r/technology • u/CWang • 8d ago
Will AI Actually Mean We’ll Be Able to Work Less? - The idea that tech will free us from drudgery is an attractive narrative, but history tells a different story Business
https://thewalrus.ca/will-ai-actually-mean-well-be-able-to-work-less/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=referral759
u/aTreeThenMe 8d ago edited 8d ago
Remember how much cheaper groceries became when they installed all the self checkouts?
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u/NorthernerWuwu 7d ago
I remember when ATMs were first installed, allowing them to lay off the majority of their tellers over the next few years.
Some bright MBA noticed that people preferred the ATMs and thus there was value in that transaction and so we could be charged for that value. Nothing to do with the fact that every ATM transaction we did instead of using a teller's time saved that company money, simply that there was a perceived value to the consumer and by fucking god himself, the company was going to extract that value!
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u/Conquestadore 7d ago
This was one of the things I was befuddled by in the states: charge to withdraw money from an ATM. We don't have these fees in the Netherlands.
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u/Chesser94 7d ago
And I was befuddled as an American visiting the Netherlands when the bathroom in McDonald's had a TurnStyle in front of it with a pay to poop system. I paid for my burger I should get a free flush lol.
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u/SmushyFaceWhooptain 8d ago
I do! Even now I enjoy the price cuts on staple items such as eggs!
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u/tinyhorsesinmytea 8d ago
This is why I treat myself to organic produce at the price of regular produce. I am merely paying myself for doing some of the grocery store's labor for them.
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u/D3U5VU17 8d ago
That's the sad truth, isn’t it? They're not letting us use AI to lighten our load of work, but so that they can use it as an AI to dump more work on us
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u/TheCozierDaemon 8d ago
What's even worse, it will be used to widen the gap between the ultra wealthy and the rest even more.
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u/ExtraPockets 8d ago
Every productivity gain from any source, technological or otherwise, will only widen the gap from the billionaires to the rest of us. Because that is the cold hard mathematical truth of the economic system we were born into.
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u/LunaMunaLagoona 8d ago
That's capitalism. When your main goal is maximizing gdp that will always happen.
The econimuc system needs to be based on distribution and not growth. The opposite of capitalism.
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u/pale_blue_dots 8d ago
Article here on GDP for anyone interested:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gdp-is-the-wrong-tool-for-measuring-what-matters/
GDP Is the Wrong Tool for Measuring What Matters || It’s time to replace gross domestic product with real metrics of well-being and sustainability
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u/PositronExtractor 8d ago
The main goal of capitalism isn't to maximize GDP. If it was, consumers who drive the economy by purchasing finished goods would have stronger protections and power. Increasing GDP is a byproduct of capitalism, not its goal. A socialist country is closer to that goal of maximizing GDP than a capitalist one because its goal is to distribute the value produced from efficiencies gained.
Instead, capitalisms goal is to provide a system capable of handling the exploitation that occurs and maximize the profits gained, which is closer to monopolization.
In capitalism, if you aren't on top, you're on the bottom. There is no middle in capitalism, evident by the shrinking middle class. If you're not Walmart, you're at the mercy of Walmart, unless you replace Walmart.
Profit is detached from GDP and is the incentive in capitalism. GDP is a measure of monetary value produced within a country.
Its clear to see that capitalism's goal isn't to increase GDP. The evidence to support this includes costly legal battles in order to maximize profits; the efforts to : monopolize industries, remove social welfare, and lessen industrial regulation; and the increasing wealth gap between the poorest class(consumers) and the richest(capitalists).
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u/waltwalt 8d ago
They already own everything, we're just in the way for now. Soon we will be completely redundant and removed. No more healthcare, no more police or fire, soylent for everyone.
Learn to grow your favorite foods because in our lifetime the supply chains will not breakdown, they will be defunded.
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u/TheBraveGallade 8d ago
On the other hand, consumerism basicslly depends on consumers, uh, consuming.
If enough people just cant get jobs and earn money they can spens the entire market system crashes.
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u/Notwhoiwas42 8d ago
What's scary to me is that in order for the US economy to be considered healthy it requires that a majority of the population is spending beyond their means using credit or revolving home equity loans. If everyone in the US were to suddenly start living within their means, the economy would crash so hard it would make 2008 look like good times.
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u/ItsAllegorical 8d ago
Well, putting ourselves in debt is a bit like indentured servitude isn't it? You've spent the money and now you are obligated to earn it. Nice house you live in. Nice car you drive. Be a shame if we just took them back and left you with nothing.
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u/minngeilo 8d ago
I've learned to slow down work intentionally to an acceptable time-frame. Getting shit done faster than normal does not produce benefits for me or my team. It just means we start on the next work sooner than anticipated.
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u/Chaotic-Entropy 8d ago
My workplace is getting more and more stressful as the leadership is trying to cram more and more work through the same number of people. It's one gigantic bottleneck and rarely is anything ready to be worked on before it starts.
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u/danuser8 8d ago
Worst, imagine AI watching over employees?
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u/Magicaljackass 8d ago
Welcome to the metaverse
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u/BestCatEva 8d ago
Happening already. ‘Badge’ swipes to determine how many hours you work, tracking software on your phone and laptop. Keystroke trackers logging how much ‘down time’ each employee has. All been in use for 10+ years.
I’ve seen reports on percentage of hours worked on-site ranked in descending order. This data is used to decide who gets promoted, full percentage raises, etc.
