8 ms·

People have this misconception that first it was one way, and then <tech was released>, and they'll wake up and suddenly it is another. It's a slow creep. 10 ye

People have this misconception that first it was one way, and then <tech was released>, and they'll wake up and suddenly it is another. It's a slow creep. 10 years ago there were 5 of us on a team each responsible for something specific. Now I can do all of that. Teams and companies will downsize. How do you see AI creating more jobs? (I need some hope right now lol).

nradov 5mo ago
A few hundred years ago it took a team of 5 plus draft animals plough a field. Now one guy with a tractor can do it. Some teams and companies will downsize. New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet.
- drivebyhooting 5mo ago
  Are SWEs the farmers of the draft animals in this analogy?
  - warkdarrior 5mo ago
    The SWEs are the draft animals, to be put out to pasture in the AI future.
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago
  > New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet. I read this take a lot but I don't buy it. This isn't guaranteed by any means. And even if it does happen, isn't it just as likely that AI is deployed into those companies too and they don't actually result in any job growth?
  - nradov 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - the_af 5mo ago
      That's not the rebuke you think it is. You made a claim (not original, I've read it before), someone expressed doubts about your claim (which if proven false, will have dire consequences) and you cannot wave it off with "there are no guarantees in life". Sorry, you made a claim, there's good reason to believe your claim may not pan out, and if it doesn't the consequences are dire.
      - nradov 5mo ago
        I don't think it's a rebuke. I'm just explaining the reality of the situation.
        bluefirebrand 5mo ago
        You said > New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet I have a really big imagination, so I will believe it when I see it. If you have any real idea what these new companies might be doing in the future then I'm all ears. But until then maybe stop trying to claim some kind of future knowledge based on some handwaved nonsense like "we can't even imagine what the future will look like" And then trying to claim that's "the reality of the situation", please be serious Edit: Maybe if you think the future is so unimaginable, you should take a look around at the present. Can you identify anything in our lives today that was not imagined by anyone in the past? Think about how every piece of technology ever made nowadays, someone can say "it's like the Torment Nexus from Famous Piece of Literature!"
    - lazyasciiart 5mo ago
      This comment equates to saying “I don’t care what you think”, and is a perfect example of something that is literally never justified to say on a forum where you have no requirement to interact with them. If you don’t care what individual people think then simply don’t talk to them.
      - nradov 5mo ago
        No, I'm giving him actionable advice to improve his life. Take it or leave it.
- LorenPechtel 5mo ago
  Yes, if we were computers that could be reprogrammed to new skills. In the old days change was slow enough that few people got displaced from jobs requiring any substantial skill (although there was local devastation: for example, court reporters.) Now, however, we are seeing change happening faster than people's careers. You can not realistically retrain into another high skill job--you're going to be the last to be hired. (There's a good reason Social Security Disability has cutoffs a 50 and 60 for how much change can be required!) And, likewise, someone who has worked a desk for decades is not going to be hired for a physical job. (Assuming they even can do it. I can't think of any physical job that wouldn't have me in a lot of pain in weeks at the most.)
treis 5mo ago
It's made it cheaper to do whatever it is you did therefore the demand for it will go up. It's somewhat of an open question of where the new equilibrium is. Historically that can go either way. We have fewer farmers that we once did because there's a limit to how much food people will eat. But we probably don't have fewer carpenters as a result of power saws and nail guns. We probably have more because the demand to build things out of wood is effectively unbound.
mplanchard 5mo ago
My hope is that there is a sort of Cambrian explosion of small software projects built by people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Many such projects will go nowhere, but some percentage of them will see success and growth. My second hope is that there will always come some threshold of complexity beyond which AI cannot effectively iterate on a project without (at minimum) the prompting of an expert in the field. The combination of these two things could lead to a situation where there is a massive, startup-dominated market for engineers who can take projects from 0.5 to 1, as well as for consulting companies or services that help founders to do the same. Another pair of hopes is that a) the LLM systems plateau at a level where any use on complex or important projects requires expert knowledge and prompting, and b) that because of this, the hype of using them to replace engineers dies down. This would hopefully lead to a situation where they are treated like any other tool in our toolbox. Then, just like no one forces me to use emacs or vim (despite the fact that they unambiguously help me to be at least 2x more productive), no one will force me to use LLMs just for the sake of it.
- AuthAuth 5mo ago
  Lots of small companies pumping out software to solve problems. What will happen is companies will switch to their software, get burnt and then never move off established large core tech similar to what we see today but far worse. These small companies will only be able to sell through basically scam marketing.
  - Capricorn2481 5mo ago
    Why? That seems like a huge leap. It's not even uncommon for small companies to make better products and take customers from bigger ones. That's how a lot of companies get started.
- Bombthecat 5mo ago
  That all implies that AI won't get ( much) better anymore. I doubt that
- janalsncm 5mo ago
  > My hope is that there is a sort of Cambrian explosion of small software projects built by people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing It doesn’t even have to be people with no idea what they’re doing. If you lay off enough smart people from big tech companies, those people might put together small companies that directly compete with larger ones at a fraction of the cost.
wilsonnb3 5mo ago
Massive job loss from AI requires one of two things: actual human-equivalent AGI or no increase in demand. Focusing on option 2 and software development, teams and companies will only downsize if the demand for software doesn’t increase. Make the same amount of stuff you do now but with less people. What I think will happen is that enough companies will choose to do things that they couldn’t afford or weren’t possible without AI (and new companies will be created to do the same) to offset the ones that choose to cut costs and actually increase the amount of people making software. I am pretty sure these are well known economic ideas but I don’t know the specific terminology for it.
- the_af 5mo ago
  There are more options: Mass unemployment, consolidation of all AI-related benefits in the hands of a few, an increase in demand that doesn't outpaced the loss of employment, increase in capabilities (not AGI) that mean a few chosen people can do most things without hiring other people, etc.
  - munksbeer 5mo ago
    If there is mass unemployment, who is going to buy anything from anyone? The "few" don't need or want us to be scraping in the dirt. They want us spending lots of money on their products, so their wealth increases. I know it is the classic sci-fi dystopia where somehow despite endless advances in tech and automation, the masses can't figure out how to make it work for themselves and end up living in shanty towns on top of each other waiting for gifts from the elite, or scraping in dirt outside the cities, but come on... I just don't see that as being credible.
    - the_af 5mo ago
      > If there is mass unemployment, who is going to buy anything from anyone? The "few" don't need or want us to be scraping in the dirt. > They want us spending lots of money on their products, so their wealth increases. If we're considering scifi scenarios, imagine this: if full blown automation of everything is achieved, why would the "haves" need the "have-nots" buying anything at all? Why would they need them to exist, at all? Think about it. It's an extreme and we're not near it... yet. > despite endless advances in tech and automation, the masses can't figure out how to make it work for themselves If the tech (or the really helpful tech) is guarded behind a lock, and they don't hold a key, it's not a matter of figuring things out. Unless by figuring out you mean revolt?
dgb23 5mo ago
Here's some hope: You will figure it out. You are already a person who is very curious, competent and experienced with making stuff.
mywittyname 5mo ago
> How do you see AI creating more jobs? (I need some hope right now lol). More armies of one. That single team of five now becomes 30 teams of one or two each. Which largely how automation resulted in more jobs - the cost decrease induced demand. Think about how cheap cameras, laptops & internet up-ended traditional media. We went from 3-4 channels on TV in the 60s, to 3-400 channels on cable by the 90s, to 115 million channels on YouTube right now. Because anyone with a basic phone can record and edit content, which used to require millions of dollars in equipment and took years to learn to do. And people are happy to do so for a fraction of the revenue a TV station would require.

