[fooqux]

> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot.

This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.

[yoyohello13]

He really put in to words what I’ve been feeling lately. I love programming and I’m quite good at it, but this industry is a cesspit. I’ve already decided to go back to school to get one of those ‘real’ jobs. I’m tired of working in an industry hell bent on the destruction of society.

[at-fates-hands]

>> I’m tired of working in an industry hell bent on the destruction of society.

People will argue this point. However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue. AI is just another item on a very long list of dystopian markers that writers/musicians have warned us about for years.

The scary part now is people denying its happening right in front of them.

[jordwest]

> The scary part now is people denying its happening right in front of them.

I wonder if age is a factor. Those of us who have been around for a while have seen all the promises and hope and excitement about the future, that maybe 20% of that comes true and the rest ends up being the usual exploitation and greed.

The younger people haven't been through that cycle of disillusionment yet so they still believe that only the positive, hopeful dreams will come true. It's natural, but naive, to believe that humans will always collectively choose the best path forward [1].

My grandma always refused to touch computers despite my excitement about them in my youth and I couldn't understand why. Now I think I get it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[karmakurtisaani]

This made me think about the difference of growing old in a static world vs a one where change is constantly accelerating.

In the former, you understand it better and better as you age, but in the latter you're left with knowledge that's of no use while the next generation is ahead of you just by the privilege of being young.

In the former, you are a valuable source of information. In the latter, a burden.

[coldtea]

>In the former, you understand it better and better as you age, but in the latter you're left with knowledge that's of no use while the next generation is ahead of you just by the privilege of being young.

I'd put it more like: you're left with knowledge that sees right through bullshit and the same-old promises and error modes, but nobody's buying. And the next generation is hired precisely because they're naive to all of that to repeat the same mistakes eagerly while sociopaths profit.

[pjmlp]

Exactly, something that seniority brings is the ability to say no, and that isn't something most managers want to hear.

[coldtea]

Yes. Also folks who've been around remember what e.g. the dream of FOSS was (it wasn't merely about getting "software with a specific type of license" at your phone or behind some corporate cloud).

[jnpnj]

Could you tell us more about your grandma point of view (if she ever told you more of course).

With age I'm becoming jaded with computing, not personal computers per se, but the overwhelming space taken by them now (especially due to cheap networking I guess).

[jordwest]

She just didn't see the point in them, she enjoyed a simple life, grew up with little but had a full life and didn't see the need for more. She would ask me as a kid "you've been playing the television again have you?". I don't think she ever really understood that to me it was a creative tool.

I did manage to convince her to try a VR headset at one point and despite her protests she clearly enjoyed it. Afterwards she said "what a silly gadget" haha. I'm realising now that I have similar feelings about generative AI.

[jnpnj]

Hehe yeah we all have our own tastes based on time. But I'm also interested about the perception of computers. I too was enamoured with the creative possibilities of it. But nowadays I see a detrimental trend in how aesthetics are born on computers. The cleanliness, the recurrent patterns. A lot of pre-computing visuals were really different, none of it would qualify as nice today, but it was seen a cute before, and I kind of miss the less structured, less obvious, less shiny approach. It was also material, a different game, with constraints about possible colours, shape and precision you know. It also distracts us too much and creates real mind issues (I struggle with strange behaviors when browsing, near no attention-span etc)

So now I rebalance things and put computers in a smaller niche, not the centre of gravity.

[classified]

> The scary part now is people denying its happening right in front of them.

Even scarier are the UIs for whom it's not happening fast enough and who cheer it on. Most of them don't realize they are digging their own graves if the promises they believe in become true. And if they don't become true, there will be a rude awakening for a great many people and bankruptcy for many companies.

[trhway]

>However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue.

Imagine, you invented iron production to improve people lives - better tools (ploughs, axes, knives), etc - and now you see how people immediately use it for better weapons crushing the ones who have still been using bronze.

Or for example from the Palantir's Karp's book "Technological Republic" :

" We make the case that one of the most significant challenges that we face in this country is ensuring that the U.S. Department of Defense turns the corner from an institution designed to fight and win kinetic wars to an organization that can design, build, and acquire AI weaponry—... "

The tech is great, be it iron or AI. The people are still [almost] the same (i sometimes think that our evolutionary goal is the AGI robots who would take over the Earth and will evolve toward higher morals and conscience faster than we would - as they would naturally have shared brain state/connection that we can get only if we develop telepathy which we wouldn't, and we unfortunately disregard the next best thing - empathy)

[stevenlangbroek]

"technology is neutral, deployment is not"

is that a reasonable statement? if so, congratulations, welcome to the club bud! you're a luddite now. we meet on tuesdays, please bring cookies if it's your first time.

[grim_io]

We are building software in the image of their sponsors.

