The AI boom is screwing over Gen Z | ChatGPT is commandeering the mundane tasks that young employees have relied on to advance their careers.::ChatGPT is commandeering the tasks that young employees rely on to advance their careers. That’s going to crush Gen Z’s career path.
I think AI is a very good example of science advancing much faster than wisdom in society. I think as these large companies continue to implement AI to increase profits while simultaneous driving out the working class, it’s only going to further drive a wedge between the upper and lower class. I foresee a “dark age” of AI characterized by large unemployment and a renewed fight focus on human rights. We might already be seeing the early stages of this in some industries like fast food and with the Hollywood strikes.
We might already be seeing the early stages of this in some industries like fast food and with the Hollywood strikes.
It’s not even a might, we are absolutely seeing the early stages of this. The dark age will also involve vast amounts of misinformation and just plain bad information spewed out by AI writing tools because they’re great at that, which will make it more and more difficult to find true information about anything. We’re going to be snowed in by a pile of AI garbage, and it will happen faster than anyone is prepared for because speed and amplification are the whole point of these tools.
The best outcome so far is that this issue is prompting more workers to unionize.
science advancing much faster than wisdom
I think that pretty much sums up civilization.
And the funny part is that ChatGPT isn’t good enough at anything to be trusted with doing it alone. You still need an expert on the subject matter to proofread anything that will be seen by the public or used to make a business decision.
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You can say the same for entry level employees though. I’m not trusting anyone new to post without review.
Granted I rather the company pay someone so they can be taught and eventually become autonomous over time.
And presumably a human who works has some intention to get it right so they can prove their worth or learn or any of a million reasons to want to succeed at work.
ChatGPT is just math in a black box that spits out random language stems filtered and organized by the input parameters you choose.
presumably a human who works has some intention … to succeed at work
Which is the one in ten who really love what they do and want to go into management or oversee the process for professional fulfillment. Of the other nine, three are waiting to move to a company that pays better, two will decide they don’t like it and change careers entirely, and four really are terrible at it but HR decided they met the minimum requirements and would work for entry level wages so they’ll be in that job for the foreseeable future with zero upward growth, eventually getting bitter and doing a worse and worse job while complaining about their lack of promotion.
Not sure what industry you’re in but that sounds like a fair wages and training problem, not an ambition problem. Most people are content to advance in an industry for the sake of job security and professional development, even if they don’t have a particular passion for the specific job role, as long as they are being compensated fairly and see a path for advancement or transferable skills.
I’m architecture-adjacent, so I’m working with clients across a bunch of different market sectors, many are business owners, but my avocations are heavily into performing arts so many people I know in that group are a pretty substantial cross section of low to moderate wage, often entry level workers. I also own my business so I’ve been in the hiring and training side of things.
I hate this timeline
What if the headline read: “Horseless carriages are crippling stable owners and farriers”
Would you still hate this timeline?
This is not equivalent. LLMs are not new tools, they’re just the latest parlor trick of old tools. It has more to do with crypto and NFTs than with cars. And with the confidence of hindsight, cars (indirectly via the combustion engine and fossil fuels) absolutely destroyed the planet with anthropogenic climate change. We have every reason to hate this timeline.
This is just silly lol
“Horseless carriages driven around cities accelerate climatic problems”
“City growth caused by mass adoption of personal horseless carriages makes pedestrians unable to get anywhere”
So, yea, that would still be a problem
Turns out walkable cities do in fact exist despite those countries phasing out said horseless carriages.
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I was making a greater metaphorical point that society can and does adapt to new technologies
Cries in Kaczynski
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I for one can’t wait for the headline “Gen Z increasingly joining Amish, DESTROYING industries”
My gawd, zoomers are so effed. I have loads of internships but I’m sure getting a job will be so hard. My internship right now encouraged me to apply for a open job but my application was denied due to lack of experience! Granted, I still have a year left of school to do but still its government they take months to hire and by then, I’ll be close to graduating! I dunno, I’m just going to hold out hope and wish someone will hire me.
Not sure your industry, but there’s a much clearer pipeline from corporate intern to offers than government from my experience. I spent a lot of my time early career in government and I ended up wishing I hadn’t because it took so long to hear back on anything and the pay sucked. But I had equivalent jobs available to me outside of the government. If you do as well recommend trying to get another internship in the private sector - I know my company requires us to have a job open you can offer to a successful intern before you can get assigned an intern and we get judged on our conversion metrics.
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Thanks for the tips! I’ll most definitely look newly awarded federal contracts then look for opportunities there.
I’m in urban planning but I’m about to try to use my minor in management information systems instead. There just seems to be more data jobs than planning ones and I’d realize I can volunteer and still be active in public service that way.
