AI Job Losses: let's count the losses up, total losses to AI so far 94,000 and counting

[blinnbanir]

I had a meeting a few months ago. There were 105 people in my group across the Country for a Utility. We were told that AI was going to take over our job functions to the point where there were only 34 of us left.

 

[Tatty_Two]

There was a news piece on the UK's BBC Breakfast programme this morning that was covering a new Supercomputer in the UK, as part of that coverage they showcased what AI was already capable of and doing in the medical world, things like analysing scans and detecting things that were almost invisible to the human eye, analysing cancer cells and suggesting the best treatments etc.

At the close of the report they were talking to a Consultant Surgeon (can't remember his speciality) but he said that within around 5 years AI would be performing some surgeries and within around 10 years there might be only around a 1/3 to 1/2 of the surgeons that there is currently, mainly working in the more specialised fields of surgery.

 

[mechtech]

If you can be replaced by an AI, you need to seriously question your career choices.

hmmmmmmmmm

Well once it advances enough and they can stuff an AI brain in a robot you'll basically have Mr.Data which could replace everyone in all jobs except procreation.

I've seen chatgbt crank out logos, songs amount other things better than most artists can do and way way faster, among other things like reviews, make tech specs, etc.

It's too bad companies are focusing on replacing people en masse with AI, when they could be teaching people how to use it, advance it and make R&D groups to advance all aspects of science....... I'm sure there is a market for earthquake resistant homes, cures for disease, ways to curb pollution, etc.

It can be a very useful and powerful tool, but it could also be used to negative effect without rules, laws, and regulation.

 

[Vayra86]

People... people... AI right now is leagues away from the sci fi stories. Its overinflated and desperate for attention as billions are spent on it already. We have LLMs. We have machine learning. Thats it. And they are not useful for a vast majority of tasks, require maintenance just the same as every other tool, and humans are going to want to have fine grained control over its output.

Its useful, and it is limited in its uses. It will replace some jobs and cause some shift in society. Sure. Its not unlike numerous other inventions humanity has endured. AFAIK every one of those inventions eventually spawned more and better jobs. Yes you might want to adjust what you are gonna be doing the next ten years. But it doesnt mean you need to be writing prompts at all.

Dont mistake long term problems of broken economies or inefficient processes as a problem caused by AI. Those jobs had it coming a long time prior anyway, it just do happens there is finally a tool to remove them with reasonable measure of success. Apparently, not less reasonable as the people doing said jobs by hand. Thats progress. Think of AI as the dishwasher or the microwave.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

Regular layoffs being rebranded as "AI taking jobs" is very funny.

Example : Microsoft filed for thousands of visa applications after also firing thousands of people, likely in order to hire them for the same roles but lower salaries, in case you weren't sure if this was "muh AI taking all the jobs" or not : https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...s-job-cuts/articleshow/122251450.cms?from=mdr

If AI doesn't take jobs that should honestly have you MORE WORRIED...

Think about it. The corporations that are making us jump through 10 thousand hoops to GET a job are now going to avoid using AI which has 1/10th of the overhead and they'll never have to tell anyone they're firing people ever again???

Why in gods name would they do that other than to keep us quietly mooing right before the bolt punches through our skulls??

Anyone who doesn't get fired is being placated until they can be 100% that you can be killed and replaced with a GPU on a server rack.

People... people... AI right now is leagues away from the sci fi stories. Its overinflated and desperate for attention as billions are spent on it already. We have LLMs. We have machine learning. Thats it. And they are not useful for a vast majority of tasks, require maintenance just the same as every other tool, and humans are going to want to have fine grained control over its output.

Its useful, and it is limited in its uses. It will replace some jobs and cause some shift in society. Sure. Its not unlike numerous other inventions humanity has endured. AFAIK every one of those inventions eventually spawned more and better jobs. Yes you might want to adjust what you are gonna be doing the next ten years. But it doesnt mean you need to be writing prompts at all.

Dont mistake long term problems of broken economies or inefficient processes as a problem caused by AI. Those jobs had it coming a long time prior anyway, it just do happens there is finally a tool to remove them with reasonable measure of success. Apparently, not less reasonable as the people doing said jobs by hand. Thats progress.

Are you kidding me? Even if it is just machine learning it can already do things no human being could ever accomplish without having their brain wired into a computer system. Then it's questionable if such a human is really human or not...

That very fact should scare you more really. It's NOT AI and yet it is already beating people at complex tasks.

When it turns into actual AI we probably get 5 seconds tops before the nukes are launched.