This is nothing new or unique to software.

[coldtea]

It is quite new historically.

[selfhoster1312]

The software part, yes. For the rest, luddites would like to have a word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite (probably not the oldest instance, but the oldest i know of)

[munksbeer]

>People will argue this point. However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue.

Certainly a lot of bad things have come out of tech.

But I don't agree that it has made everything overall worse. That feels like recency bias. In which few decades in history would you rather be spending your years on this earth, instead of now?

[coldtea]

I'd take the 90s, 80s, 70s or 60s anytime, just gimme that magic time travel option. You know what, even the 00s would be fine.

[munksbeer]

Yes, recency bias.

[coldtea]

Nope, raw "actually good balance of stuff I like and stuff I don't like in those decades" pragmatism.

I could not give less fucks for having AI and smartphones and most other stuff, including all the fancy new medical procedures which are barely incremental.

Fridges, basic 90s-style internet and mini-skirts and welfare, and cheap housing, and jobs-a-plenty, more affordable healthcare, and the lifestyle, I can use just fine!

And I'd avoid the Plague or feudal times too. Including the techno-feudal times of today.

Pretend people can't have periods they'd be fine to live again and might prefer to today is bullshit.

[bryanrasmussen]

anti-recency bias, with a less recency bias tagged on before.

I gotta say it reminds me a bit of that old Louis C.K bit where black people can't be messing with time machines. I guess gay people can't either. I don't think if you were gay you'd want the 60s, 70s, 80s or even 90s - maybe late 90s.

I mean it does seem that there are many groups of people I could think of that might be like 10 years ago please, but not much further back than that. Then again social progress not being evenly distributed might mean that 20 years ago and in a different country might be equivalent to 10 years for some life scenarios.

[vinceguidry]

Please. Covid destroyed everything in my life that I loved.

[bluegatty]

'The industry' is not hellbent on destroying society - this is just so unhinged it's hard to know how to make of it.

[yoyohello13]

True, I should have said an industry that will trample on anything that stands in the way of its pursuit of money.

[devonkim]

This is what amorality means to me in the context of socioeconomics. It operates in an area of reduced dimensionality to economic value because no other value can be agreed upon in trade between cultures. It doesn’t care if a piece of art, nature or human invention is genuinely novel, rare, irreplaceable, invaluable, etc. unless it can be converted into materializable economic value that is itself subjective and present oriented so that we can plan for our future selves about resources as a proxy.

[kiba]

The industry optimize toward whatever metric is legible. A company that optimize toward an illegible metric will endure.

[jordwest]

Unfortunately there are plenty of highly legible metrics that make the world a worse place ("engagement" might be among the worst)

[sfn42]

Welcome to literally all industry.

[bluegatty]

It's not doing those things.

[Brian_K_White]

There is a quote that goes something like "The purpose of any system is whatever it does."

Whatever any system does, it's someone's intention that it does so. It's like an unavoidable truism. You can't say anything that gets around it.

[bluegatty]

Great. The system does what it does.

It's not 'destroying society'.

Not remotely in, any sense.

Many people seem to like Facebook. It's not really not causing harm, they are a minor nuisance at worst ... that you can avoid by ... not using it.

Open AI makes AI that you can use to do whatever.

That's mostly it.

[propstober]

yes and yes. a system can fulfill it’s function while simultaneously having massive impacts on society. we are only now experiencing the consequences of social media running rampant.

[Jensson]

Progress have massive impacts on society, printing press was running rampant and caused massive issues, protests, civil wars and in the end democracy. Historically giving people more access to information and communication has always been a good thing even if it caused problems short term.

[bluegatty]

social media is not running rampant, and, social media is only a tiny fragment of 'the industry'.

[Brian_K_White]

"The system does what it does."

The statement was that the purpose of the system is what it does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

Read at least the first couple lines and become microscopically less ignorant. Or don't. I'm not your mom.

[bluegatty]

I know exactly what the statement means - you seem to be the one blithely missing the point.

The 'system is doing what it is doing' and it's not 'destroying the world' it's improving it for the most part, with some negative externalities.

People on this thread are in such a juvenile nihilist head fog that they can't recognize what is going on around them, nor can they seem to even to be able to apply these metaphors, and when it's spelled out for them, they still don't get it.

There's nothing hugely wrong with 'the industry' even as it 'does what it does'.

[blackjack_]

Facebook literally heavily contributed or at minimum enabled and amplified at least one genocide (2017 Myanmar). That is the total opposite of "really not causing harm".

[jazzyjackson]

Plus they implemented "Organic Reach" where the bands I followed posted the flyers to their shows and Facebook only distributed the posts to ~10% of users subscribed to the band, so over and over again I would see a flyer for a show that happened 2 days ago. Deleterious to culture at large.

