be the only one informing the decisions about how we, as a society, want to relate to technology.

[JumpCrisscross]

> can't imagine that the proportion of Italy's population that was able to sustain a middle class existence through artisanship was lower in the Renaissance than it is today

I would love to see figures, actually. My gut feeling is it would be lower. The world was overall poorer, and still struggling to even feed itself.

[zirgs]

But what if instead of laying people off - you can expand the project's scope instead? In my country's gamedev community "GTA in our country" is a meme, because we don't have enough funding and manpower to make a GTA-sized game. But with AI assistance it could be feasible. And big companies like Rockstar, instead of laying people off, could make something truly massive.

The same with movies. We can't make anything like James Cameron's movies. But with AI we could.

[Riverheart]

Counterpoint, companies do what they’ve always done and do more with less because big companies are run by MBAs, not idealists, and startups are difficult to bootstrap and manage.

[zirgs]

Big companies have to compete with other big companies. What if you lay off your employees in order to make a product with a similar scope as before, but your competitor hires more people and expands the scope of their project significantly?

[Riverheart]

Considering all the big companies laying people off recently, even those with enough capital to retain them, they don’t seem very concerned about that possibility. For what it’s worth I hope you’re right.

[natch]

YES this is absolutely the answer. We can now do very cool and worthwhile things that simply were out of reach before.

[Riverheart]

I view it differently. Some people are not cut out for manual labor, lots of white collar work is intellectually stimulating in a way blue collar work isn’t, and a deluge of white collar workers competing for blue collar jobs will drive down wages.

End goal should be trying to give the next generation a better “cushy” life than the last. If harder work for less pay is what lies in the future then the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

[throwaway22032]

Agree with this. I find it bizarre that people seem to shit talk actual work so much.

In my circles, it used to be that people considered office work a "cushy job". It was clearly recognised as being out of the ordinary and special.

Now it's like it's flipped and somehow anything that actually does anything real is for the proles.

I barely know anyone that can even like, build a crappy basic table. That would make me really disappointed in myself. It's like everyone is trapped in a fake virtual economy pretending it all matters.

[gmerc]

> cannot maintain the standard … when the boomer generation retires

But doesn’t AI fundamentally change this all? I can already see Japan rejoicing that the demographic curve just became a lot less threatening.

People it seems, with the arrival of the robots in the knowledge workforce, have shifted from an economic asset class to a potential liability / efficiency bottleneck in the definition of capitalism and that means change. It means the demographic predicted rise of India for example is not as preordained as it once was.

In this new world where few people own most of the assets and regular humans as economic factors are diminishing …

[dawsoneliasen]

This is a fair point, thank you for your perspective.