It just seems harder to break into tbh. I have been looking at business jobs in insurance, data management/analysis but my degree isn’t the best fit tho. Idk, I’m going to go with the flow if things tbh.
I’m in auto insurance my degree has zero to do with it you just need the story about why your history is a good fit and gives you a unique perspective.
I’d recommend honestly just start looking up some people on LinkedIn in the area you have interest in and in a company you think you want and introduce yourself in a message and tell them your interest because what you need to make sure you get into a program is someone to recommend you as an intern. I’ve had people blind reach out to me that I’ve been willing to help out before especially interns because it shows initiative.
From there, as long as someone continues to show drive and that they can understand the work recommendations to hire are there for you.
It’s not just Gen Z, everyone’s jobs are at risk as AI improves and automates away human labor. People who think that with exponential rate of progress of AI there will continue to be an abundance of good jobs are completely delusional. Companies hire people out of necessity, not some goodness of the heart. If machines can do everything humans can do and better, then companies will hire less people and outsource to machines. Sure there will be people working on the bleeding edge of what AI isn’t yet capable of, but that’s a bar that’s only going to get higher and higher as the performance advantage gap of humans over machines reduces.
Of course none of this would be an issue if we had an economic system that aligned technological progress with improved quality of life and human freedom, but instead we cling on to antiquated systems of the past that just disproportionately accrue wealth to a dwindling minority while leaving the rest of civilization at their mercy. Anyone with any brain or sense of integrity realizes how absurd this is, and it’s been obvious we need a Universal Basic Income for a long time. The hope I have is that Andrew Yang explained it eloquently 4 years ago and it resonated way stronger than I expected with the American population, so I think in a few years when AI is starting to automate any job where one doesn’t need a 160 IQ, people will see the writing on the wall and there will finally be the political capital to implement a UBI.
It’s the march of progress, but it’s coming for previously “safe” jobs. I make a good living as a consultant, but about 80-90% of my job could be automated by AI. I just went to a conference in my field and everyone in the room was convinced that they couldn’t be replaced by AI - and they’re dead wrong. By the time my small corner of industry gets fully automated I’ll be retired or, at the least, in a position where I’m the human gathering the field data and backchecking the automated workflows before it goes out the door.
political capital to implement a UBI
I applaud your optimism, and genuinely hope you’re right.
Yeah we’re quickly approaching a tipping point where people can no longer scoff at the idea of UBI. The more jobs that get automated, the fewer people working and pumping money back into the economy. This can only go on for so long before the economy completely collapses.
In an ideal world, people would start receiving better and more fulfilling opportunities when their mundane tasks are automated away. But that’s way too optimistic and the world is way to cynical. What actually happens is they get shitcanned while the capitalists hoard the profits.
We need a better system. One that, instead of relentlessly churning for the impossibility of infinite growth and funneling wealth upwards, prioritizes personal financial stability and enforces economic equallibrium.
Good thing our governments are totally on top of making sure this doesn’t cause some kind of crisis /s
Unfortunately international competition will prevent any country from enacting sane and effective regulation. The first country that moves to restrict AI development and implementation will quickly fall behind the other countries without restrictions.
The only thing that would really work would be a global agreement to limit development, but I can’t see that happening anytime soon, or nations like China, Iran, or India actually respecting such limits even if they were agreed upon.
The only thing that would really work would be a global agreement to limit development
Really? That’s the only thing? Or maybe just unemployment, something that’s been around for almost 100 years.
Or maybe just unemployment, something that’s been around for almost 100 years.
This might work after the AI systems have already become a major problem, and unemployment affects a large percentage of the population.
It won’t prevent AI systems from becoming a major problem in the first place.
I would much rather have the prevention than a cure.
If enough people find themselves without a way to put food on the table, that country might find a sudden and severe obstacle to their economic prospects.
The rich people who own and benefit from the AI systems and have control over the governments and major businesses will be the last ones to feel the economic impact. When (and if) they do they will simply move to another country that is not yet failing, because people in this group experience no national loyalty and feel no remorse for their exploitation. They will move on to another place that they can draw profit from until that is also burnt out.
By that point the AI systems will already be developed and implemented and it will be too late to establish any functional regulation.
I am not talking about regulation.
Ok, I am talking about a way to avoid the world getting to the point of “If enough people find themselves without a way to put food on the table”. I want us to address the AI problem before countries find “sudden and severe” obstacles to their economic prospects.
How do we do that, if not by regulation? What can we talk about that leads to prevention?
We need to be proactive, not reactive.
I agree, but that was my response to the likely attitude of the wealthy, businesses and their government supporters that you pointed out, who will oppose regulations.