[bluegatty]

Facebook did not 'contribute' to that, first of all, second of all it's an enormously isolated incident in the grand scope of software industry.

[munksbeer]

You're getting really downvoted, which just proves people don't like hearing views that challenge their narrative.

I agree with you. Human greed has always been a thing, will always be a thing. But most people now would never choose to go back and be born 100 years ago if given the option. They ignore everything positive that technology has done, and massively ramp the negatives.

[FrustratedMonky]

"industry' is not hellbent on destroying society"

Think you are missing the point.

It is not an actual back room with dudes twirling their mustaches with concrete plans to destroy the world.

It is the 'profit motive' that forces a thousand small decisions, that you go along with because you have a mortgage to pay.

And all added up they destroy the world.

[bluegatty]

"And all added up they destroy the world."

That is total nonsense.

You people have lost your minds, this is worse than a bad reddit thread.

Neither 'industry' not 'software' is 'destroying the world'.

Also ""Think you are missing the point.

It is not an actual back room with dudes twirling their mustaches ""

Thanks for the 'deep insight'?!?

Do you think you're conversing with a 14 year old, struggling with abstractions?

FYI - I've lived around the world, 'studied industry' formally, worked in a handful of them.

We're more prosperous than we have ever been, by a long mile.

There are some externalizations that are not healthy, but almost all of it is simply due to the large footprint we have on the earth.

Thankfully the population will scale back a bit and we'll probably harmonize.

But the very notion that 'the industry is destroying the world' is so juvenile and nihilist, it's just ridiculous.

[CRConrad]

> Do you think you're conversing with a 14 year old, struggling with abstractions?

Sure sounds like it.

[FrustratedMonky]

'the industry is destroying the world'

Sorry. It think there were several themes here.

"Capitalism", leads to a thousand little decisions, that destroy the world. I've seen plenty of middle managers, that when they have to make their quarterly numbers, will dump toxic waste into the river upstream of a kindergarten.

Then "Industry". Look up some of the philosophy around 'e/acc'. They are definitely wanting to destroy the 'humans'. So maybe not the 'world', just all the 'humans'. And since the 'e/acc' comprise a large component of AI companies, and AI is driving the industry. I think there is a fair argument that the "Industry" does want to do harm to 'humans'. But maybe humans doesn't equal the 'world'.

"Do you think you're conversing with a 14 year old, struggling with abstractions?"

Yes, a little bit. You posted a single sentence. How does that convey that you are some industry veteran. Though, I do see you have posted more since then. But not what I saw at that time.

To some of your other posts. Yes, Today is better, and Tech is a big part of that. I don't think that should imply that it is a never ending fountain of good, just ignore any problems. It isn't like Industries can't go downhill. What? We can't talk about it. Could be we are steadily pushing up the mountain until we go over a cliff. Look up Black Swan events.

[nullsanity]

We need to bring back consumer first design and destroy the incentives to prioritize shareholders over the much larger cohort of ordinary consumers whose lives were affecting.

[01100011]

Society doesn't owe me over $500k/year for writing some instructions in a cryptic specification language. It's cool that I've been getting that, but I consider that luck and circumstance. When robots take my job I'll go find something else to do. I'm not going to blame evil rich people or some other boogieman.

[maweki]

> Society doesn't owe me over $500k/year

No it doesn't. But as a human being, you and everybody still deserves a decent living. And our current system clearly does not provide that for a lot of people.

[larodi]

How come is anyone "entitled" to a decent living? I don't think this holds evolutionary, nor from historical perspective. It is commendable for a person to want to think that everyone deserves it, but I don't see it follow from anything or manifest in general in a fair way. There are plenty of examples that people are very likely going to be deprived of even whatever they deserved by means of struggling to get it.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> I don't think this holds evolutionary

Sure it does. Our species is social, meaning we form societies for evolutionary success. Both of us being members of that society, it is in my interest to see your child survive. It is a tragedy to think your child may not survive because human greed prevents them from accessing resources we have in abundance.

The opposite perspective is anti-social in a literal way: the greedy cannot use all of the resources, can't eat all of the food; they want control so you can't have it without their permission. You are entitled to eat, seeing as we have more than enough to feed you. That others think you are not is disagreeable, to put it mildly.

[larodi]

Sorry, but history saw so little (as a fraction) of people that were actually getting fair living that others guaranteed for them. Even when it is about living in decent conditions provided by the community if you want.

Even in a tribe, there’s a lotta suffering and very little remorse for it.

We may say we chase a society that would see everyone understand the principle of ‘your child should also get a decent life’, but what we see now, across nearly all societies is really the opposite. And it phrases like this - we don’t care if your children live or die for as long as our children get better chances.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> Sorry, but history saw so little (as a fraction) of people that were actually getting fair living that others guaranteed for them.