nradov 5mo ago

A few hundred years ago it took a team of 5 plus draft animals plough a field. Now one guy with a tractor can do it. Some teams and companies will downsize. New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet.

drivebyhooting 5mo ago
Are SWEs the farmers of the draft animals in this analogy?
- warkdarrior 5mo ago
  The SWEs are the draft animals, to be put out to pasture in the AI future.
bluefirebrand 5mo ago
> New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet. I read this take a lot but I don't buy it. This isn't guaranteed by any means. And even if it does happen, isn't it just as likely that AI is deployed into those companies too and they don't actually result in any job growth?
- nradov 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - the_af 5mo ago
    That's not the rebuke you think it is. You made a claim (not original, I've read it before), someone expressed doubts about your claim (which if proven false, will have dire consequences) and you cannot wave it off with "there are no guarantees in life". Sorry, you made a claim, there's good reason to believe your claim may not pan out, and if it doesn't the consequences are dire.
    - nradov 5mo ago
      I don't think it's a rebuke. I'm just explaining the reality of the situation.
      - bluefirebrand 5mo ago
        You said > New companies will appear doing things that we can't even imagine yet I have a really big imagination, so I will believe it when I see it. If you have any real idea what these new companies might be doing in the future then I'm all ears. But until then maybe stop trying to claim some kind of future knowledge based on some handwaved nonsense like "we can't even imagine what the future will look like" And then trying to claim that's "the reality of the situation", please be serious Edit: Maybe if you think the future is so unimaginable, you should take a look around at the present. Can you identify anything in our lives today that was not imagined by anyone in the past? Think about how every piece of technology ever made nowadays, someone can say "it's like the Torment Nexus from Famous Piece of Literature!"
  - lazyasciiart 5mo ago
    This comment equates to saying “I don’t care what you think”, and is a perfect example of something that is literally never justified to say on a forum where you have no requirement to interact with them. If you don’t care what individual people think then simply don’t talk to them.
    - nradov 5mo ago
      No, I'm giving him actionable advice to improve his life. Take it or leave it.
LorenPechtel 5mo ago
Yes, if we were computers that could be reprogrammed to new skills. In the old days change was slow enough that few people got displaced from jobs requiring any substantial skill (although there was local devastation: for example, court reporters.) Now, however, we are seeing change happening faster than people's careers. You can not realistically retrain into another high skill job--you're going to be the last to be hired. (There's a good reason Social Security Disability has cutoffs a 50 and 60 for how much change can be required!) And, likewise, someone who has worked a desk for decades is not going to be hired for a physical job. (Assuming they even can do it. I can't think of any physical job that wouldn't have me in a lot of pain in weeks at the most.)

