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 consider myself, at best, a medior profile in my industry (IT). ChatGPT with GPT-4 (at least the initial version of it) was completely capable of doing EVERYTHING I need to do daily for my job. And probably faster and with much fewer mistakes.
That simply tells me it’s a guarantee my job’s gone in a matter of time. Whether that’s one year or five remains to be seen, but it’s inevitable.
Otoh one of my friends is an IT teacher and there are regular issues with students blindly following dumb chatGPT advice.
Recently, one had removed their fstab directory 🤣
ChatGPT is very good at giving advice that sounds good but it still has absolutely no understanding about what it says. The quintessential child of a politician and a manager…
tbf, if 99.9% of the jobs are replaced by ai, there won’t be a reason to work at all anymore. since you don’t have to pay the ai a wage, let it rest, give it vacations, etc. costs of basic needs may go so low that they could be redistributed for free. But that’s communism!!! Cringe!
Check out how it was like during the industrial revolution when automation changed a lot in a short period of time to get an idea of how this generally goes.
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.
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.
Haha! Not in America, you cosmopolitan citizen of the world!
I was making a greater metaphorical point that society can and does adapt to new technologies
Eh. Society can adapt. But, it doesn’t have to. The Amish are a thing, after all. And so are America’s car-centric cities when high speed rail exists.
I for one can’t wait for the headline “Gen Z increasingly joining Amish, DESTROYING industries”
Cries in Kaczynski
I like to compare modern LLM to Excel or calculators in the past. Some years ago a company would have an in-house team of accountants. Then came Excel and now a single accountant can do the job for 10 companies. Let’s now consider programmer: currently a project manager oversees a team of programmers, most of whom are only responsible for mundane work of typing out code. With AI a single worker will be able to perform more productive than that team of programmers, because they will offload the boring work to AI and focus all their attention to what AI is perhaps incapable of.
What this article is really saying, which I agree with, is that AI improves productivity ,just like perhaps the steam engines did in the 1800’s. But this time the problem is we won’t increase the output and let the workers work more efficiently and earn more money, because it’s not manufacturing jobs which were limited by technology that this is influencing. It’s office jobs, which the economy has a pretty much fixed demand for. Workers will not improve their productivity, they will just be replaced because their work can be offloaded to a machine capable of doing that same jobs better in every significant way.
Can you elaborate on the “fixed demand” aspect?
From what I know as a software engineer, companies would simply make twice as much software, if their software engineers were twice as efficient. There are always requirements pushed out of scope because the complexity of the solution is growing and growing. The ability to make more complex software solutions with the same amount of engineers is not going to result in less engineers, it is just going to cause more complex software products.
Also note that more engineers has deminishing results due to communication losses. This, along with a fixed supply of engineers seems the biggest limitation to the industry to me.
From what I know as a software engineer, companies would simply make twice as much software, if their software engineers were twice as efficient.
Only if there’s demand for twice as much software. Otherwise, you make the same software twice as fast and with half as much work. Let’s go back to the example of accountants. Sure, the demand for accounting work may be somewhat increasing, but with productivity per worker increasing orders of magnitude faster than demand, the overall number of accountants shall decrease. A piece of code a junior programmer writes within a week can be obtained immediately with a tool like chatgpt simply by formulating a clear prompt – it’s not like we’re talking about better keyboards which improve your typing speed and therefore increase your productivity by 10% by letting you type code faster, it’s actually orders of magnitude!
There are always requirements pushed out of scope because the complexity of the solution is growing and growing. The ability to make more complex software solutions with the same amount of engineers is not going to result in less engineers, it is just going to cause more complex software products.
Again, sure, but wouldn’t you agree the technology will some time reach a point where more complexity is redundant? I would argue it’s sooner than later, see how smartphones and computers keep improving in their performance, but there are no technology breakthroughts anymore. Is infinite growth even possible?
Also note that more engineers has deminishing results due to communication losses. This, along with a fixed supply of engineers seems the biggest limitation to the industry to me.
Not sure what you’re getting at here, so let’s go back to your original question: what do I mean by fixed demand of the office jobs.
Doing accounting faster will not land you more gigs anymore, unless you steal some other accountants’ clients. Writing longer reports will not make your employer require you to write more of them, unless they fire your colleague who does that too. Going through motions and legal documents faster will not magically give you more legal work, unless a different legal counsel changes industry. Unlike manufacturing in the 1800s, the supply and productivity of modern jobs are not limited by technological disadvantages so much, but instead, the demand for this work is corelated with other branches of economy.
One could argue, in fact it’s an ongoing debate where I’m from (Poland): “yeah sure but when we started switching away from coal then miners were supposed to be off work as well and yet they mostly managed to find previously non-existing jobs in newly created industries and the unemployment remained low”. Right, but in that case one industry was replaced by another, workers’ productivity could be moved to doing something else. This time it’s different, because the jobs don’t change, the demand doesn’t change, instead the supply of labour (via increased, AI-fueled productivity) increases so much, that large part of the workforce is found to be straight up redundant.
this time the problem is we won’t increase the output and let the workers work more efficiently and earn more money
I agree with what you’re saying but I just want to contextualize this bit, because you make it seem like technological advances led to increased worker productivity and higher wages.
It didn’t. It never has.
The government made it happen because people pressured the government to make it happen. Strikes, riots, and literal bloodshed twisted gilded arms to share the economic gains they were amassing for themselves.
And so the implication is that, sure, this phase of technological can increase worker productivity, letting the same number of office workers do more, work less, and earn the same amount. In principle, that is entirely possible. In practice, we arrive back where you say office workers will just be replaced.
Interesting point, I guess you are right
There’s something that a person close to me said about certain tech/features that stuck with me and seems to click here, it was: “A lot of it just stops you from using your brain.”