This statement is rather plainly not true. It describes child rearing and claims it does not happen in one breath.

There is a concept of "fairness", which I don't want to discount, but there's not much of a history of people being bottom feeders who do nothing to help those around them. Sure, there's a lot of sentiment to that effect but it is somehow something I fail to observe to this day. It is in the eye of the beholder and I worry for the souls of the beholders who judge so harshly.

This idea that someone is not deserving of food because they have not earned it a sad, anti-social thing to believe, perpetuated by psychological attacks from those who have more than they could ever need. You and your children deserve to eat and disagreement with that statement says more about the one disagreeing than it does any other, regardless of the judgement inherent to the nature of the disagreement (really, because of it, I suppose).

[canelonesdeverd]

> How come is anyone "entitled" to a decent living?

kind of the point of living in a civilized society i reckon

[lopsotronic]

Yeah once payback goes below subsistence[1] - even when it gets near it- things get unstable and extremely dangerous. Ancient people understood this very quickly and built up institutions to keep the baseline above subsistence for urban civilizations.

It's been so long since we've seen actual bread riots I fear we forgot how nasty those are.

I think the notion is that with new automated systems of violence and control, some of them built onto the people themselves, our "future civilization" can dial back the worker's compensation to below subsistence. There was a big zillionaire conference where they talked about slave collars, for example, or humanoid AI workers. I'm always a little distressed when the masters of industry fall back on science fiction in order to build a machine that needs to function in the, well, in the present.

[1] One person's output in terms of agriculture

[alt_422568]

> There was a big zillionaire conference where they talked about slave collars

What? Do you have a link?

[loose-cannon]

There will always be scarcity and inequality. The point is to minimize/mitigate their effects. Can't you make the same argument for justice? Why does everyone deserve justice? Isn't that just entitlement? What is the historical or evolutionary basis for justice?

[larodi]

Nature does not exhibit anything as entitlement to justice. The whole concept of divine intervention (that we would like to exist more often than we like to admit) rarely manifests as measurable and consequential principle in how evolution operates. And it operates on brutal training cycles with lotta loss…

So, yes, in order to have a society one perhaps and most likely needs to define how rights are guaranteed. But it does not mean anyone is entitled to it by definition. Otherwise millions of dying children throughout modern history, and now also, would see the perpetrators get a ‘fair’ treatment. But they don’t.

Perhaps only as second order effects that are hard to understand and are not entitlement.

[loose-cannon]

So nature doesn't exhibit justice, but a society likely needs to implement it, yes? But you don't want to say who gets to receive those rights? Some might say that those millions of dying children is an injustice that we should try and prevent. In particular, the people whose lives are the most affected might want to have a word with you.

I'm not really sure how your reasoning here is in line with your previous post.

[munksbeer]

World GDP and standard of living has never been higher.

[Ygg2]

If two trillionaires bounce a 4 trillion dollar IOU, the GDP could be the greatest in the universe, even though nothing would substantially change.

[munksbeer]

Living standards for the median person in the world improve every year, and have done for decades.

[valleyer]

That's not what GDP means.

[FrustratedMonky]

"(GDP) measures the total market value of final goods and services produced"

It can be circular.

MS invests 5 billion in OpenAI.

OpenAI invests 5 billion in MS.

Do we have 10 billion now?

[stevenlangbroek]

So? We produce enough food for 10 billion people every year, there's only 8 billion of us and a billion are hungry. Those seem like legible KPIs for shareholders (i.e. humanity) to pursue, no? And while World GDP is up, it's come at the expensive of the systems we depend on.

I want my son to live on a livable planet, and not under the constant threat of destitution. And I want that for all children, not just mine.

[munksbeer]

Everyone wants that. But people on this thread are arguing that technology is reducing our standard of living, which is just factually untrue.

[stevenlangbroek]

Depends on who & what you ask. Aggregates hide important nuance. For who? At what cost to who? Do the people who bare the cost have a say? Would they agree that it's worth it? What's their life worth?

[CRConrad]

Who was arguing that technology is reducing our material "standard of living"?

There's more to life than one's material standard of living. I think people were mostly talking about the other bits.

[esseph]

There is more to life than economics.

High trust societies, a feeling of place and well-being in a culture, connectedness, etc.

https://data.worldhappiness.report/map

Note: Look at the US continuing to move down the report year after year.

[eloisant]

It also doesn't owe your CEO billions for hovering over a company where other people (like you) do the actual value creation.

[roenxi]

That's fairly well understood. If people get wind that the CEO isn't necessary they'd be out on their ear in short order. I don't think I've ever met anyone who'd shed a tear for the CEO losing their job. Except CEOs.

