Comment by grafmax
6 days ago
> Our jobs are just as much in tech’s line of fire as everybody else’s have been for the last 3 decades. We’re not East Coast dockworkers; we won’t stop progress on our own.
If you really believe in the power of LLMs then it’s time to wake up. The writing is on the wall. Automation the workforce further into precarious jobs.
The idea that tech workers can’t stop so-called “progress” is at best a dumb self-fulfilling prophecy. Our workplaces depend on us. We have the power to put the brakes on whatever our employers are up to by organizing and striking.
Tech workers should be organizing to prepare for the profit-taking moves management has in store for us as the tech gets better and better. If LLMs really live up to their potential, It’s just going to get worse from here.
They keep bragging about how many people are going to lose their jobs and they mean us. They’re bragging about firing us! It’s foolish for us to sit idly by while we are the ones who make them their profits.
> We have the power to put the brakes on whatever our employers are up to by organizing and striking.
You have the power to do that in your own isolated environment, but it's a delaying tactic at best.
This whole thing is as inevitable as TV, smartphones, airplanes, tanks or guns. Everyone will use them, because they're so much better than anything that came before that there's no competition for the same use cases.
The point isn’t to delay the tech from arriving but to have better negotiating power when it fully arrives.
> Tech workers should be organizing to prepare for the profit-taking moves management has in store for us
I think you think this is going to help tech workers, but raising the cost of employing humans is only going to incentivize companies to adopt AI faster.
You should do the opposite, and tax AI use. Though that's probably rife with potential issues too. I think as umemployment increases we're going to have to make a bad decision somewhere... and I'm guessing taxing AI is the lesser evil.
Historically many unions were formed during times of mass automation. Unions don’t unilaterally drive up wages. They increase workers’ negotiating power. This is needed to help workers best navigate the times ahead.
The time for tough decisions is today. There is no interest from the companies that control our politicians in supporting taxes, basic income, or whatever other policy proposal people think will occur after AI. Worker leverage will only be diminished after mass layoffs. We will end up in a situation of social unrest. To pull out of that workers will be forced to organize to increase negotiating power. Sooner is better than later, if we can realize it’s in our interests to do so.
This is the cost of getting used to outrageously high salaries as compared to other engineering fields. Market forces allowed you to inflate your income beyond reason, now the same forces are taking it away. Turns out decoupling your pay from value delivered wasn't such a good idea after all.
The fact that companies pay these prices shows the money is there. The money is there because of the value these workers create.
.. and now the money won't be there because the value has fallen in the era of AI code generators.
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If the tech is there dragging your feet is not going to buy you too much time.
If work can meaningfully be done by a machine, why should we be fighting against that? For jobs? If life is all about doing pointless work a machine can do, we've got problems as a species.
The problem is capitalism not LLMs. Fighting against this progress just leaves us stagnant as a species.
Perhaps AI will lead to the revolution where automation frees the average person from having to toil in a factory or a cubical farm instead of trying to achieve infinite growth in a closed system.