They can’t expect to move out of the way forever as they make the living conditions of average people untenable everywhere. The people’s unrest has been constantly rising.
Oh I see, I misunderstood. Unfortunately, it looks like the intent may be to mislead regulators and have them waste time on more sensationalized “AI takes over the world” ideas, while they continue to make a profit off of more mundane forms of exploitation.
They can’t expect to move out of the way forever as they make the living conditions of average people untenable everywhere.
Never underestimate the capacity for shortsightedness and the ambition for immediate profit.
I’m fine with that. I’m not going for a career anyways, most of us aren’t.
governments need to take seriously what we are looking at in the next 40 years. There IS going to be less work, and less need for it. We can no longer play a game of work = virtue and that you must work to live.
If we fail to address this we will be complicit in a slow genocide
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listen, im gonna be hopeful, ok?
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who says i don’t have plenty of dashes of that, you don’t know me
The fucked up part isn’t that AI work is replacing human work, it’s that we’re at a place as a society where this is a problem.
More automation and less humans working should be a good thing, not something to fear.
Precisely, the hill to die on is to socialize the profits, not to demand we keep the shitty, injuring, repetitive task jobs that break a person’s back by 35.
You don’t protest street lights to keep the lamp lighters employed. The economy needs to change fundamentally to accommodate the fact that many citizens won’t have jobs yet need income. It won’t change, but it needs to.
So we’ll keep blaming the wrong thing, technology that eases the labor burden on humanity, instead of destroying the wealth class that demands they be the sole beneficiary of said technology and its implementation in perpetuity to the detriment of almost everyone outside the owner class. Because if we did that, we’d be filthy dirty marxist socialist commies that hate freedumb, amirite?!
But that would require some mechanism for redistributing wealth and taking care if those who choose not to work, and everyone knows that’s communism.
So much this. The way headlines like this frame the situation is so ass-backwards it makes my brain hurt. In any sane world, we’d be celebrating the automation of mundane tasks as freeing up time and resources to improve our health, happiness, and quality of life instead of wringing our hands about lost livelihoods.
The correct framing is that the money and profits generated by those mundane tasks are still realized, it’s just that they are no longer going to workers, but funneled straight to the top. People need to get mad as hell not at the tech, but at those who are leveraging that tech to specifically to deny them opportunity rather than improving their life.
I need a beer. 😐
money and profits generated by those mundane tasks are still realized, it’s just that they are no longer going to workers, but funneled straight to the top
Workers should be paid royalties for their contributions. If “the top” is able to reap the rewards indefinitely, so should the folks who built the systems.
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some sort of A Better World?
I think you misspelled “taxes,” but its possible your spelling will turn out to be more accurate.
Well… the difference is the former has a history of actually working.
Exactly. This has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with UBI.
But, the rich and plebes alike will push AI as the Boogeyman as a distraction from the real enemy.
There’s this bizarre right-wing idea that if everyone can afford basic necessities, they won’t do anything. To which I say, so what? If you want to live in shitty government housing and survive off of food assistance but not do anything all day, fine. Who cares? Plenty of other people want a higher standard of living than that and will have a job to do so. We just won’t have people starving in the street and dying of easily fixable health problems.
We also have to be careful of how people define this sort of thing, and how the wide range of our current wealth inequality affects how something like UBI would be implemented.
In the rich’s eyes, UBI is already a thing and it’s called “welfare”. It’s not enough that people on welfare can barely survive on the poverty-level pittance that the government provides, but both the rich and slightly-more-well-off have to put down these people as “mooching off the system” and “stealing from the government”, pushing for even more Draconian laws that punish their situation even further. It is a caste of people who are portrayed as even lower scum than “the poors”, right down to segregating where they live to “Section 8” housing as a form of control.
UBI is not about re-creating welfare. It’s about providing a comfortable safety net while reducing the obscene wealth gap, as technology drives unemployment even higher. Without careful vigilance, the rich and powerful will use this as another wedge issue to create another class of people to hate (their favorite pastime), and push for driving the program down just as hard as they do for welfare.
Yeah, modern welfare isn’t remotely enough to match the spirit of UBI. It’s structured so that you have to have a job. It’s not enough to live by at all. And bizarrely, there’s some jobs where they’d actually be worse than welfare because min wage is so crazy low in many parts of the US.
And even if you’re on disability, you’re gonna have a hard time. It pays barely enough to maybe scrape by if you cut every possible corner.
No form of welfare is close to being livable for the typical recipient. At best, they usually give you some spending cash while you live with friends or family. Maybe if you’re really lucky you can find that rare, rare subsidized housing and manage to just barely make ends meet.