[grim_io]

CEO's don't lose jobs, they just move into other board/CEO positions.

Never a shortage of those, it seems. But only for insiders, of course.

[ramon156]

Im a medior and I earn 42k/yr. It would be a privilege for me to earn this much, as I cannot afford a home.

[lproven]

> Im a medior

I do not know that word. I looked it up and found nothing helpful. What does it mean, and what do you mean?

Also, may I ask you to use more punctuation and things like currency symbols, because your message lacks so much context I can't even guess.

[philipp-gayret]

In the Netherlands, it's the name for anyone between junior and senior, in software. From my perspective it's more something used by recruiters and employers to tell people they don't get a senior engineer's compensation.

[kaashif]

Something interesting: for me, that comment was the 6th Google result for "medior". Interesting term.

[63stack]

The first 3 hits on any search engine weren't relevant?

[lproven]

No, they weren't. They told me an awkward neologism for someone who isn't senior and isn't junior, and that means that neither they nor the original message tell me mid-level what.

So, no, they were not, or I would not have asked.

[boogierobis]

What I was going to ask as well, seems that people are getting dumber by the day.

[Izkata]

At least in English, this appears to be slang that only recently leaked out of its original context. I've never heard the term before and whatever they used to look it up probably had no results.

The usual English term is "mid-level".

[imtringued]

There are three levels of seniority. You can be a junior, a medior or a senior.

[coolThingsFirst]

No, but it owes you around 100K with a great work-life balance and job security because you spent years and years studying and honing your skills for it.

[ironmagma]

Society doesn't owe anybody anything. So who's to say when you find something else to do, it will pay enough to live?

[e12e]

I think the very definition of society implies that we are all owed a lot, and we all owe a lot to society. Politics is about deciding what.

Education? Safety? Medical help? A home? Food? Transport? Communication?

These are things society needs to provide.

In turn, we provide society with labour, applied skills, decision making etc.

If there is no (trusted, working) social contract - society breaks down.

If we allow a small elite to monopolize the productivity gains and efficiency increased from new technology - the results will be dire.

I see the more feasible solutions to be some kind of universal income or negative tax - combined with reduced work hours (eg 30 hour weeks, to start).

[simgt]

They've earned 500k/y for a couple years, they don't need another job that pays enough, that's why they can be so indifferent about the outcome.

[hparadiz]

I'm no where near that TC and think this way too. This field of work is generally new in history. The whole woe is me what will we ever do attitude is so weak and frankly annoying.

[ironmagma]

Most of modern society is new in history; what is that supposed to say? If you are making the point that it's unproven and fragile, that would be a good point and actually one that supports "woe is me" because all of it could disappear overnight considering the fragility.

[hparadiz]

In my lifetime I have watched SPARC SUN Servers being thrown in the trash, spaghetti coded javascript and php run fortune 500s, the linux kernel adding containers, and everyone now being required to know how to code for CI so they can rerun tests, linters, and rebuild their app on every commit and publish it to an S3 bucket with specific IAM permissions tied to some SSO IAM provider.

At no point in any of that was anyone coddled or told that they will get to keep their job forever. Learn new skills. That's the game.

It's not even unique to tech. Doctors have to do this too.

There's so much work in the industry right now around LLM implementation that folks not looking into that are sleeping on good jobs.

[red75prime]

The history is quite unequivocal about what happens when there's too many people who don't earn enough to live. Governments are aware too, I think.

[antonvs]

> Society doesn't owe anybody anything.

That's obviously false. What's the point of society if that's true? Do you think there should be no government roads, no government health care (if you're in the US, you may think this, but only because you're indoctrinated), no legal system (or enforcement thereof) to protect you from criminals, no legally enforceable human rights whatsoever? Etc., etc.?

Once they actually understand what they're saying, no sane person believes that society doesn't owe them anything.

[ironmagma]

That’s actually something I agree with; I was making that statement as a challenge to the parent comment because it seems to be what they believe.

[stevenlangbroek]

Correct. But don't you want something from the future? What do you imagine it to look like? How far is it from what you hope it might? What are you willing to do to bring them closer together?

[FrustratedMonky]

"Society doesn't owe anybody anything. So who's to say when you find something else to do, it will pay enough to live?"

I don't think Society means what you think it means.

[CRConrad]

If you've been getting over $500k/year for years, you are "rich people". So no wonder you're not going to blame yourself for anything.

[113]

You are the rich people.

[stevenlangbroek]

No, there's a difference between doing well for yourself and exploiting the labor of others to capture stupendous amounts of excess capital, then reinvesting part of that to make even more.

[113]

Of course there is. The person I'm responding to is still rich though.

