this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
101 points (85.8% liked)

Technology

59664 readers
3278 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] nivenkos 69 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Which is wonderful - we got much cheaper telephone calls, and eventually women were able to learn more useful skills and work on more critical work where they're required.

Automation is fantastic.

Stopping wealth accumulation, high barriers of entry and risk for entrepreneurs (e.g. hassle and bureaucracy filing extra taxes, getting separate bank accounts, data privacy protections, high cost of living / properties, high interest rates, etc.) and providing free, widespread access to education are the real problems that need to be solved.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

As someone who's started a couple businesses, the separate taxes and bank accounts weren't that bad. The biggest barrier to entry is your first point, which is wealth accumulation. The ultra wealthy have cornered so many markets it's virtually impossible to get a start in most industries.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Ideally, we need to patent a way to automate the redistribution of wealth.

[–] breadsmasher 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have a feeling we’ll see a lot more “and then it got automated”

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Which is all bs. Why should unnecessary jobs exist?

[–] breadsmasher 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Sure. Except the wealth and productivity increases will not benefit society but the few wealthy capitalists that own it

[–] Nevoic 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

We have 3 paths forward:

  • liberal capitalist solution (à la Tucker Carlson): ban AI and allow workers to do bullshit jobs
  • alternative liberal capitalist solution: let excess workers die in the streets because they're no longer needed for production
  • socialist solution: distribute the means of production (AI in this case) so we can share equitably in its output

I'd advocate for the socialist one, it sounds like you might be more in line with Tucker Carlson's thinking here?

[–] breadsmasher 18 points 1 year ago

Not at all. I support, from your options, the socialist solution.

AI should free people to do other things. It should benefit the people - if AI can automate 50% of all jobs, rather than just throwing all of those people to the street, we should expect to have to work less without a reduction in income. Thats AI benefiting society. Instead, that 50% reduction in labour and costs just fills the pockets of CEOs and shareholders, without any care for people now out of work.

Also - fuck carlson. guy is a cunt

[–] Synthead 10 points 1 year ago

This is a black and white fallacy and a loaded question. There are more options, blends of options, and circumstances that make different options better for some groups. The two first options are also "bullshit" or "dying," which doesn't give the party making a decision a rational choice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

One nice thing about the "alternative liberal capitalist solution" is that it morphs into the "socialist solution" when the excess workers eat the wealthy AI owners. Hopefully they'll realize this and choose the more graceful exit that at least leaves them with some of their wealth.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which is a separate problem.

[–] bouh 3 points 1 year ago

Everything benefits wealthy capitalists that own everything. The solution is not to keep people in shitty jobs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I absolutely agree, but it isn't an issue with automation in itself, but rather the political system that doesn't allow to correct that issue.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

“We had authors and artists, but AI is so much more efficient they’re unnecessary.”

LLMs are coming for artistic and creative functions first. Is human creativity and artistry unnecessary?

Historically automation was on rote/repetitive tasks. This is a bit different.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Historically automation was on rote/repetitive tasks. This is a bit different.

"Historically" it did, but only because those were easiest to automate, however this LLM stuff is really not any different. It turns out that human creativity is pretty easy to convincingly fake with software. I don't really believe this is the end of human art, but it might be the end of human work-for-hire art.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

If the LLMs are capable of filling the economic role that human artists filled, then yes, human creativity becomes "unnecessary." But so what? We do plenty of unnecessary things for fun. We have machines that can transport us around or that can show us images of pretty forests and yet we still go on hikes. We could build machines that shoot baseballs at whatever velocity we want and with extreme accuracy, but we still play baseball.

It used to be that an evening's entertainment required actors on a stage. They mostly got replaced by movie projectors. For a while the movie cinema would have live musicians playing accompaniment to the silent film, but then recorded music replaced those too. In neither case did humanity lose its soul or whatever. The artistry just moved to other niches or continued on as a hobby.

[–] AncientFutureNow 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So, racism, misogyny, radical christian nationalism. Got it.

"The company refused to hire Black operators until 1944, immigrants rarely got hired, and some exchanges barred Jewish women too. But for white, gentile, American-born women, especially young and unmarried women (as women often left the labor force after marriage, and married women faced discrimination in hiring), connecting calls at the switchboard was a common way to make a living."

[–] TenderfootGungi 8 points 1 year ago

A great reminder that to do things “for jobs” is always a terrible argument.

load more comments
view more: next ›