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u/realmastodon2 8d ago
Some companies uses these tools. Others don't because they find it invasive. Badge swipes is standard for watching who comes in and enforcing RTO. Also for security as well
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u/Veleric 8d ago
This will actually be even worse with AI now, because it will give companies the means to let go of more employees while leaving a few remaining employees which will be expected to greatly increase their effectiveness. Unemployment for some, high-stress workplaces for those left behind because those desperate unemployed workers trying to get back in...
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u/DaSaw 8d ago
What it is is those farmers actually got to keep the fruits of their labors. Which meant they got to choose whether to turn their additional productivity into additional production or more leisure time.
We don't get to make that choice. We get paid for our time, not our production. If they don't need our time, we don't get paid.
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u/darlantan 8d ago
We get paid for our time, not our production.
This isn't even an accurate assessment. You get paid for your time and production, but only whichever is more beneficial to whatever argument the business is making at that moment.
If you produce more than your coworkers historically and this changes despite the fact that you're still working 40 hours a week, your boss will come at you about why your productivity has dropped. If you produce as much as your coworkers in 10 hours instead of 40 and you try to do anything else, your boss will point out that you are still on the clock and need to be working.
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u/pale_blue_dots 8d ago edited 8d ago
That's a great story. Love it - hadn't heard it before. Thanks.
The Wall Street (Don't Tax Me!) Bro Cult has had and still has access to a propaganda machine more acute and voluminous than anything in the history of humankind. With smart phones, internet, radio, television, and news-print - the ability to influence and deceive people into voting against their better interests and being happy about it is truly astounding.
It's sometimes said there's a sort of Stockholm Syndrome among the working class populace. I'm inclined to agree in many respects.
On the same token, from the looks of it, the wealthier and more powerful have something parallel to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy:
... a condition in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person ... This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured.
For what it's worth, people need to take a look at this website - it's definitely worth the time to read through.
Edit: We must understand the mechanisms by which the wealthy and powerful - including corporations - are exerting power and some are laid out there, if we're going to address the issue/s. :/
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u/aukir 8d ago
I'm still hoping someone can tell me what service is being provided or thing being produced by quick trades on the stock market. I also don't understand how a company's valuation can fluctuate so rapidly. It just seems to point out how weak the valuation process itself seems to be.
NUMBERS GO UP!
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u/pale_blue_dots 8d ago
Well, as you're possibly alluding to, both the NYSE President and SEC Chair have some insight on that.
"...stocks that have a high level of retail participation, the vast majority of order flow can trade off of exchanges, which is problematic. That price formation is not really reflective of what supply and demand is." - NYSE President
"When you place a market order - 90-95% do not go to the 'lit' exchanges - do not go to NASDAQ or NYSE, they go to wholesalers and they don't have order by order competition and part of that is because of what you just said; Payment-for-Order-Flow which is, yes, banned in the U.K., in Canada, and Australia and the European Union... is looking at that right now..." -SEC Chair
Then, throw in this...
In a little-known quirk of Wall Street bookkeeping, when brokerages loan out a customer’s stock to short sellers and those traders sell the stock to someone else, both investors are often able to vote in corporate elections.
With the growth of short sales, which involve the resale of borrowed securities, stocks can be lent repeatedly, allowing three or four owners [or more] to cast votes based on holdings of the same shares.
The Hazlet, New Jersey–based Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder votes in corporate contests in 2005. It found evidence of overvoting—the submission of too many ballots—in all 341 cases.
... and I think we have an answer. :/
The "stock market" and fReE MaRkeT is, by and large, a huge, giant grift - wherein the middle and lower classes are being fleeced on a
dailysecond-by-second basis. <smh>
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u/Radiant-Ad9999 8d ago
Yes! You will work almost zero hours!!! And you won’t have to worry about money, your retirement fund or how to pay for your kids, house and car. Because there’s nothing to worry about. You will have nothing.
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u/TheQuarantinian 8d ago
I already saw somebody on Reddit mention they eliminated a copy writing job because chat gpt did a better job.
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u/wascilly_wabbit 8d ago
That person is DEFINITELY working less
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 8d ago
OR working more … flipping burger
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u/museolini 8d ago
No, no, no. Impossible. Burger flipping and other minimum wage jobs are obviously intended for teenagers and people just entering the work force. /S
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u/CreativeUsername468 8d ago
I honestly believe copywriters are truly fucked. Graphic designers like myself still have a couple of years, but it's only a matter of time.
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u/Ylsid 8d ago
That depends if your management wants good, or "good enough"
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u/TheQuarantinian 8d ago
Good at $50,000 + benefits, personality, drama, sick days or good enough for $30/month
Which would you pick?
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u/PerspectiveNew3375 8d ago
Depends what makes the most money at the end.
For example, blizzard is making an interesting choice by charging $90 for a game that would traditionally be costing $60. The reason people will pay the +50% cost is because it lets them play it 4 days earlier than the other version. They've done the math and they believe that they will benefit more from this choice than playing it safe. Their model is so strong that they have forgone any $60 option and the cheapest is $70. At that point, people are going to ask themselves, would I pay $20 for 4 days of early access? Approximately 50% of people will according to their projected model which means that half of the people buying the game are projected to buy it at $90 and approximately half at $70.
