undefined | Better HN

0 pointspalmotea1mo ago0 comments

> Jobs are poison.

> Why is everyone so worried about poison going away?

Hello, aloof galaxy-brain. If you weren't aware, we live in a capitalist economy. In capitalism, if you don't have money you are in a state we call "poor," which means your life is difficult and your living standards bad. Most people rely on having a job to make money, and usually need a well-paying job to be comfortable and secure.

AI isn't going to change any of that. It's not going to make energy, or land or housing more abundant, in fact it will probably make all of those things more scarce.

If the future doesn't have "jobs," there will probably be a holocaust of workers before we get there. IMHO, that's more likely that some kind of utopian techno-socialism.

0 comments

panarky1mo ago

A small island has 20 residents.

One farmer works full time to grow enough food to feed everyone.

One carpenter works full time to maintain housing for everyone.

The other 18 people work full time reciting incantations to the gods to prevent their destruction.

The farmer and the carpenter are too busy growing food and maintaining housing to recite incantations all day.

So each of the 18 incantation reciters spends an extra two hours every week to recite incantations for the farmer and the carpenter to prevent their destruction too.

Then a magic stone is discovered that can recite the incantations by itself, the gods are appeased, and nobody has to work full time reciting incantations any more.

How can the islanders possibly survive now that 90% of them don't have full-time jobs?

The farmer and the carpenter are no worse off, but they think it's unfair that they must continue working full-time while 90% of the residents don't work at all.

Perhaps the farmer and the carpenter should destroy the magic stone so that everyone will have full-time jobs again.

Or is there some other way the islanders can survive after 90% of the work has been eliminated?

palmoteaOP1mo ago

So? You made up a story.

Here's mine: the island has a leader/owner, he takes the stone for himself. He tells the 18 incanters that they're obsolete, and lectures them about how the future is glorious and its all their fault they can't change with the times. Then he allocates more of the resources to himself. Sure, he doesn't "need" more, but it's abhorrent to pay moochers who are providing no value to him. He owes them nothing. The moochers die off, slowly or quickly, it doesn't really matter.

panarky1mo ago

If the islanders are ever to band together and liberate themselves by seizing the magic stone, then they must first stop praising the owner for making them work, and they must stop plotting to destroy the magic stone that could liberate them from their toil.

2 more replies

someguyiguess1mo ago

What about when the farmer and the carpenter are replaced by machines?

panarky1mo ago

So much the better?

krackers1mo ago

It seems like LLMs will result in "service abundance" sooner than "material abundance." Both since progress in robotics seems to be behind that of LLMs, and because the US doesn't even manufacture most stuff anymore anyway, so we aren't self-sufficient in that sense.

We'll reach a strange situation where "service jobs" are commoditized while hard labor becomes the bottleneck. Worse, the US had transitioned to a service economy and devalued hard labor, and that also seems unlikely to change. Maybe the people going on about the permanent underclass were onto something.

palmoteaOP1mo ago

With AI, you'll be living in a box under the street, but it'll be great because you'll have an AI therapist available 24x7 to talk to about your problems.

nano118741mo ago

AI isn't going to change any of that.

Are you sure about that? I think the future will be here faster than we imagine

palmoteaOP1mo ago

>> AI isn't going to change any of that.

> Are you sure about that?

I'm pretty sure. If our society was capable of that kind of adaptation (less/no jobs), it would have done it by now. In fact, the impulse has been in the other direction. AI's not some magic thing, in this way it's no different than any other labor-eliminating technology.

> I think the future will be here faster than we imagine

Yeah, but that future ain't going to be the utopia promised by AI's salesmen. They're salesmen, and they're saying whatever they need to say to get you to buy in.

poer1mo ago

shut up bro

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse