Comment by sidibe
20 days ago
Where do people find this optimism? I reckon when the software jobs fall everything else will follow shortly too. That's just the first target because it's what we know and the manual stuff is a little harder for now. The "good news" is everyone might be in the same boat so the system will have to adapt,
There is however no reason to believe that the system will adapt in ways that are beneficial to you. Those in power don't tend to like giving it up and now they don't even need other humans to help them oppress those that would stand up to them.
Software, and most STEM based jobs, have a lot of determinism and verifiability + some way to reduce the cost of failure so brute force iteration can cover up the remaining. There is often "a correct answer". They've also yet to be truly disrupted until now which makes them particularly vulnerable than any other job.
Most jobs don't have the same level of verification and/or repeatability. Some factors include:
* Physical constraints: Even the jobs that have productive output if they are physical it will take a long time for AI and more importantly energy density to catch up. Robots have a while to go as well - in the end human hands and your metabolism/energy density will be worth more than your brain/intelligence.
* Cost of failure/can't repeat: For things like building the cost of failure is high (e.g. disposal, cleanup, more resources, etc) -> even 70% of a "building bench" benchmark would be completely inadequate without low cost to repeat. Many jobs are also already largely automated but scaled (e.g. mining, manufacturing, etc) - they've already gone through the wave.
* Human need for its own sake: Other jobs cater not just for productive output, but for some human need where it hasn't been made more efficient ever (e.g. care jobs). There are jobs that a human is more effective in the medium term because the receiver needs it from a human.
No -> this just affects white collar STEM based roles. Thinking we are in it together is just another form of "cope" sadly. There's a rational reason why others have optimism while we SWE's are now full of anxiety and dread.
For the people who it doesn't affect given their current place in many societies (nurses, builders, etc etc) there will be little sympathy.