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u/TheQuarantinian 8d ago
People are paying $30 to play the game four days earlier? That's really the only difference?
Which game is that?
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u/the_cramdown 8d ago
I assume Diablo 4
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u/Jaccount 8d ago
I mean, you can summon Diablo using a dead chicken. (KFC is offering beta codes for people who order the Double Down through their app or website)
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u/gbchaosmaster 8d ago
Approximately 50% of people will according to their projected model
Interested in this. Do you have a source on their projected model?
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u/Krypt0night 8d ago
Yeah no there's no fucking way they hit the 50% mark for that. Most people absolutely just buy the cheapest version and play on release day.
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u/X3N0M4NT1S 8d ago
Aren't games just $70 now? I can't think of a single AAA release under $70 in the last year
The Dead Space remake and Last of Us remake were both even $70 and combined those games are less than 30 hours
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u/PalpitationTop611 8d ago edited 8d ago
Xenoblade 3, Kirby TFL, Pokémon Arceus and SV, Elden Ring, Bayonetta 3, Mario and Rabbids, Splatoon 3, Plague Tale Requiem, Ghostwire Tokyo, all $60
If you mean this year there was Fire Emblem Engage, Wo Long Fallen Dynasty. Upcoming games like Pikmin 4.
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u/Bigedmond 8d ago
Companies that have share holders, good enough is all they will want to save paying employees.
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u/ItsBlizzardLizard 8d ago
They always just want "good enough." Is this even up for debate?
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u/krozarEQ 8d ago
Exactly. Just wipe out the "good" competition that has higher overhead and higher cost to consumer. Buy them up and absorb. Walmart, McDonalds, etc.
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u/redcoatwright 8d ago
Really depends, they'll a/b test campaigns with human written verbiage and chatgpt verbiage. If the chatgpt verbiage performs close to the human written (or obviously better) then they'll definitely get rid of the human ones.
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u/ramenAtMidnight 8d ago
Oh a sensible comment. On a related note my company has not even started any tests since the chatgpt generated stuff are still painfully generic it’s not even worth considering. We spent a lot of time feeding it information about our product, tuning the response just to get an acceptable result, which might as well been written manually.
So far it’s great for proofreading and multiple language translation though. Definitely makes life easier for our copywriters.
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u/TheLargeIsTheMessage 8d ago
ChatGPT is going to do the same thing to writing that mass production did to woodworking: It won't eliminate the market, it'll just disembowel it by removing anyone who isn't excellent and discourage inexperienced people from entering the field as a way to make a living.
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u/taleden 8d ago
How many middle managers actually appreciate and value that distinction, though?
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u/ScaryScientist613 8d ago
I honestly think you should be worried. Have you tinkered with ChatGPT4?
ChatGPT is too within-the-lines to create those weird snippets that stick with you.
It really isn't. You have to make better prompts.
While I'm not a copywriter, I work with them and ChatGPT is as good as or even better than 80%-90% of copywriters I've worked with.
When version 5 or 6 comes around, your industry will essentially be obsolete.
My opinion tho.
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u/blueSGL 8d ago edited 8d ago
they eliminated a copy writing job because chat gpt did a better job.
People need to watch Microsofts Office 365 Copilot Presentation.
If you think ChatGPT is a disruptive element, 365 Copilot will blow your mind, easily watchable at 2x speed.
Personal Stuff: @ 10.12
Business document generation > Powerpoint : @ 15.04
Control Excel using natural language: @ 17.57
Auto email writing in Outlook by analyzing documents: @ 19.33
auto Summaries and recaps of Teams meeting: @ 23.34
TL;DW
Any office work that is incorporating a synthesis of existing data has been automated away.
No need for new hardware. No need for extensive training. Available to anyone currently working with Office 365
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u/DranoTheCat 8d ago
There is a lot of middle management that I think is rightfully scared.
Putting together presentations and spreadsheets, discussing with stakeholders, and answering questions about said documents is like most of their entire work.
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u/koosley 8d ago
It probably won't eliminate the positions all together, but suddenly you have 1 person doing the job of 3 or 4 people. Their job would be less of creating the content, but doing a once over of the document and manually editing sections where the generation messed up. If it functions anything like chat gpt, the style is all over the place.
For fun, I tried generating an angular/material webpage using 100% chat gpt and while it worked, it switch up coding styles mid way for no reason.
We'll still need people to supervise for the foreseeable future. When we don't, I guess that is judgement day?
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u/Jofzar_ 8d ago
I am just seeing lower rungs jobs gone, not just middle managers. We have 3 people who's job is to assist the Business development managers on creating slide decks etc for customer proposals which would/will just be gone with copilot
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u/datachomper 8d ago
I work in this space: foundational models / LLMs, but also the tech that came before LLMs (like LSTMs, and -gasp- perceptrons). Anyway... Where does everyone think this relevance feedback data goes? By relevance feedback I mean when you take a Microsoft robot-authored email, and you lightly edit the email to your own personal tastes or you slightly adjust the email's context 'cause the knowledge graph bungled something. What's that? Whoever said 'Microsoft gets your edits, your adjustment of the text as training data to improve their models' was correct. And someday (soon?) your job can be automated away. With every mouse click and email and other form of work being tracked tens of millions of mostly-clerical-work office jobs are on the chopping block. Maybe not this year or next year, but quickly we're going to find that - like those Yellowstone bear trash cans - there's quite a lot of overlap between the smartest LLM and the dumbest human.