[alaaalawi]

is it like society does not owe any body money for puting sand gravel cement and water. we are talking about products not their assembly

[eggsandbeer]

Fuck the American Dream

[socalgal2]

Greed does not take your jobs, progress does. People don’t hand wash clothing for money because we have machines to do that now. We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally. AI is no different. “IF” your job can be automated away or made more efficient it will. That might not be a benefit for your but it’s a benefit to society at large

Note: the above is not claiming AI or LLM can do these jobs. it’s claiming “IF” they can then they will. No greed required

[kiba]

This is ignoring the people who capture the rent.

If technological innovation is to liberate us from poverty then it should be a celebration that everytime that a job is automated. Since that is not happening, it implies something deeply wrong about how we structure our society.

[zozbot234]

> If technological innovation is to liberate us from poverty then it should be a celebration that everytime that a job is automated.

It depends. Sometimes automating a job just means wiping out the institutional knowledge that came with the job - which I take to be the OP's broader point. It's not clear that AI agents will be able to replace that role to any useful extent, even though it's nice that we can read their accumulated knowledge as a set of .md files written in plain English.

[endanke]

These two things can be true at the same time.

[amelius]

The entire comment is true.

[nickpp]

> This is ignoring the people who capture the rent.

So my grandma shouldn't have been be deliriously happy with the new washing machine that saved her hands from bleeding weekly because the evil capitalist laundromat owners charged a few quarters per load?!

[kiba]

It's not really the laundromat capitalist, but the landowner the capitalist paying rent to.

[nickpp]

It still doesn't bother me as a consumer in the slightest. On the contrary, I am happy that laundromat exists in the first place.

[wavemode]

> People don’t hand wash clothing for money because we have machines to do that now. We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally.

Those jobs aren't creative knowledge work.

The advent of digital audio workstations didn't reduce the number of musicians - it increased the amount of music.

Now that we can write code with AI, we (as a civilization) will simply write more code than we used to.

[stevenlangbroek]

What you're describing is akin to Jevon's paradox. Let's see. The Industrial Revolution, I think a good analogy, caused years of death & suffering before raising standards of living, and even then only so because of mass organizing & uprising.

[emmelaich]

That's disputed. Progress was uneven and lagged a little, but by many standards (height, mortality) quality of life increased for many from the start of the industrial revolution.

[wavemode]

I don't think most software engineers have to worry about dying of industrial accidents and black lung...

Long hours? Sure, but that's not new (or universal), and AI definitely didn't cause it.

[stevenlangbroek]

That's not what I mean. You can't just retrain and get a job in a new field and maintain your mortgage, rent or your kid or partner's needs, and downward social mobility is incredibly painful (think personal bankruptcies, pretty grim mental health outcomes).

[Bendy]

It is greed; LLMs are progress but their cost, and the lies told about them wildly exceed their utility for most of the tasks that they’re otherwise expected to perform. The claims are fraudulent, fraud is a crime, and crime does not benefit society.

[wiseowise]

> We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally.

That’s where your idea breaks. There’s a big swathe of people who prefer the feel and simplicity of newspapers over digital hellscape. There’s also a reason why people prefer quality books like Folio Society over books printer on a toilet paper.

> “IF” your job can be automated away or made more efficient it will. That might not be a benefit for your but it’s a benefit to society at large

You can automate away 80% of CEOs by Markov chains, and it would be a benefit to society at large. Yet it doesn’t happen, why?

[pdpi]

> You can automate away 80% of CEOs by Markov chains, and it would be a benefit to society at large. Yet it doesn’t happen, why?

Because, at some level, people understand that a CEO’s job is largely about the human interaction part, so the real value of a human CEO is that last 20%.

The real value of a software engineer is also their own “last 20%”, but non-technical people (and many frustrated technical people) don’t really appreciate how much non-technical work is involved in being a good SWE.

[krackers]

Note that as I understand the main claim of Marx is that the efficiency and productivity gains from automation don't actually go to the laborer, they're captured by the "capital owner". Example being how despite all the automation we're all still working 8 hr days, 5 days a week just to get by.

Now of course there's also jevon's "paradox" here, and the automation does allow us to support a larger population so in that sense not all the increased productivity is just "skimmed off the top" as profit. But on the flipside the crux of the other recent [1] HN post is that the wealth disparity is increasing. And if all the increased productivity directly translated to more "physical resources" in the world, that wouldn't be the case.

So something must be getting skimmed of the top, and intuitively you can feel the "rent seeking" layers in society have increased. Gains in efficiency are no longer resulting in surplus of physical products and decrease in prices.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48038307

[CRConrad]

Yes, logically / mathematically it seems it must be: Those additional people also contribute their 40h/wk, so more work gets done in total. That should be sufficient to support even more more people, not just more people, if they're all also more productive.