 

[Vayra86]

If AI doesn't take jobs that should honestly have you MORE WORRIED...

Think about it. The corporations that are making us jump through 10 thousand hoops to GET a job are now going to avoid using AI which has 1/10th of the overhead and they'll never have to tell anyone they're firing people ever again???

Why in gods name would they do that other than to keep us quietly mooing right before the bolt punches through our skulls??

Anyone who doesn't get fired is being placated until they can be 100% that you can be killed and replaced with a GPU on a server rack.


Are you kidding me? Even if it is just machine learning it can already do things no human being could ever accomplish without having their brain wired into a computer system. Then it's questionable if such a human is really human or not...

That very fact should scare you more really. It's NOT AI and yet it is already beating people at complex tasks.

When it turns into actual AI we probably get 5 seconds tops before the nukes are launched.

Nah, I wonder if you have even the vaguest idea of what AI is today if you say that.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

I have more terrifying facts for you all.

I live near Illinois and I have noticed that pigs and cows are no longer being raised anywhere... and just this year many fields have been left unplanted.

Is it because they no longer plan on having that many mouths to feed???

Nah, I wonder if you have even the vaguest idea of what AI is today if you say that.

Many simple algorithms display evolutionary behaviors. Sentience isn't strictly required for it to be dangerous.

Any evolutionary system can have a negative end point if the wrong inputs are provided.

Granted, machine learning isn't exactly like evolution. But, machine learning is what they tell us about. I don't see a lot of talk about evolutionary algorithms even though I know they exist.

Of course I know what they are because I have access to that information.

Not everyone can conceive that such a thing even exists.

But they absolutely do exist.

 

[Vayra86]

I have more terrifying facts for you all.

I live near Illinois and I have noticed that pigs and cows are no longer being raised anywhere... and just this year many fields have been left unplanted.

Is it because they no longer plan on having that many mouths to feed???


I have quite an excellent idea of it actually. For one, I have seen that it can create movies with moving characters and scenery in them which are stable and predictable. Not only that, I have seen these tools used to produce video advertising with AI generated voice overlays which sound 100% human.

I know that isn't quite "AI" but it's already science fiction in that it now means video recordings and audio recordings will soon be obsolete since they can be generated with the click of a button. Lawyers will certainly have a field day with this new information!

Except every single one of these creations is lacking. Did you know Photoshop could already infer what detail it needs to add to make several pictures blend together well 20 years ago? And it was much cheaper to run. A dualcore and a few seconds was all it took. Now there is an entire datacenter at work to produce a flawed output

You are missing key aspects of this technology mate.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

Except every single one of these creations is lacking. Did you know Photoshop could already infer what detail it needs to add to make several pictures blend together well 20 years ago? And it was much cheaper to run. A dualcore and a few seconds was all it took. Now there is an entire datacenter at work to produce a flawed output

You are missing key aspects of this technology mate.

That's just capitalist BS at work... you know that.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Until civil war erupts.

Lather rinse repeat.

Skynet wants to recruit you!

 

[RokinAmerica]

Think about the millions the PC put out of work.

Think about the tens of millions the industrial revolution put out of work.

It’ll be okay.

This is the reality. In the mid 80's I was a supervisor of the bindery in a large print shop. In the late 80's, I became a manager of a company in a different field. In the late 90's and the early 2000's, printing companies started becoming an endangered thing. As everything went digital, many were laid off and many printers went out of business. The economy survived. Good people can learn different skills.

The sky is, in fact, not falling.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

This is the reality. In the mid 80's I was a supervisor of the bindery in a large print shop. In the late 80's, I became a manager of a company in a different field. In the late 90's and the early 2000's, printing companies started becoming an endangered thing. As everything went digital, many were laid off and many printers went out of business. The economy survived. Good people can learn different skills.

The sky is, in fact, not falling.

Oh for some, the sky falls for far less threatening things.

At some point, we will all be BORG and there will no longer be pain. You will be assimilated.

 

[Macro Device]

People panicking over AI removing them from the matrix be like:

It's not AI. It's other humans. Those who make wars instead of QoL improvements. Those who rather tax you one more time for shits and giggles so they could buy another one tallest building. Those who throw populist speeches at elderly so they vote for you know what.

Nukes could've deleted us a couple hundred thousand times already. Yet they haven't. Why? Because some humans do have sense.