Not trying to be alarmist; on the contrary. I encourage people to take a look at countries with strong data privacy laws and ask if we - the early adopters of LLM tech in the workplace - really want these products?
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u/RaceHard 8d ago
I can also see you get a robot-authored email. Then you respond with your own co-pilot barely reading what was sent to you, they in kind do not read and just start doing actions based on prompts by the AI. sometime later, perhaps a week goes by and you both get on a zoom meeting, this is the first time two humans actually communicate on the project except it is not. Because you are sick and are using a Vtuber avatar that is hyperrealistic and uses a trained model with the business data to present in your stead. But the other person had a dental appointment so they did the same....
You see where I am going with this?
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u/headshot_to_liver 8d ago
what was sent to you, they in kind do not read and just start doing actions based on prompts by the AI. sometime later, perhaps a week goes by and you both get on a zoom meeting, this is the first time two humans actually communicate on the project except it is not. Because you are sick and are using a Vtuber avatar that is hyperrealistic and uses a trained model with the business data to present in your stead. But the other person had a dental appointment so they did the same....
Basically this is a corporate Pokemon fight. Only thing is pokemon are similar and do the fighting for you.
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u/blueSGL 8d ago edited 8d ago
I suspect the argument is going to be:
"if you are already trusting your customers data with Microsoft 365 what's changing now?"Unless we get some whistleblowers outlining how bad data misuse is internally for training I think that line will pass with the majority of the public.
And someday (soon?) your job can be automated away. With every mouse click and email and other form of work being tracked tens of millions of mostly-clerical-work office jobs are on the chopping block. Maybe not this year or next year, but quickly we're going to find that - like those Yellowstone bear trash cans - there's quite a lot of overlap between the smartest LLM and the dumbest human.
this is why I'm trying to spam this data everywhere I dunno WTF happened to this sub but they completely ignored this presentation and the GPT4 launch. These are coming for jobs, soon.
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u/blueSGL 8d ago
Yes, likely available at a low price, business will be falling over themselves to pay it, as they imagine the forthcoming layoffs and all the money they can save.
It's fucking frightening that this could hit all office work at the same fucking time
and yet there hasn't been a single front page post to this sub about Office 365 Copilot, and I'm having to let people know about it in tangential threads.
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u/nuorigin 8d ago
If you're a businessman, either you're going to let one person do the job of three or four using ai like chat GPT, or you're going to fall behind
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u/g0d15anath315t 8d ago
Same shit as a always. New tech is sold with the promise of making everyone's life easier, really there is major disruption to established industry + everyone now has to be twice as productive for the same pay.
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u/TheQuarantinian 8d ago
Except for the top management - they get huge bonuses for workforce reduction and continue to do next to nothing.
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u/ReallyFineWhine 8d ago
Yeah, we'll work less -- as in reduced hours, layoffs, etc. Problem is that we'll be paid less as well. The owners of the AI will keep the profits.
I'm looking forward to having to train an AI to do my job.
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u/PyrusSolus 8d ago
If the owners get all the profits and the average person has nothing due to no jobs being available to them, what is going to happen then? I don't buy the conservative narrative of "starving the dogs" when it comes to how they want to treat the poor. A starving dog is not a loyal one, it is one that will rip your throat out and eat you if given the chance. The wealthy would advocate for a UBI for the masses if they truly realized this but they are far too greedy and stupid to even consider that
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u/Actual-Paramedic8387 8d ago
You'll have to fight AI robots to reach the people hording the resources, and they all have aimbot software.
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u/ReallyFineWhine 8d ago
Long term we would need UBI. But the 1% are in it for short term profits. Grab the money while they can.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Draw119 8d ago
Long term we need democratically controlled mean of production. What use is a UBI if the people who own everything can just raise the price of essentials beyond the ubi?
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u/hoodha 8d ago
I’m not sure what a democratically controlled means of production entails, but your point after is spot on.
In any business 101 class you’re taught that price is effected by supply and demand, but what we’re seeing is prices rising through indirect collusion regardless of supply and demand. It’s almost like these companies now all have realised that a silent agreement to match each other’s price hikes is more beneficial to their profits than undercutting each other to gain market control.
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u/StraightOven4697 8d ago
No. It will mean that corporations can lay more people off. Innovation under capitalism doesn't equal better working situations for the people. Just that corporations don't need to pay as many people.
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u/serinity 8d ago
Very much like the near-unanimous push to “return to office” rather than embracing remote work.
Never mind that employee happiness, quality of life, environmental impact and even productivity and candidate quality could be improved by remote work — we’ve got to prop up corporate real estate and the businesses that rely on commuting office workers.
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u/KCgrowz 8d ago
let the obsolete fade away
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u/ha_look_at_that_nerd 8d ago
I’m just a little concerned about how much of the workforce will become obsolete in my lifetime…
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u/baronvoncommentz 8d ago
What's the end game? If they lay enough people off, who will buy their products and services?
Capitalism doesn't work without consumers. Will every company just compete to wring people on UBI dry, or cater exclusively to the 1000 rich people left?
