alt Hacker NewsAI needs to augment rather than replace humans or the workplace is doomed
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Are we gonna get a cure for cancer and other devastating ailments? Because if AI gives us that, I'll let it destroy the workplace and boil the oceans. If not, I may be part of the crowd that goes to arson the data centers and hang the barons, when that day comes.
What work is is always changing.
Construction used to involve shoveling shit and dirt. But thanks to technology road workers sit in air conditioned cubicles manipulating hydraulic levers, gaining tremendous leverage.
Yes, sometimes they go outside to dig around fragile stuff with a shovel - old pipes, the odd archaeological find..
With AI, we gained “hydraulic levers for knowledge work”.
What will your “comfy air conditioned cabin” look like in that analogy?
I love programming without having to also type. My days involve watching the computer type code, making zero typos and zero mismatched variable names. When it refactors it keeps the comments updated, making that industry truism that “comments lie” obsolete. In my codebase 100% of the comments are true and up to date.
For $100/mo (Anthropic) I don’t have to code by hand and can focus on whether I’m building what customers want and need.
> the workplace is doomed
'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But we all went back to the office 5 days a week? Surely we are too valuable to replace!
Ai should be a vehicle for us to amplify individual human purpose and authenticity while it learns from our stupidity and risk taking along the way. Sprinkle in some guard rails for harm reduction and boom, perfect partnership.
Dooming the workplace is peter thiel's stated position, as he attempts to crash the currency to better control the future corporate economy
I'm tired of these gloomy takes. Everyone only ever focuses on the negatives.
Automation being the end of work would be an unambiguously good thing. Machines can be far more productive than humans ever can, and it would free us up to do whatever we want. We might have to rework the social and economic order a little bit, but we probably needed to do that anyway.
Original title: AI must augment rather than replace us or human workers are doomed
The article does not mention the workplace as the editorialized title would imply. It's primarily about trade unions.
We're genuinely speculating on the end of work and the thorn of the Protestant Work Ethic, and the imaginative void left by There Is No Alternative has us existentially paralyzed?
How depressing. If we're distressed at the thought of liberation then the bars of containment exist within our own minds. The door is open, we just have to step out.
Smash the looms, people before profit!
If it can be automated, it will be, and there is no avoiding it, since the people with the robots and the automation care only about profit, nothing more.
We, little people, are merely annoyances, and the sooner they can be done with us, the better.
The hope is that society will turn into Banks' "Culture."
The reality is that it'll probably turn into Idiocracy.
There will be new constraints where humans can fill the gaps. But, who knows if that'll be enough.
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> Work brings dignity and purpose to people’s lives.
Speak for yourself! For me, and in my experience many others, work is a necessary evil. I’ve experienced more indignities in the workplace than anywhere else (though fortunately not as consistently as some people), and the thought of work being my life’s purpose is too bleak to entertain. I’m very happy for those who have a more positive experience, but some of us don’t fit so well.