Or, IOW, "productivity" is a per-capita measure, so the total number of people doesn't factor in. (Or perhaps rather, gets factored out?) Anyway: People becoming "more productive" means each one producing more per hour — or per 40 hours — than before, so it's weird that they still need to work just as much as before, only to maintain the standard of living they had before.

(Running faster and faster, just to stay where they are... Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.)

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> Note: the above is not claiming AI or LLM can do these jobs. it’s claiming “IF” they can then they will. No greed required

"No greed required" doesn't seem accurate. One would not use an AI to do the job instead of a human, except for the motivation that they would have more at the end of the day.

[alaaalawi]

it is that not that they will take, as they do not have will of their own. greed does put them to work

[simgt]

> it’s a benefit to society at large

That remains to be determined. Most of the examples you'll likely come up with are made at the expense of the environment. We've never consumed as much oil and other limited natural resources as now, in spite of massive gains in productivity.

So far it also looks like digital media is fast tracking us back into fascism, helped by the large concentration of capital that occurred during the transition.

Change and automation are not always societal progress, sadly.

[majorbugger]

Yes it does. Typical example - layoffs to make to stock perform better.

[torginus]

Does it? Why do those slaves work in the Congo? It's to produce materials that go into premium EVs in order to satiate demand in rich Western countries. If said demand never existed, or people would say 'yeah, but not at this cost', like you seem to imply the moral responsibility lies solely with industrialists, these mines would never exist.

[stevenlangbroek]

Is all demand equal? How is demand induced, by who and for what benefit?

[hsuduebc2]

Autor surely always could be journalist. He can write a exceptional story.

[bluegatty]

Don't like to go against everyone but this not particularly well written.

It's a long winding absurdist metaphorical tale, that is really more or less a rant. It's not particularly well grounded.

It's a nice piece of personalized fiction, but it's not particularly good writing and nothing approaching what we'd think of as 'journalism'.

[nchagnet]

Maybe 'journalism' wasn't the best suggestion by the OP but I have to disagree with the rest of your message. It may be a rant, or less pejoratively it may be a cry for help of someone seeing their industry's future, but I can't accept that it's not well written.

When is the last time you opened an HN comment section and the main comment was that people enjoyed the writing quality? Maybe it says more about what we usually read as a crowd, but to me this was a breath of fresh air, it was engaging but also quite deep at times.

I think the mark of great writing is that it makes an impression on you, on others, in a way casual writing doesn't. At least that's my take on this.

[bluegatty]

I commented only because I didn't think it was particularly well written, and I found the threaD to be full of people commenting on how well written it was.

It's highly personalized and interesting, but I wouldn't call it well written.

As a personal bit of art - 'thumbs up', but anything else is overstated.

But more appropriately, the nihilism on this thread is unhinged.

"seeing their industry's future" ???

I'm seeing people empowered to do the most spectacular things that they have ever done in their lives.

Software hiring on the aggregate is up, job postings are up, people are doing more, non-developers get to tinker.

Speculative money is coming into the industry for people to try wild new things.

The implied reality in the story is totally detached from reality.

Surely - there is a movement of people who lament a sense of loss of control, but that's normal with change.

There are also people in crappy jobs with crappy bosses in crappy companies doing crappy things - but that's not a feature of AI or the industry, in fact, software is a pretty good place, relatively speaking.

As I said, this is a reflection of someone's state of mind, mood, being interpreted as some kind of metaphor, but it just doesn't line up with reality in general. A personal reality sure, but that's not a reflection of the community.

[lproven]

> I didn't think it was particularly well written, and I found the threaD to be full of people commenting on how well written it was.

Here is a thought that seems not to have occurred to you.

All these people saying it's good. You commented multiple times to say you disagree and think it is bad.

Maybe that means you do not get it. Maybe the problem here is you and your reading and your lack of comprehension. Maybe the problem is not in the article and the way the article is written.

[lelanthran]

> I commented only because I didn't think it was particularly well written, and I found the threaD to be full of people commenting on how well written it was.

While "well-written" is subjective, the bar for "well-written" is whether people enjoyed reading it and the author managed to deliver his message.

I'm now very curious what bar you personally use for well-written, because it obviously differs from the majority of the people in this thread.

[nchagnet]

> A personal reality sure, but that's not a reflection of the community.

You say, to the community, as it describes how it relates to the message.

You may not agree with it, but surely this thread among many should show you this view is not fringe or denial, but how a strong segment feels. I concede it's a divisive topic, some people feel optimistic, others less so. I myself don't fully know where I stand. I just don't agree with branding all of this as "unhinged nihilism".

[Izkata]

I read it as a comment on how bad journalism is nowadays, with the extensive prose instead of getting to the point.

[hsuduebc2]

Indeed I should use "writer" instead.