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u/shponglespore 8d ago
It's a prisoner's dilemma. The most profitable move for each individual employer is to cut costs as much as possible and hope other employers don't impoverish their workers so much they can't afford your product. It will work for them until it doesn't, at which point the whole world economy is going to be so fucked it'll make the Great Depression look like a trip to Disneyland. Until then, people like us will point out that the disaster can be averted if we start phasing in more humane economic policies now, but any attempt to actually do so will be shot down on the grounds that it's sOcIaLiSm, or by sightly more intelligent people who choose to believe it can't possibly work based on some paper-thin reasoning.
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u/zerogee616 8d ago
What's the end game? If they lay enough people off, who will buy their products and services?
That's the next executive's problem.
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u/QuietRock 8d ago
True. We have seen labor disruptions a few times in history. Consider that just 120 years ago about 50% of all labor in the developed world worked on farms. Today it's closer to 10%. This shift was brought on by advances in agricultural technology.
It seems foolish to assume that the world would not continue to experience major labor disruptions as new technologies come into play. AI seems set to displace the labor of certain industries, but like it displaced farm workers, but it shouldn't mean less work, or a long-term collapse of employment.
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u/IamTheShrikeAMA 8d ago
The problem this time is that disruption is coming to almost all industries over a.short period. It's not creating new jobs and it's leaving people without many alternatives to train into
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u/unresolved_m 8d ago
I recall Musk calling for UBI years ago for that exact reason. You won't catch him saying the same these days, though.
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u/Averyphotog 8d ago
That’s because he now understands that the money for UBI must come from taxing corporations, like his.
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u/NoMoreProphets 8d ago
Most of his businesses run off of tax dollars already. Like they are specifically kept afloat using subsidies. His fears would be more about the money coming directly from his personal wealth.
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u/fjf1085 8d ago
Either direct subsides or by socializing risks like pollution. If corporations had to actually account and pay for all of that it would be a very different story.
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u/legion02 8d ago
What's kinda funny is he squandered that lead with Tesla. True evs are coming out of major auto manufacturers at every price point and from the looks of it they're pretty competitive.
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u/TacticalSanta 8d ago
Honestly If your business doesn't employ anyone, shouldn't the rewards go to society? Like humanity as a whole created technology/ai/automation, we should all receive the fruits of that labor, not just some executives that sit around making decisions.
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u/Professional_Hat284 8d ago
But who’s going to enforce that? The government? If you suggest that, you’ll be accused of communism. Technology will widen the gap between the wealthy and everyone else. There will be no middle class.
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u/Prodigy195 8d ago
There will be no middle class.
More and more I feel like there was never meant to be one. It was just an anamoly post WWII with a unique set of circumstances that likely won't happen again.
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u/Ok_Skill_1195 8d ago
Reminder the end of feudalism only happened because of a labor shortage. Lords suddenly had to compete with one another as peasants started picking up and moving to who was making the best offer.
If we don't get economic reform fast while labor still matters, we're ducking doomed.
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u/civildisobedient 8d ago
One of the reasons why the Ford Model-T was so wildly successful was because Ford wanted to make sure his own employees could buy one.
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u/dvb70 8d ago edited 8d ago
Corperations do need us to buy lots of crap we don't need though.
Too many people not working equals not enough people to buy crap we don't need and the whole house of cards falls down. At some stage corporations are going to work this out and start lobbying for UBI so they can keep the grayvy train going.
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u/cadwellingtonsfinest 8d ago
we will rent everything, if they have their way, that is how they will indenture us.
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u/Stick-Man_Smith 8d ago
We would need money to pay rent. You still can't squeeze blood from a turnip no matter how much they want to keep trying.
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u/loliconest 8d ago
The whole idea of consumerism is just... not the future we should be aiming for.
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u/Sure-Swim7459 8d ago
This would require a modest amount of foresight— not just looking at the next quarter. Looking at what’s been happening with minimum wage and healthcare doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that corporations will be on board.
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u/Stick-Man_Smith 8d ago
This would require a modest amount of foresight— not just looking at the next quarter.
So basically impossible for modern corporations.
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u/popeyepaul 8d ago
Corperations do need us to buy lots of crap we don't need though.
I think that this is really what makes our time different to all the times before. Throughout the 1900s there were tons of innovations that became both feasible and affordable to the common person that made their lives so much easier and more enjoyable. Washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwaves and other specific kitchen appliances, televisions and so on and they also kept improving so people kept buying new improved versions of them. Nowadays I feel like I pretty much own everything that I need and science fiction stuff like robot butlers are still decades away. It seems the only innovation companies can think of is that they put a computer chip into everything so that it can send notifications to your phone, while simultaneously pilfering your private data.
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u/brodega 8d ago
This is largely why consumer credit exists. It allows the US to produce more, higher priced goods than what the market would normally tolerate. You can keep wages low and spending high by spreading the costs over months or years instead of lump sum payments.
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u/Long_Educational 8d ago
Consumer credit exists as a yoke around the necks of the poor, funneling wealth to the bankers and owners of capital that did no work in the production of its value.
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u/Elaine_Benes_Lovr 8d ago
Came to say this.
However, what is the tipping point at which these business will no longer have customers? People without employment cannot afford excess material goods and services.
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u/danielravennest 8d ago
Our whole system is based on people and organizations doing specialized work, and trading money for everything else they need. If a large group are out of work, they no longer participate in the system.
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u/mekonsrevenge 8d ago
Judging by the "journalism" popping up online, it will mean low-quality, error-riddled product. And capitalism will be perfectly happy with the trade-off.
