[dbspin]

Retraining to what exactly? The middle class is being hollowed out globally - so reduced demand for the service economy. If we get effective humanoid robots (seems inevitable) and reliable AI (powered by armies of low payed workers filling in the gaps / taking over whenever the model fails), I'm not sure how much of an economy we could have for 'retraining' into. There are only so many onlyfans subscriptions / patronages an billionaire needs.

UBI effectively means welfare, with all the attendant social control (break the law lose your UBI, with law as ever expanding set of nuisances, speech limitations etc), material conditions (nowhere UBI has been implemented is it equivalent to a living wage) and self esteem issues. It's not any kind of solution.

[neutronicus]

Health care, elder care, child care are all chronically short of willing, able bodies.

Most people want to do anything but these three things - society is in many a ways a competition for who gets to avoid them. AI is a way of inexorably boxing people back into actually doing them.

[weatherlite]

Totally agree; these are all in need of bodies plus they are always understaffed (why the hell does a nurse need to oversee 15 patients in people have to rot in ICU for hours? We accept this because it's cost effective not because it's a decent or even safe practice). Governments could and should make conditions in those professions more tolerable, and use money from A.I to retrain people into them. If a teacher oversaw 10 kids instead of 35 maybe we'll have less burnout and maybe children get better education. If had more police there would be less crime and less burnout. Etc etc. The thing is what happens untill (and if) we get into this utopia.

[neutronicus]

> Governments could and should make conditions in those professions more tolerable, and use money from A.I to retrain people into them.

FWIW, my vision was not really this utopian. It was more about AI smashing white-collar work as an alternative to these professions so that people are forced into them despite their preference to do pretty much anything else. Everyone is more bitter and resentful and feels less actualized and struggles to afford luxuries, but at least you don't have to wait that long in the emergency room and it's 10 kids to a classroom.

[weatherlite]

I don't think it's Utopia either (I was being a bit sarcastic) but it's the best case scenario; the worst case is governments do nothing and let "the market" run its course; this could be borderline Great Depression levels of depravity I think.

As for those professions; I think they are objectively hard for certain kinds of people but I think much of the problem is the working conditions; less shifts, less stress, more manpower and you'll see more satisfaction. There's really no reason why teachers in the U.S should be this burned out! In Scandinavia being a teacher is a honorable, high status profession. Much of this has to do with framing and societal prestige rather than the actual work itself. If you pay elder carers more they'll be happier. We pretty treat our elders like a burden in most modern societies, in more traditional societies I'm assuming if you said your job is caring for elders it is not a low status gig.

[reeredfdfdf]

Yea, the future is either UBI, or employing a very large number of people in public sector, doing jobs that are useful, but not necessary something free market capitalism values right now.

Either way, governments need to heavily tax corporations benefiting from AI to make it possible.

[weatherlite]

> If we get effective humanoid robots

That's still an if and also a when; could be 2 decades from now or more till this reliably replaces a nurse.

> Retraining to what exactly?

I wish I had a good solution for all of us and you raise good points , even if you retrain to become say a therapist or a personal trainer the economy could become too broken and fragmented for you to be able to making a living. Governments that can will have to step in.

[sensanaty]

At a certain point people will break, and these sociopathic C-suites will be the first ones on the chopping block. Of course, that's why the biggest degenerates like Zucc are all off building doomsday bunkers, but I don't see a reality in which people put up with these types of conditions for long.

That said, it'll certainly get much, much worse before it starts getting better. I guess the best we can hope for is that the kids find a way out of the hell these psychos paved for us all.

[jsmcgd]

People put up with what they have to put up with. Many millions of people have lived and suffered under totalitarian regimes with basically zero options to do anything about it. I think that's where we're headed and by the time a sufficient amount of people realise how bad their situation is, the moment to do anything about it will have long since passed. There will be no cavalry riding to the rescue this time.