← Back to context

Comment by Razengan

21 hours ago

> were the first victims

Spinning it negatively like that doesn't do anybody good.

Were mathematicians the "victims" of calculators? of Matlab?

Were writers the ""vIcTiMs"" of word processors?? (apparently yes, according to old TV shows about computers during the 1980s, that you can see on YouTube)

> "tHiS iS nOt ThE sAmE" — Everyone every time.

No, just look it up. Look into old magazines and TV shows or newspaper articles from whenever a disruptive new technology came out.

What you say is true but ... This is qualitatively different than calculators or computers.

I'm a professional mathematician and all the better mathematicians I know are in crisis mode. Most of us hadn't taken this sufficiently seriously and don't know how to use these models effectively but we play with them and immediately see that the entire way we've worked all our professional lives has to change. We worry less about ourselves than about the younger folks. I've got good ideas ai still doesn't know about ... Younger folks may not get the chance.

  • > Younger folks may not get the chance

    This is the same problem for software engineers too. I am now asked: what can you do that AI cant ? The answer to this could be intangibles like taste, aesthetics, and insights which collectively fall under creativity, and often accompanies experience. And there are no shortcuts to accumulate experience and perversely the more AI is used the harder it becomes. Soon, there will be a closure of all AI generated solutions, ie all low-hanging fruits are taken. Then, experts will again become needed to guide beyond the AI knowledge closure.

It’s not the same. AI potentially completely replaces intellectual work without creating any* new jobs (*almost any - there will be some extra jobs for building data centers but that’s negligible).