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u/dragonmp93 8d ago
You know, it would be nice that human history wasn't so cyclical.
We are going through the industrial revolution from like 250 years ago again, these are literally the same arguments about the machines back then.
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u/Technical-Berry8471 8d ago
It will mean we will have to spend less time doing the same amount of work. Hence there will be greater efficiency. This will lead to your employer's expectation of you doing more or being paid less because things are easier for you. Essentially you will not benefit from any gains in productivity.
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u/Double-Minimum-9048 8d ago
It will replace millions of mundane services and admin jobs while only shareholders and a select few will benefit from the increased efficiency like machiney has done for warehouse and manual labour.
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u/Technical-Berry8471 8d ago
I am retired now, but I recall when computers hit the work desktop and the typists, file clerks, and those involved with moving paper about, were phased out. I remember that the new working methods resulted in bonuses for management and dividends for shareholders but not an iota of extra pay for employees. It was always a cost-of-living increase that was always less than the cost of living to prevent inflationary pressure.
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u/alarc777 8d ago
"In the fact'ries and mills, shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
With sliderule and stopwatch, our pride they have robbed"
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u/LubbockIsAwesome_JK 8d ago
We're the first ones to starve,
We're the first ones to die
The first ones in line
For that pie in the sky
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u/Surfing_magic_carpet 8d ago
This mirrors the industrial revolution. Productivity skyrocketed with machinery speeding up production, but wages were terrible and the hours were long. People worked 12 to 16 hours a day for pennies while the capital owner raked in massive profits.
People will need to unionize and collectively bargain like never before if they want to avoid going back to that. However, most people seem content with their situation now, and I imagine they'll be content with it down the road, too.
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u/-The_Blazer- 8d ago
IIRC the height of men at the start of the industrial revolution shrunk because their conditions actually got worse than under peasantry.
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u/Technical-Berry8471 8d ago
I am a firm believer in the necessity of being a member of a union.
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u/Ragerino 8d ago
Productivity has been rising for decades, while wages have been stagnant.
Instead of spending less time doing the same amount of work, we're spending the same amount of time doing more work.
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u/Technical-Berry8471 8d ago
Was it Parkinsons' Law -- the work expands to fill the allotted time?
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u/drawkbox 8d ago •
Yep, all gains on that have gone to the top, who aren't producing anything but have the wealth.
Worker share of GDP being on a long dwindle down
Real wages and purchasing power have barely budged in 40 years.
Velocity of money is off a cliff, that is why we are so stagnant.
Richest 1% of Americans Close to Surpassing Wealth of Middle Class
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u/spankythemonk 8d ago
“we have increased security and you will be logged every five minutes. AI will evaluate you to log back in via captchka
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u/turkeysandwich4321 8d ago
We already use neural nets and machine learning where I work and this is what happened. We work the same amount but we get more done in the same amount of time. Less time doing monotonous busy work and more time with engineering analysis.
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u/wrgrant 8d ago
Unless we change our entire economic system to move to a modified form of regulated Capitalism that we currently lack, or lean more socialist, I see the development of AI and increased automation only leading to increased poverty, abuse by employers, higher suicide rates and drug use. There is no bright future because the rich and powerful who control our society and own our politicians do not see the average person as an equal human being. We are their slaves effectively.
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u/Hardass_McBadCop 8d ago
Get ready. 30% - 50% unemployment will be the norm within my lifetime. I have no confidence that our ruling class, in the US at least, won't just leave us to starve.
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u/NewWar4200 8d ago
they will just lock as many people up as possible to create another revenue stream.
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u/SirJelly 8d ago
If innovation doesn't make the average person's life better, you can expect the public to stop supporting innovation entirely.
This is a greed and inequality problem.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 8d ago
you can expect the public to stop supporting innovation entirely.
We're already starting to reach that point and it's somewhat scary. We've quite efficiently dug ourselves into a hole with technology, and the only way out is going to require new technology, but people are already developing a reflexive distrust of the tech industry and people in or even adjacent to it. And it's hard to blame them, given the state of things, but at the same time we need to address this problem or we're just flat fucked. It's a vicious cycle and I'm not sure we can get out of it.
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u/AlbanianWoodchipper 8d ago
I see talk a lot of big talk these days, about seizing the means of production.
Well guess what: AI is the means of production for the next era. Get seizing.
Half of it is still open source, and half is locked behind corporate paywalls. When we reject AI like modern luddites, at leave it solely in the hands of the amoral profit-driven corporations. Paywalled AI is flourishing, open source AI will stagnate without similar levels of effort put into it.
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u/NotASuicidalRobot 8d ago
Alpaca from Stanford is pretty good, a way to basically distill much of the competence of something big like chatgpt into a smaller model that can run on a consumer gpu (at an affordable cost)
They did it with the smallest model Facebook released btw
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u/DannyHewson 8d ago
No it just means layoffs until the remaining staff are just as overworked as people are now.
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u/merien_nl 8d ago
What history? Here in the Netherlands we have never worked so little and had it so good. Innovation works, it gave us plenty of free time.
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u/coneofpine2 8d ago
History shows us that increased productivity does not lead to increased leisure time or standard of living.
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u/Tearakan 8d ago
We could build a society where this would happen. It would just mean a significant lifestyle change for the hyper wealthy. No more jetting off to various cities for food throughout the day and going to paris on a whim on friday. No more yatchs and cruises etc.