[Brian_K_White]

It's not absurdist. It's shining a light on something that actually exists and is absurd.

[bluegatty]

It only 'shines light' on the mental disposition of the author.

[stevenlangbroek]

hi, author here. what mental disposition would that be?

[bluegatty]

Whatever your mental disposition is.

The writing is an expression of a state of mind through an absurdist voice, not any kind of reasonable articulation of reality. It's at least a much about the lens as it is the subject. Which is fine, if we ingest it roughly from that purview.

[Brian_K_White]

I think there is another "mental disposition" in need of some examination.

[rdslw]

Thank you for writing this and your below longer comment.

I printed them with OP to remind me any time i’m afraid somebody can criticize my work and that it’s not worth to produce/write/publish.

no matter how good, there will always be people like you here, so no need to worry.

[cube00]

I could have done without the five paragraphs of the ship analogy.

[stackghost]

Yeah, I fancy myself a decent writer but I am not anywhere close to this good. Very engaging, you can tell they're writing from the heart.

[stevenlangbroek]

Keep writing please! Where can I find your writing?

[torginus]

I mean he could be, though nowadays that's not really a recongition of skill some seem to think it is nowadays.

Besides this is an opinion piece, which contains passages comparing programmers who despite AI, make hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting at home or air conditioned offices, to bangladeshi indentured workers.

Even if we do away with hyperbole and take the 'Sara' example, programming are still one of the least physically demanding and best paid jobs out there, especially in the US, even compared to jobs needing hard qualifications. Compared to your hypothetical 'Sarah' keeping the payroll system alive, almost everyone in every profession does more work for less pay.

He also sells (I imagine not cheap) consulting on the side.

[stevenlangbroek]

You're giving "yet you participate in society" vibes that I don't love, but let me address a few things:

- We're not indentured workers yet. We should always have been fighting for their dignity & rights, because they're ours too. - Might I invite you to read the original, it's linked at the top of the article. Sure, programming isn't physically demanding, but that doesn't mean we should just accept the bad parts. - All of that being said, yes I agree, other jobs are more valuable and it's insane that we get paid what we do. That's why I'm a socialist. Your value shouldn't depend on a grabbag of accidental circumstances outside of your control.

As to selling consulting on the side: I've been an employee for 2 decades, and am striking out on my own to build a better life for my newborn son & fiance. Sorry for wanting to be a more present father.

[tim333]

I've only done a bit of helping with computer systems but the gripes he lists - people not understanding the system, leaving, management trying trendy software and the like happen even without greedy capitalism.

[keybored]

Imagine you start on a trek to find the sage with the answer to why idiot sociopaths rule everything, why wars that don’t even benefit the aggressor are started, why there is enough food for everyone twice over but people are still starving... and much more. You’ve been pondering this question for years. You’ve read comments. Wikipedia. You already have a good idea. But you seek the wisdom of the sage.

You cross mountains. Marshes. You evade pirates, bandits. Help some fellow travelers. Finally, after scouring the land and asking hundreds for clues and direction, you find his location; a small plateau beyond the swamp and rainforest which hugs the southern shore of the great lake.

You notice immediately that the wind dies down. It is now completely calm. Weirdly serene, as if the sudden silence made you notice all the ambient noise, now absent. The sage sits between (edit: beneath) a cherry blossom tree, said to always bloom; the sage is an old man but his wisdom is the most permanent thing on the plateau.

You approach the old man. His eyes are closed. You make sure to exaggerate your approach, make some noise, so as to not startle this frail old man that surely must have seen more than ninety winters. You prostrate yourself, calmly introduce yourself, and sit down beside him.

You calmly breathe in and out. This is it. Don’t rush it. Any erratic movement, any slight irritation could prove fatal to his old shell.

“Venerable Opakaku”, you start. “I know some things about how the world works. Why the cruel rule us. Why the meek suffer. Why the brave die for nothing. Why those of brilliant mind mostly seem to serve the cruel. But my opinions are unimportant. Can you please tell me, Venerable Opakaku, why is the world in this state? And how do we solve it?”

The sage’s parched lips move. He has to wet his throat, it is difficult for him—such is the state of his shell—but he composes himself and opens his white eyes, staring just to the left of your head. His blind eyes widen as he is about to reveal the answer. “Greed!”

[rramadass]

On Greed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48046648

[jamauro]

Is this Gen AI or did you write it?

[keybored]

Don’t insult me.

[jamauro]

Haha I genuinely couldn't tell. I liked it which made me think that it was actually created by a human but had me a bit concerned that my detector is losing calibration.

[keybored]

I understand. :) Sorry about the sour response.

[emmelaich]

And yet I'm sure that greed is pretty much a constant. The opportunities to exploit that greed may change.