[gwbas1c]

Hey, think critically about where you are on the internet. You're on a message board run by YCombinator, who's stated goal is to teach people to run startups. Startups are inherently disruptive. When one business disrupts another, people lose their jobs.

Companies going out of business, either because of disruption, or because they ran themselves poorly, or other reasons, is part of the normal business cycle. Otherwise, we'd end up doing things like making digital cameras illegal because the people who worked in film labs lost their jobs. (Which is absurd!)

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I don't see any cognitive dissonance in what you quote. Some people will lose jobs to AI. Anthropic wants to train people who lose jobs to AI.

[pandoro]

I see your point, but in this case we are not talking about disruption at the scale of a product category, vertical, or even an entire industry. AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time: knowledge work/white collar jobs, creative work (design, photo, video, ...), medical professions, etc.

They are recognizing themselves in their economic policy framework that the lowest level of unemployment potentially caused would be 5% (they also mention 10% and "unprecedented levels of unemployment").

I don't think there is a precedent for this claim. It's hard to take the "we're a force for good for humanity" message seriously in this context.

[b112]

AI companies are trying to disrupt entire sectors of the economy at the same time

Talk to news companies, which whether newspapers, magazines, radio or TV, are basically either literally gone, or a shadow of their former selves. The best way to compare this, as you say is to even larger constructs, to entire sectors of the economy.

Because you can harken this to desktop computers, or to the Internet. Sector after sector of people replaced, industries gone. Just the sheer amount of newsprint, recycled or not, which is now no longer manufactured affected an enormous amount of jobs. The entire forest industry, to sawmill, to shipping + printing and all the parts and maintenance and delivery and even the newstands which are basically now gone. Good for the environment or not, that's massive change.

I agree AI will do the very same. But it's not even really happening that much faster. We're 3 years in. It will take 10 to 20 years for it to play out.

But... back in 2008, would you have said the Internet was "bad" for humanity? No, you wouldn't. Back then, it was all about connecting people, it was about empowering people in totalitarian regimes, so they could connect and speak out. It was about old controls slipping, about people being able to speak directly to one another. Back then, 99.999% of people thought "awesome!".

And when I talk to the average Joe about AI today? I hear the same thing. Awesome!

The Internet has put countless people out of work. So has the computer. So has electricity. And machines. People have always complained. But if you're going to label AI companies as "They took my job!", then you'd better do the same for all those other industries. Otherwise?

It's a bit hypocritical.

[pandoro]

I was not criticizing the technology in itself but the messaging and marketing around it. I agree with most of your points except perhaps the general sentiment outside of tech about AI. Most people I've talked to admire the technology but are genuinely scared or angry about the second-order effect of it on society. And I think, in part, it's because of the messaging, marketing and general psychosis about the technology that those companies are generating.

[flextheruler]

Sure I'll do the same for those other industries. It took generations and many deaths after each industrial revolution to address the harms caused by the technology. People's complaints about economic disruption have been proven to be legitimate and require fighting. This will spill into violence if these criticisms are not taken seriously.

[b112]

And yet unless you're a historian, most people are completely unaware of any of the violence which occurred as a result of prior disruption. Most aren't even aware there were protests, upset in the past, except perhaps due to a song about a miner, John Henry.

These prior points of 'fighting' and 'violence' are so inconsequential, that they don't even impinge upon the historical narrative of most nations. People know about war, civil war, even the hippy protests half a century ago.

And in the end? In every single case? Nothing happened to realistically slow that change. It happened regardless.

One of the issues with such change, is that we live in a world with national borders. This leaves individuals in nations with two choices. Improve efficiency (by replacing humans with more efficient methods), or alternative? Companies with more efficient methods, in other countries, will drive your local companies out of business.

Which means you lose any tax revenue, resource extraction revenue, "head office" revenue, and on and on. And of course, whatever humans are level after the reorg, "management", well those jobs go to that other country too.

Literally if you win in terms of preventing change, you lose.

In the context of all of this, legitimate or not isn't really relevant. And fighting or not is in that same category. Nothing will stop the changes coming. Nothing.

If we were in the same room, you would hear a typically exceptionally optimistic person, speaking in a very sad voice.

[calgoo]

Also, they keep talking about the US like its the only country in the world. They where fine with Claude being used murder and spy as long as it was done to others. And again they are only talking about the US work force. Howany engineers in India will loose their jobs when the ai becomes cheaper? What about other Asian countries with low wage jobs that will be replaced?

[gwbas1c]

> They are recognizing themselves in their economic policy framework that the lowest level of unemployment potentially caused would be 5% (they also mention 10% and "unprecedented levels of unemployment").

Every tech boom I've seen in my life includes people letting their imagination running away and greatly overestimating how adoption will take place. Often adoption is slower, but much more pervasive as younger generations use it when they become adults.

Translation: I believe AI's disruption will be much slower than a lot of people claim it will be; and the change will be (cough) "slow" enough that most people will be able to retire or change their careers before they are materially impacted.

[watwut]

> Startups are inherently disruptive.

They are not, the disruption itself becoming the praiseworthy goal was not there initially. Initially, the rhetoric was about creating new things, building companies and booming economy.

It changed into disruption only later. At some point, disrupting became the praised thing, even if you was in the loss the whole time and did not really produced anything better.

[gwbas1c]

Uh, no; it's worth skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma to understand. Innovation always disrupts something else.

> Initially, the rhetoric was about creating new things, building companies and booming economy.

The "new things" always disrupt something else. IE, a mechanized excavator disrupts people who made their living digging ditches.

BTW, were you around Silicon Valley in the 2005-2015 decade? The people making AI were easy to find and were very clearly "about creating new things, building companies and booming economy".

[anon373839]

I actually think this happened around the time Silicon Valley stopped coming up with good ideas.