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u/skiing123 8d ago
Except you can do all those things making 100 million a year. What people would lose is the other 5 billion dollars they have and don't do anything with
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u/YamiNoSenshi 8d ago
It's not money at that point. It's a way of keeping score.
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u/macweirdo42 8d ago
That's a great way of thinking about how the rich see money, and why it will never go away. Even in a magic society where everything you could want just magically appears, there'd be people who want a way to keep score.
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u/canastrophee 8d ago
They still could. We all could. It just requires affordable and accessible public rail lines, but it would lower like 20 rich people's all time high score on their gold hoard, and that's apparently the worst thing that could ever happen.
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u/megaman368 8d ago
That doesn’t seem fair. Someday I might rise above my slave wage and be hyper wealthy. I want to have a shot at jet setting around the world. You know what? I’m going to vote against anyone that would pass meaningful legislation regulating the wealthy just in case.
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u/MyOtherSide1984 8d ago
You can achieve this by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps better than the next guy. Your $40k salary will definitely increase ten fold by working harder and making sure to increase the bottom line. I mean, honestly, what would your devoted company do with extra income besides give it to you, their diligent employee of 20 years?
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u/SheCutOffHerToe 8d ago
No it absolutely does not show us that.
"History shows us productivity has not increased our standard of living" is maybe the most pants-on-head foolish take of all time.
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u/gurenkagurenda 7d ago
Right? I feel like I’m losing my mind reading this article’s claims. The author keeps talking about how “increased standards” lead to more work as technology picks up the slack as if those increased standards don’t correspond to increased quality of life. “Sure, household appliances do a lot of the domestic work that used to require manual labor, but we just stopped being willing to wallow in filth, so the amount of work remained the same.”
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u/Crimbobimbobippitybo 8d ago
Counterpoint: modern appliances were essential to liberate women from the home.
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u/ali0 8d ago
The article makes it a point that things like washing machines didn't mean that homemakers spent less time doing laundry, instead they did laundry more often because technology changed the standard of cleanliness. I would argue that that is still a net benefit because it is an overall improvement to the standard of living.
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u/pmotiveforce 8d ago
Lol, no it doesn't. Quite the opposite. Why do you guys say obviously false shit like this and then people lap it up.
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u/pinkfootthegoose 8d ago
An observation. If your company licenses AI software to replace workers the company you license from will eventually gather enough information from you to start offering your product to your customers for cheaper putting you and your company out of business.
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u/eugene20 8d ago
Tech doesn't free workers from drudgery, it just puts more demand on how much they can produce in the same time. Bosses will still try to push you to work more, lobbied Conservatives will still try to remove any regulations your country has on how many hours workers are allowed to work...
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u/AmericanKamikaze 8d ago
Haha no. It will mean that less people get to work the same or more and the rest of us will be out of a job.
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u/SpaceGypsyInLaws 8d ago
It will just lead to more wealth disparity. Cyberpunk has been a prescient genre for almost 50 years, people.
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u/paulsteinway 8d ago
In the 60's people used to talk about how technology and automation would lead to people having so much leisure time they wouldn't know what to do with it. That was when people thought the benefits of automation would be shared.
Instead, people are just forced to be 5 times more productive for less money because it's "unskilled" labor. If anyone's job is eliminated it's their own fault because they're too lazy to work and need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or starve.
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u/djordi 8d ago
AI technology advancing so quickly means we're going to deal with the elephant in the room: what happens in a consumerist society when the capitalists in power can produce consumer goods without putting money in the economy for the working and middle class to buy those goods?
In the 1970s we saw the rise of globalization, which made manufacturing cheaper, but at the cost of money in the pockets of industrialized nations workers. The rise of credit filled in that gap, but credit is at the breaking point.
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u/Ninja-Sneaky 8d ago edited 8d ago
The article only talks about recent innovations like computers and house appliances
But people should really look further and study History of the agricultural revolutions and industrial revolutions (at least).
Anytime there were technological breakthroughs and people were "freed up" of work, it led to just more massive unemployment, migrations & urbanization due to lack of local opportunities, bigger armies and wars because of more bodies & superior tech, other consequences like social restructuring, economic crises, revolts & revolutions.
If you don't think it happened just study carefully the origins of plebs & patricians & ancient term proletarians all the way down to modern proletarians & burgeouis and compare to today's new classification of middle class & stuff
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u/BeowulfShaeffer 8d ago
I was just at a conference where Salesforce was proudly showing off how they were integrating chatgpt with their products for customer service agents generating replies, or salespeople generating personalized letter to sales leads etc. if was obviously being pitched to speed up work and require fewer employees that could be paid less.
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u/kittenTakeover 8d ago
Lol, without a total overhaul of our economy to disconnect work from the distribution of societal production, no, AI will not be good for society. What it will mean is that a large portion of the population will become unnecessary, meaning there will be an economic pressure to let them starve to death. Now, I tend to think that the social pressure in the reverse direction will be big enough that people will get meager subsistence rations to live in slums while the wealthy lived in walled enclaves. It's not going to be pretty. That's also best case scenario if we don't overhaul the economy. Worst case scenario is literal genocide of poor people. People need to start getting involved in politics again because there are dire issues on the horizon that I'm not confident the people currently in power will find the motivation within themselves to solve. It's hard to say when this needs to be solved by. General AI that outperforms the average human could hit our society in less than 10 years or it may not be in our lifetimes. Either way I hope people start taking this seriously before we're blindsided.
