Comment by pj_mukh
11 hours ago
>>people who built it all left with nothing but memories of once being valuable.
But, the story doesn't end there does it? Most loom workers left their jobs and became factory workers (part of the same technology revolution) and critically: made MORE money. They were wealthier. And the loom machine operators left had a better job. There are very good sources for this, not just vibes [1].
I don't deny that the transition process is traumatic, and there is much we should be doing this time around to assuage the process. But all the evidence points to a general rise in pay, material conditions and standard of living.
[1]: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300205251/libertys-dawn/
As anyone in the Rust Belt can tell you, the average worker might experience higher wages over time, but the average worker is a statistical fiction, not a flesh and blood person.
Individuals and entire communities can live out the rest of their lives destitute and hopeless in the wake of changes that leave them behind. Things might be brighter for those who come after, but let's not pretend we're not doing real violence to those left behind.
The "average worker" ends up getting more wealthy because younger, newer employees who grow up native to the new technology often capture its upsides at the expense of older workers who were unable to. The Rust Belt is a great example of this because most kids ended up migrating out to cities for work while their parents or the less successful ones ended up stuck.
There's a lot of questions right now.
1. Will there be a net-new creation of jobs? Is positive-sum knowledge work a real thing, or have we run out of new jobs to create?
2. How quickly will workers transition to an AI version of their jobs?
3. Will AI even succeed in a broad way across knowledge work or will the frontier of AI remain jagged and only impact some jobs (coding) while leaving others alone?
4. For workers left behind in this transition, what will their lives be like? We know from looking at previous technology transitions (industrial revolution, factory automation, computer revolution, now maybe AI revolution) that many workers really do end up in bad places. It's perfectly reasonable to demand that in today's world in our advanced societies that even if those workers are unable to adapt that they are able to lead lives with dignity.
There's a lot of interesting conversations and investigations to be had but my biggest fear is just that nobody is really willing to listen to the other side with empathy. This entire conversation thread is just people snipping at each other, hitting the vote buttons based on where they want to steer their favorite opinion. If you want to do social and economic science in this space but people are so polarized, the work will be thwarted. In general offline spaces are less polarized (not to be mistaken for pro or anti AI disruption) than online spaces, but my fear is that we continue to polarize, making understanding the fabric of our social change challenging and letting down everyone in the process.
I don't think the analogy holds. AI isn't automating one job, it's automating _knowledge work_. There's no factory work to flee to, literally and figuratively.
Try to come up with a job that both doesn't produce anything physical, and can't be done by AI.
>>” it's automating _knowledge work_. ”
This is vague marketing speak and simply not the reality on the ground. As someone implementing all new workflows, most of the time I’m create new product classes wholesale. sometimes I see people upskilling tasks so the same human can do more.
I can’t think of a single knowledge job where they are removing humans from the loop completely.
Random news headlines of struggling companies doing “AI layoffs” don’t count. No amount of AI can save bad leadership.
And where do you propose the 20-25% or so of the soon-to-be-jobless will go next?
They dont know and dont care.
people who spout the trite “everything will be better at some nondescript future point in time” are essentially screaming “the ends justify the means and screw everyone else, i’m going to get my bag / be ok”.
From what I've been able to find, that book does not make the argument that the people actually displaced from their jobs ended up better off. It is certainly possible for some workers to end up better off while those who were displaced do not.