alt Hacker NewsNah, they're right. In fact, "self-service" is one of the biggest value transfers from people to capital owners, a society-wide "fast one" the computing industry pulled over everyone.
It's cool that you can do something yourself with a computer, whether it's ordering food or picking clothes or booking a trip. But, market doing market things, that can quickly became a have to, which is much less cool.
It's a problem that's hard to see until you're certain age (and therefore easily dismissed as whining of old people yelling at cloud(s)) - it's because most people in the west start with no money and lots of free time to burn, and gradually become extremely time-poor as their start working and accrue responsibilities (and $deity forbid, start a family).
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All of the demos of booking travel using AI are hilarious to me. This used to be a job a travel agent did, and planning a trip was either a fun conversation or you could be like "send me somewhere warm" and let them do it.
Is it cheaper now that you can swear at flight booking software yourself, and scream at the hotel when they cancel your rooms that you got from a third party site that went through some other intermediary that bought the rooms at a group rate they shouldn't have been allowed to buy it at? Sure, it's cheaper. Is it better? Well, they want you to believe that. You have unlimited choice now. Oh sure, all the web searches and ads are targeted in a way that you're going to end up at the same place a travel agent would have put you, but you can perceive the freedom of choice along the way!
Correct.
The smartest people in academia get promoted to positions that used to come with administrative staff.
Now they’re expected to do all of that with a computer, which is easy right?
So now they spend 30% or more of their time administrationating their position, rather than delegating those duties to their admin staff.
That’s less time teaching and innovating.
Meanwhile, the increase in administration costs of learning institutions has massively outpaced all other costs as a fraction of total.