6 ms·

If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire

If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs?

JohnFen 3y ago
I think the number of available jobs will probably shrink to the point where this isn't much of a problem.
- dinvlad 3y ago
  This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before. * Past performance is not indicative of future results.
    - dinvlad 3y ago
      Well, we have to work with what we have :-) It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines.
      - tivert 3y ago
        > It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. What now? Established trends have been regularly violated over thousands of years. > It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines. You know what would count as an adaptation? Large fractions of population becoming immiserated and either dying off or living in poverty at the margins. Mere survival is the wrong metric.
        dinvlad 3y ago
        I think you're severely overestimating the abilities of this "AI" and underestimating the abilities of the human mind here :-) However, if you'd like to be pessimistic on it I won't argue, I have that tendency too ;) And to lighten up the mood, I highly recommend listening to this episode with Gary Marcus, where he invites experts in the field of humor to discuss how distinctly bad the LLMs are at explaining what comes naturally to us: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-ai-make-you-laugh/id1532110146?i=1000613196164 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-ai-make-you-laugh/...
        tivert 3y ago
        > I think you're severely overestimating the abilities of this "AI" and underestimating the abilities of the human mind here :-) "This AI" seems perfectly capable of resulting of extending the kind of economic immiseration that has already affected many blue collar jobs into many types of white collar work (ironically enough, the kind of work those blue collar workers were told to pick up). Past this iteration of AI, who knows if the advances will peter out, but it's foolish to assume things will be fine because other things were adapted to in the past. That's kinda like assuming you won't die before having kids because none of your ancestors did.
        dinvlad 3y ago
        As said, I won't argue with pessimism here, but I think there're equally as many (if not more) causes for optimism ;)
        tivert 3y ago
        > I think there're equally as many (if not more) causes for optimism ;) List them.
        dinvlad 3y ago
        I won't engage any further. I see that I won't be able to convince you in the opposite, so there's no reason for me to try to "defend" my argument :-) And your "command" is kinda rude, regardless.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    If AI works out as proponents think, this is unlike any technological revolution in the past. It would be 100% uncharted territory. But I'm basing my opinion on history as well. The focus will be on reducing costs, which means eliminating as many workers as possible.
  - rhaway84773 3y ago
    Is there any reason to believe that AI won’t be able to create and leverage higher levels of abstraction faster and better than humans?
tivert 3y ago
> If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs? They don't, and in 10-20 years corporate leaders will bemoan the shortage of high-skilled experienced people that they created through their own decisions. Of course, they won't take any responsibility or change their approach, though.
- mason55 3y ago
  > They don't, and in 10-20 years corporate leaders will bemoan the shortage of high-skilled experienced people that they created through their own decisions. Of course, they won't take any responsibility or change their approach, though. It's a free rider/prisoner's dilemma problem. If everyone cooperates then we all come out ahead. If you all cooperate while I defect then I end up even better (I don't have to train anyone). But if we all defect then we're fucked. It used to be that there was entry level work that needed to be done by humans and so you didn't have this problem. If the entry level work can be done by AI then you need something else. Either government coordination and incentives to hire humans (this is the kind of things gov't is good at). Or people stay in education for longer/education becomes different.

If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs?

JohnFen 3y ago

I think the number of available jobs will probably shrink to the point where this isn't much of a problem.

dinvlad 3y ago
This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before.
- tivert 3y ago
  > This is discounting our innate ability to come up with new levels of abstraction, which happened so many technological revolutions before. * Past performance is not indicative of future results.
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    Well, we have to work with what we have :-) It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > It would be highly unlikely that something new violates the established trends over thousands of years. What now? Established trends have been regularly violated over thousands of years. > It's not surprising that the human race has survived for this long - we always find ways to adapt, no matter what challenges history throws at us. This is what distinguishes us (and I suspect will always do) from the machines. You know what would count as an adaptation? Large fractions of population becoming immiserated and either dying off or living in poverty at the margins. Mere survival is the wrong metric.
      - dinvlad 3y ago
        I think you're severely overestimating the abilities of this "AI" and underestimating the abilities of the human mind here :-) However, if you'd like to be pessimistic on it I won't argue, I have that tendency too ;) And to lighten up the mood, I highly recommend listening to this episode with Gary Marcus, where he invites experts in the field of humor to discuss how distinctly bad the LLMs are at explaining what comes naturally to us: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-ai-make-you-laugh/id1532110146?i=1000613196164 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-ai-make-you-laugh/...
        tivert 3y ago
        > I think you're severely overestimating the abilities of this "AI" and underestimating the abilities of the human mind here :-) "This AI" seems perfectly capable of resulting of extending the kind of economic immiseration that has already affected many blue collar jobs into many types of white collar work (ironically enough, the kind of work those blue collar workers were told to pick up). Past this iteration of AI, who knows if the advances will peter out, but it's foolish to assume things will be fine because other things were adapted to in the past. That's kinda like assuming you won't die before having kids because none of your ancestors did.
        dinvlad 3y ago
        As said, I won't argue with pessimism here, but I think there're equally as many (if not more) causes for optimism ;)
        tivert 3y ago
        > I think there're equally as many (if not more) causes for optimism ;) List them.
        dinvlad 3y ago
        I won't engage any further. I see that I won't be able to convince you in the opposite, so there's no reason for me to try to "defend" my argument :-) And your "command" is kinda rude, regardless.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  If AI works out as proponents think, this is unlike any technological revolution in the past. It would be 100% uncharted territory. But I'm basing my opinion on history as well. The focus will be on reducing costs, which means eliminating as many workers as possible.
- rhaway84773 3y ago
  Is there any reason to believe that AI won’t be able to create and leverage higher levels of abstraction faster and better than humans?

tivert 3y ago

> If AI is the intern, how do the economics of entry level positions work? And if they don’t, how do people enter the workforce at all? More schooling? Only hire PhDs? They don't, and in 10-20 years corporate leaders will bemoan the shortage of high-skilled experienced people that they created through their own decisions. Of course, they won't take any responsibility or change their approach, though.

mason55 3y ago
> They don't, and in 10-20 years corporate leaders will bemoan the shortage of high-skilled experienced people that they created through their own decisions. Of course, they won't take any responsibility or change their approach, though. It's a free rider/prisoner's dilemma problem. If everyone cooperates then we all come out ahead. If you all cooperate while I defect then I end up even better (I don't have to train anyone). But if we all defect then we're fucked. It used to be that there was entry level work that needed to be done by humans and so you didn't have this problem. If the entry level work can be done by AI then you need something else. Either government coordination and incentives to hire humans (this is the kind of things gov't is good at). Or people stay in education for longer/education becomes different.