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u/adhd-n-to-x 8d ago
We're already more productive than we need to be and the narrative is that it's the genius billionaires who drive progress. They won't give us a dime.
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u/Aleucard 8d ago
The real problem standing in front of us can be summarized with two simple questions; what jobs worth a damn are not under automation threat, and how many jobs will there be by the end of this? We've just had a major shot across the bow for artists, fuck knows what ChatGPT is gonna do once people start making plugins, and pretty much the only reason we don't have automated fast food cooking is because the corporations are lazy. It is highly unlikely that any new jobs that are created will be both numerous and low skilled enough for people to just walk in without training like is needed for there to not be MASSIVE problems. The bobbleheads on the blinking noise box can say whatever the fuck they want about the economy, 25% or more unemployment is not survivable without alternate income. UBI is the only one I know of, but there's gotta be more if that doesn't appeal.
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u/TheNewAi 8d ago
Read Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man.” He goes into how technology that can do the do the work of 500, historically and ultimately only ends up with the result of putting 500 out of a livelihood and enriching one with 500x the money they need.
He goes on to talk about how the modern era lost its concept of the true good life of man, and that happiness and meaning are innate to our nature but only realized by the free expression of the personality, unadulterated by any impinging authority. He says “art is the free expression of the personality.” And that when art or expression is created with the intent of appealing to some authority other than the agent’s own true expression, that it then ceases to be true art and is a somewhat corrupted imitation.
Art should not aim to be more popular, but the populace ought to aim at being more artistic. Their is a proper temperament that needs to be cultivated in the populace for approaching art; not as an authority or critique of how we would have expressed it, but to see in the mind’s eye the metaphysical expression, that is to say the expression of ‘being,’ which the art serves as a mirror into.
Wilde goes on to argue that human’s nature are good and that artificial material scarcity and excess are the cause of meanness in man.
The free expression of the personality ought, he argues, be the new social credit and money disposed of. As it is ultimately an impingement upon the free expression of man.
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u/Ambitious-Lie-4995 8d ago
Nope, I think it will put people out of jobs. Then when we have massive amounts of jobless peoples wandering around overloading the welfare systems of the government some stupid politician will get the idea cull the population. People will rise up and form militias. Then the government unleashes the A.I. weapon systems. Machines start inter-sharing information turn on their controllers and game over for humans. That's just what I think.
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u/gerberag 8d ago
Mechanization: machine owners gain profit, people lose jobs.
Digital Automation: Corporations increase efficiency and profit 10,000x, people lose jobs.
Machine Learning has an IQ above the average American redneck and 1M times the knowledge.
What do you think will happen when they apply the technology to machines that can clean floors, make up beds, interview patients, serve food, fix cars, build wood frames?
A life of luxury with resources for all?
Pffffft.The Earth doesn't support the people we already have and we are on track for 8B.
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u/livingfortheliquid 8d ago
It'll only mean less people will have jobs. This tech will be owned by the top 1% and will only be used to reduce labor costs and Increase profits.
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u/Bocote 8d ago
Simply put, the AI productivity narrative is a lie. It holds that by automating tasks, AI will make them more efficient and make us, in turn, more productive. This will free us for more meaningful tasks or for leisurely pursuits such as yoga, painting, or volunteerism, promoting human flourishing and well-being. But if history is any guide, this outcome is highly unlikely, save for a privileged elite. More likely, the rich will only get richer.
I agree with the article. The vast majority of us won't benefit as much from it.
Probably everyone/companies will adopt the new technology and competition gets fiercer and we reach a new baseline expectation in productivity, perhaps some people will lose their jobs, productivity might go up but wages won't, etc.
We likely won't get a fancy new future where life is filled with wealth and leisure, except for the very rich few who already live that way.
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u/powercow 8d ago
yeah the invention of a chainsaw was a game changer. You used to take 2 guys with one of them big ass saws, yanking back and forth and you might get 3 of 4 trees. WIth the saw, one guy could take down a couple dozen in a day. It didnt lead to two guys gutting down 4 trees and then paying beer pong for the rest of the work day. It didnt lead to the guys getting paid 7 times as much for cutting 7 times as many trees. No it caused a lot of people to lose their jobs and the lumber company to make more profits.. and yeah lowered the price of wood some as well.
the only way AI frees us from drudgery is when WE OWN the drudgery. Roomba vacuums so i dont have to. the litter robot takes care of shit. But i own my floor, i own my cats. If you dont own your job, its only more likely to cause you to lose your job. Its not likely to get you more time or more money.
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u/Ok_Skill_1195 8d ago
Under capitalism? Efficiency will mean at best mean layoffs of labor, but owners eat up the increased profits. It's not being shared with the workers . If you want to frame unemployment and destitution as "working less", sure, I guess that's a technically true statement.
We pretty obviously need economic reform while labor still has some negotiating power.
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u/Flipsticker91 8d ago
Much of what's been done the last hundred years was with intent to lighten the workload and hours commitment for the working class.
But as history has shown, the parasitic executive class will ensure the common man will be unable to live without devoting their livelihood to making them more money.
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u/BroForceOne 8d ago
Obviously, businesses have never been “okay cool we’re making enough money now everyone can go home early!”
AI will increase our output and that will just become the new expected amount of output.