treis 5mo ago

It's made it cheaper to do whatever it is you did therefore the demand for it will go up. It's somewhat of an open question of where the new equilibrium is. Historically that can go either way. We have fewer farmers that we once did because there's a limit to how much food people will eat. But we probably don't have fewer carpenters as a result of power saws and nail guns. We probably have more because the demand to build things out of wood is effectively unbound.

mplanchard 5mo ago

My hope is that there is a sort of Cambrian explosion of small software projects built by people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Many such projects will go nowhere, but some percentage of them will see success and growth. My second hope is that there will always come some threshold of complexity beyond which AI cannot effectively iterate on a project without (at minimum) the prompting of an expert in the field. The combination of these two things could lead to a situation where there is a massive, startup-dominated market for engineers who can take projects from 0.5 to 1, as well as for consulting companies or services that help founders to do the same. Another pair of hopes is that a) the LLM systems plateau at a level where any use on complex or important projects requires expert knowledge and prompting, and b) that because of this, the hype of using them to replace engineers dies down. This would hopefully lead to a situation where they are treated like any other tool in our toolbox. Then, just like no one forces me to use emacs or vim (despite the fact that they unambiguously help me to be at least 2x more productive), no one will force me to use LLMs just for the sake of it.

AuthAuth 5mo ago
Lots of small companies pumping out software to solve problems. What will happen is companies will switch to their software, get burnt and then never move off established large core tech similar to what we see today but far worse. These small companies will only be able to sell through basically scam marketing.
- Capricorn2481 5mo ago
  Why? That seems like a huge leap. It's not even uncommon for small companies to make better products and take customers from bigger ones. That's how a lot of companies get started.
Bombthecat 5mo ago
That all implies that AI won't get ( much) better anymore. I doubt that
janalsncm 5mo ago
> My hope is that there is a sort of Cambrian explosion of small software projects built by people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing It doesn’t even have to be people with no idea what they’re doing. If you lay off enough smart people from big tech companies, those people might put together small companies that directly compete with larger ones at a fraction of the cost.

wilsonnb3 5mo ago

Massive job loss from AI requires one of two things: actual human-equivalent AGI or no increase in demand. Focusing on option 2 and software development, teams and companies will only downsize if the demand for software doesn’t increase. Make the same amount of stuff you do now but with less people. What I think will happen is that enough companies will choose to do things that they couldn’t afford or weren’t possible without AI (and new companies will be created to do the same) to offset the ones that choose to cut costs and actually increase the amount of people making software. I am pretty sure these are well known economic ideas but I don’t know the specific terminology for it.

the_af 5mo ago
There are more options: Mass unemployment, consolidation of all AI-related benefits in the hands of a few, an increase in demand that doesn't outpaced the loss of employment, increase in capabilities (not AGI) that mean a few chosen people can do most things without hiring other people, etc.
- munksbeer 5mo ago
  If there is mass unemployment, who is going to buy anything from anyone? The "few" don't need or want us to be scraping in the dirt. They want us spending lots of money on their products, so their wealth increases. I know it is the classic sci-fi dystopia where somehow despite endless advances in tech and automation, the masses can't figure out how to make it work for themselves and end up living in shanty towns on top of each other waiting for gifts from the elite, or scraping in dirt outside the cities, but come on... I just don't see that as being credible.
  - the_af 5mo ago
    > If there is mass unemployment, who is going to buy anything from anyone? The "few" don't need or want us to be scraping in the dirt. > They want us spending lots of money on their products, so their wealth increases. If we're considering scifi scenarios, imagine this: if full blown automation of everything is achieved, why would the "haves" need the "have-nots" buying anything at all? Why would they need them to exist, at all? Think about it. It's an extreme and we're not near it... yet. > despite endless advances in tech and automation, the masses can't figure out how to make it work for themselves If the tech (or the really helpful tech) is guarded behind a lock, and they don't hold a key, it's not a matter of figuring things out. Unless by figuring out you mean revolt?

dgb23 5mo ago

Here's some hope: You will figure it out. You are already a person who is very curious, competent and experienced with making stuff.

mywittyname 5mo ago

> How do you see AI creating more jobs? (I need some hope right now lol). More armies of one. That single team of five now becomes 30 teams of one or two each. Which largely how automation resulted in more jobs - the cost decrease induced demand. Think about how cheap cameras, laptops & internet up-ended traditional media. We went from 3-4 channels on TV in the 60s, to 3-400 channels on cable by the 90s, to 115 million channels on YouTube right now. Because anyone with a basic phone can record and edit content, which used to require millions of dollars in equipment and took years to learn to do. And people are happy to do so for a fraction of the revenue a TV station would require.