• Lugh@futurology.todayOPM
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    9 months ago

    When some people see news like this they try and reassure themselves that automation has always created new jobs. You don’t see secretarial typists or horse carriage riders anymore, right?

    The flaw in this argument is that the AI & robots will be able to do all the new jobs too, but they’ll just cost a few pennies where humans were used to getting paid a dollar.

    All the people who still think everything is hunky-dory with this and we’ve nothing to worry about remind me of videos of people on the beaches in 2004 watching the Indian Ocean tsunami coming in, and not realizing until the very last minute how serious things were about to get.

    • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The flaw here is that the bots absolutely cannot do these human jobs, even right now. CEOs think they can / want them do, but that’s only because they’re greedy imbeciles.

      I spent a loooong time trying to contact a human at my bank since I need to do my taxes and the form they sent me didn’t have the info I needed. I looked online and it also wasn’t there.

      Their stupid AI bot could tell me basic info about where to find tax forms on their site, but when I said the one they sent me was wrong, it just kept repeating where to find the form.

      It wasted hours of my life. Fuck these people.

      There honestly should be a federal law saying businesses are required to put you in touch with a human if you ask them to. Taxes are required and I needed that info.

      • wahming@monyet.cc
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        9 months ago

        Every AI chat bot I’ve ever encountered had the ability to put you in touch with a human if you asked for it, even if it’s not a listed option. Granted, that’s a sample size of a few dozen out of millions.

        • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Not this one. Both the chat not and their automated phone tree / bot would not put me in touch with any people, even after saying “representative” or pressing 0.

    • Possibly linux
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      9 months ago

      Caring about jobs is kind of silly. If there were no jobs there would be no customers. That’s not how the market works. Someone is always going to try to sell something and they need people to support them.

      • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        If there were no jobs there would be no customers. That’s not how the market works.

        That’s true, but if robots are cheaper than humans, no company would employ humans for the sole purpose of being customers. That’s not how companies work. Any company which does so will quickly lose to a competitor which doesn’t.

        The societal support (e.g. UBI) necessary for this upcoming transition will need to come from governments, not companies.

        • Endward23@futurology.today
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          9 months ago

          That’s true, but if robots are cheaper than humans, no company would employ humans for the sole purpose of being customers. That’s not how companies work. Any company which does so will quickly lose to a competitor which doesn’t.

          Thats just half true. You overlook cases like bureaucracy or neptonism, when people help others into companies.

          It would be esay for the US gouverment to force companies to hire persons, even for silly activities like “machine observing”. You just need to make a Act of Congress which requieres something that needs a human. Doesn’t matter. The cooperations would make an effort to hire really humans, in order to prevent a lawsuid. The courts would just say, “okay, this is the federal law, any cooperation which makes a trade between the States needs to follow it”. Some applies for the EU, China, Japan etc.

          Is this less efficient than a AI based system? Sure. They will make some exaptions.

          • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            It would be esay for the US gouverment to force companies to hire persons, even for silly activities like “machine observing”. You just need to make a Act of Congress which requieres something that needs a human.

            This just sounds like UBI with extra steps, and not very universal, as there won’t be as many “machine observing” jobs as there were jobs which the machine replaced.

            Why not free up the newly unemployable portion of the population to pursue their passions and enjoy life, rather than mandating the existence of silly jobs for the sake of jobs?

            • Endward23@futurology.today
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              9 months ago

              This just sounds like UBI with extra steps, and not very universal, as there won’t be as many “machine observing” jobs as there were jobs which the machine replaced.

              You can make more and more bureaucracy. Someone must traine the machine observer, someone supervise them etc. There are no limits for the imagination.

              Why not free up the newly unemployable portion of the population to pursue their passions and enjoy life, rather than mandating the existence of silly jobs for the sake of jobs?

              I think it would be a problem with inflation and so on.

        • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The point is if there are no workers for anything, there will be no income for anything, and nobody will have money to give to producers.

          • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            True, but society will encounter major issues long before employment hits zero.

            If UBI programs are implemented, this would provide money for people to give to the producers, despite a shrinking working population due to automation.

    • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Maybe our whole economic system will come crashing down and no one will HAVE TO work to survive because everything can be done by bots or AI and we’re able to actually work on the things we’re passionate about.

      Haha fat chance

    • Endward23@futurology.today
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      9 months ago

      The new technology has advantages and disadvantages. If you argue just from this angle, the gouverment comes to bad ideas like just to prohibit AI.