By comparison, most proponents of UBI want it to be livable. Nothing glamorous, admittedly, but enough to live a modest life. Enough that if there’s no jobs available you qualify for (or none that will pay a living wage, at least), you’ll be okay.
The differences between UBI and “welfare” are perhaps subtle but very important IMO.
In Australia there’s an entire industry around punishing and humiliating people that need welfare. It’s just absurd and unnecessary. UBI avoids any of that by just making the entitlement universal.
We have “job network providers” which IMO do not provide any value to anyone. Suppose in a particular region there are 4,000 unemployed people and this particular week there are 400 new jobs. To receive welfare you need to be working with a job network provider to find a job. However, those job network providers aren’t creating any jobs. One way or another 400 people will probably get a new job this week. They might help a particular person tidy up their resume or whatever but they’re not actually finding jobs for people. Their only purpose is to make receiving welfare a chore, it’s absurd.
There’s also people stuck in the welfare trap. As in, if I don’t work at all I get $w welfare, but for every $1 I earn I lose $0.50 from $w, so why would I work a shitkicker job flipping burgers for effectively half the pay.
Slightly different systems, but in the US, welfare is a lot like that as well, especially punishing people by removing welfare or food stamps when they make X dollars.
The welfare trap is a feature of all means-tested social security systems.
Wait you expect a wealthy mammal to share?
It’s not even a new thing either.
It used to be that every single piece of fabric was handmade, every book handwritten.
Humans have been losing out on labor since they realized Og was faster at bashing rocks together than anyone else.
It’s just a question of if we redistribute the workload. Like turning “full time” down to 6 days a week and eventually 5, or working hours from 12+ to 8hrs. Which inflates the amount of jobs to match availability.
Every single time the wealthy say we can’t. But eventually it happens, the longer it takes, the less likely it’s peaceful.
But eventually
There’s no eventually, people have been killed, murdered and harassed whilst fighting to make it a reality. Someone has to fight to make it happen and an “eventually” diminishes the value of the effort and risks put forth by labor activists all over the world throughout history. It didn’t happen magically, people worked really hard to make it so.
It sounds like you just don’t know what the word eventually means…
Where are you that 7 days a week 12 hour days is full time? That’s literally just always working. Standard full time in the states is 40 hour work weeks.
The past. You should probably read their comment again.
But how will the rich people afford more submarines to commit suicide in?
The problem, as it almost always is, is greed. Those at the top are trying to keep the value derived from the additional efficiency that ai is going to bring for themselves.
It WILL be a problem when it
replacedreplaces a huge percentage of the workforce and more people won’t have income to afford what the AI is producing. It’s a quick money grab for now, and capitalists love their fucking quick money grabs.There are both dystopian (a tiny Elite owns the automatons and gets all gains from their work and a massive unemployed Underclass barelly surviving) and utopian (the machines do almost everything for everybody) outcomes for automation and we’re firmly in the path for Dystopia.
This was exactly the problem that Charles Murray pointed out in the bell curve. We’re rapidly increasing the complexity of the available jobs (and the successful people can output 1000-1,000,000 times more than simple labor in the world of computers). It’s the same concept as the industrial revolution, but to a greater degree.
The problem is that we’re taking away the vast majority of the simple jobs. Even working at a fast food place isn’t simple.
That alienates a good chunk of the population from being able to perform useful work.
That book is shit and should not be cited in any serious discussion. Here’s a good video explaining why the book is full of racist shit: https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo
If it were full of shit, then you wouldn’t be discussing the exact he pointed out in this book.
There is some racist discussion in there, but that’s secondary and doesn’t detract or impact his main point about what increasingly complex labor does to a society.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/UBc7qBS1Ujo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot!
I am a software engineer and I frequently find myself admiring getting things done without requiring an internet connection. Access to information and instant communication is amazing but it’s also overwhelming. I really wouldn’t mind living in a simpler time
You could switch over to industrial software design. Stack overflow and chatgpt don’t support the languages I use. I have to just figure it out.
As you can imagine: bugs I find in my IDEs, drivers, software packages don’t get fixed often and I have to work around them. Also development is slow.
Gen Z getting screwed, well that’s a first. I hope this doesn’t start some kind of trend.
It will
This is not going to turn out well for a lot of people. Soon human beings will be obsolete in the name of AI
could you please elaborate? do you mean in the workplace?
Lol it’s not ChatGPT screwing over Gen Z. It’s the rich business owners who care more about profits than people.
Let’s play devil’s advocate: if AI is capable of doing a job for a fraction of the cost, faster, with no mistakes, no “moods”, no sick days, then why would they hire a person? I honestly see no reason for them to do so and that concerns me.
We need to start instituting universal basic income to compensate for the job losses. It’s inevitable. We have to protect the person, not the jobs.