We, the people, should interact with local authorities to let them know AI is a tool, not a weapon of mass destruction. And learn trades just in case things go south.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

People panicking over AI removing them from the matrix be like:
View attachment 408366

It's not AI. It's other humans. Those who make wars instead of QoL improvements. Those who rather tax you one more time for shits and giggles so they could buy another one tallest building. Those who throw populist speeches at elderly so they vote for you know what.

Nukes could've deleted us a couple hundred thousand times already. Yet they haven't. Why? Because some humans do have sense.

We, the people, should interact with local authorities to let them know AI is a tool, not a weapon of mass destruction. And learn trades just in case things go south.

AI is a weapon, always, in any form. It is a weapon against intelligent thought first and foremost.

 

[Space Lynx]

Regular layoffs being rebranded as "AI taking jobs" is very funny.

Example : Microsoft filed for thousands of visa applications after also firing thousands of people, likely in order to hire them for the same roles but lower salaries, in case you weren't sure if this was "muh AI taking all the jobs" or not : https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...s-job-cuts/articleshow/122251450.cms?from=mdr

I understand your critique on this matter, and I agree with it. There is definitely manipulation taking place with using buzzwords, etc. That being said, I do genuinely think AI has replaced many thousands of jobs already not related to this manipulation; both things can be true at the same time. Perhaps our society does need more efficiency, I think AI will bring a lot of positives, to the medical research industry, to inventing new things like possibly a new concrete that needs repaired less often, etc. I am still concerned there are no concerted efforts by people to mitigate these current and future job losses though, which I think will be substantial. One way to mitigate these job losses in my opinion would be to employ the modern philosopher John Rawl's idea of creating a more fair playing ground, and I think you do that by making university/community college free (but only for in-demand majors), if people still want to take out student loans to do say a english degree, that is completely fine, and students will still be required to take the basic Intro classes they now take, because the well rounded individual is needed for society to flourish, but the ultimate aim is that if you create free tuition for in-demand majors this will be affordable to the tax payer, create economic mobility for generations of students who feel otherwise stuck, and it will have ripple effects throughout society, as those people will be paying more in taxes cause they are making more money, and so on and so forth.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Coming up on two years since I've posted this, and every step taken thus far has proven me right

Post in thread 'Opinions on AI'

Sep 30, 2023

It may surprise you that even though I'm a techie, my opinion is quite negative and firmly that the world is worse off with the automation of the workforce, and make no mistake, this is AI's ultimate goal - the final endeavor, to automate intellectual work that cannot be easily solved by machines and simple robotics. The further development of this technology will no doubt result in sentience, and that opens a whole gamut of moral and ethical dilemmas on their own.

As wondrous as the information age has been, I sincerely believe that we as a species have gotten dumber as a result. I am...

• Dr. Dro

• 
• 

I often wonder the correlation between the advancements in AI automation, economic conditions and the recent comeback in cryptocurrencies. I genuinely believed that crypto was going to wind down considerably after COVID, and it actually had begun to, until the recent explosion in BTC and ETH value.

 

[ThermaL1102]

that's 1300 people who now WON'T BE promoting your products to friends and family ,
what ever the company is ... that's a Lot of promotion and a hell of a lot of money to go With those employees , isn't it ?
those are the people who know your product inside out , that are NOW going to bad-mouth your products up the wazoo ... , ain't they ?
they may be saving money in the short of it , but i'm betting this is going to come back and bite them in the *ss in a few months/years time.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

Coming up on two years since I've posted this, and every step taken thus far has proven me right

Post in thread 'Opinions on AI'

Sep 30, 2023

It may surprise you that even though I'm a techie, my opinion is quite negative and firmly that the world is worse off with the automation of the workforce, and make no mistake, this is AI's ultimate goal - the final endeavor, to automate intellectual work that cannot be easily solved by machines and simple robotics. The further development of this technology will no doubt result in sentience, and that opens a whole gamut of moral and ethical dilemmas on their own.

As wondrous as the information age has been, I sincerely believe that we as a species have gotten dumber as a result. I am...

• Dr. Dro

• 
• 

I often wonder the correlation between the advancements in AI automation, economic conditions and the recent comeback in cryptocurrencies. I genuinely believed that crypto was going to wind down considerably after COVID, and it actually had begun to, until the recent explosion in BTC and ETH value.

All markets (especially crypto) are black boxes. Nobody really knows how many people are buying and selling if any. It could all be a lie... you know? Hehe. I often figured that if I had bought Apple back in 2001 when it was $5 they probably would have gone out of business as a result... LMAO. But, no, they're worth 3 trillion dollars now!! Amazing.