Is this not similar to the introduction of calculators in schools? We don’t need to use our brains anymore to do the “mechanical calculation”. Instead we can offload this task to the machine and use our brain for other tasks.
Mathematics is about reasoning. Calculations and arithmetics are merely a little insiginificant part of it. I believe mental math should be encouraged at early stages of education, as it develops cognitive skills, memory and brain plasticity; all research confirm this. Sure, calculating 65*82 is tricky to do in head, but if you understand that this is equivalent to (60+5)(80+2) and work from that then it suddenly becomes approachable for everyone, you just have to reason this out in your mind. My algebra teacher once said something which perhaps translates poorly but let me try to convey what he meant: “A mediocre mathematician seeks analogies between problems, so that they can solve new problems using tools they are already familiar with. However a good mathematician seeks analogies between analogies”. Will you ever require mental math? Probably no, but consider it a workout for your brain, which creates neuroconnections which will later come in helpful when learning new stuff and needing to understand new, complex concepts quickly
Not exactly. When it comes to calculations that could be super unreasonable and impractical to do by hand (think multiple exponents on a number, or cosine, sine, and tangent as simple examples), they help reduce that tedium in the overall process of what you’re trying to do. There comes a point where it’d be absurd to do certain kinds of math by hand primarily. I’m not largely math-oriented, but even with calculators one could understand the reasoning behind certain concepts despite using a calculator to work through them. People who take calculus can understand it but still use a calculator.
To have a calculator to do your times tables instead of knowing them, or any basic stuff in the four units would be detrimental I feel, because you’d benefit in knowing those up front, and how to process them mentally.
Have you used these tools for a complicated project? I’ve played around a little and it didn’t feel like turning off my brain at all, more like working with a genius drone and figuring out how to direct its skills to my ends and constantly evaluating the 10,000 foot view to edge the project forward.
You can’t turn your brain off and use current AI. You have to be constantly watching for whenever it will happen to fabricate some innocent-looking code that is actually very destructive.
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Not sure what you mean?
My boy says this as if underpaying and abusing (usually female) office workers to do the boring algebraic and arithmetic for you wasn’t a thing in engineering business and academia before the advent of digital computers.
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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.
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.
Or govt contractor
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Where do you live / what kind of gov’t work is around you?
I know quite a few contracting companies, but outside of some of the big ones, I’d need to know where you are trying to work. I am in the DC/NoVa area. There are TONS of contracting companies here. From the larger ones like CACI, CGI Federal, Raytheon, Booz Allen, Deloitte, etc to literally thousands of mid/small size companies.
As far as a good “job board”, I dont really know of one other than fedbizops which I think is sam.gov now. Search for contracts that have been recently awarded near you related to IT and you’ll see which companies won. Those contractors are usually HURTING to bring on people ASAP. They’d probably hire on the spot if you can pass a background check.
Thanks for the tips! I’ll most definitely look newly awarded federal contracts then look for opportunities there.
It was already happenning in things like Software Developmnt with outsourcing: all the entry level stuff was sent away to be done by people who cost a fraction of what even a Junior Dev would cost in the West, and that’s exactly the stuff that one starts one’s career with.
As someone who lives in the east where these jobs are outsourced to, it’s not like junior devs here get to work on them either. Most outsourced stuff is assigned to people higher up. The talented juniors are left sitting on the bench as retainer manpower, others are in an endless string of unpaid internships.
The job situation is more similar then you think all over the world
Can you explain what you mean by retainer manpower? I’ve never worked anywhere where there was an extra person. Usually a job that requires 20 people would be set up for 20, 3 would leave the company, one would go out on disability and you have 16 doing the job of 20. They make a new middle management role with little to no raise but a sense of pride that you are now in charge and they stick that person with ensuring the 16 people don’t fall behind. Which really means you now have 15 workers, and 1 person stuck in meetings all day explaining why we are barely keeping our heads above water.
Companies hire junior devs (and other cheap labour) as “reserves”, in the off chance that you get more projects (sometimes this is negotiated as a bonded contract, which you can’t break for 3-5 years, but I hear that abusive practice is dying slowly).
They are paid abysmally low salaries, but youre not allowed to work, or find work elsewhere while you’re on this type of contract. If a project comes and you’re needed, you’re put on a regular contract that is comparatively not as low paying.
All the factors you mentioned are still at play, these people are almost never put on existing projects, so you end up with less people doing more work, with more people just sitting around doing nothing waiting for new projects.
This type of environment is extremely negative and depressing to be in, and it promotes a lot of office politics to get yourself off that list and into a better salary etc.
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.
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.
Good! We will finally free people of work!
Good we are finally free of people at work
Great, free to starve in a gutter. Such freedom.
I’m always amazed at how people will fight to work like slaves rather than to fight for a home and food. It’s properly insane if you ask me.
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No one is fighting to work like slaves. I don’t know where you’re getting that idea. People just want to put food on the table and companies are fighting that very thing. Yes, we all SHOULD be fighting for a better standard of living, but since everyone disagrees on how to achieve that, we have to fight for the next best thing.
When people fight against things that destroy jobs, they are fighting to stay slaves.
The state of things is that capitalists stole progress for themselves. Fighting to take it back would be a better fight. Fighting to get food or shelter in exchange for now tech to capitalists would be a better fight. Fighting capitalists would be a better fight. But people fight to keep serving the capitalists, they fight for the status quo in fear that the change will make their miserable life worse. It’s not a winning fight.
Spoken like someone who has never struggled to pay rent, never skipped meals because their bank account was empty, and never actually carried a weapon.
You cannot fight for a home and food, at least, not without being an aggressor. Russia is doing this to Ukraine right now (the war is about only one thing really - farmland).
You can build a home and produce food. You do this by cooperating with other people, not fighting them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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