I am not sure that LLMs replace highly skilled work. My experience of using them is the exact opposite, they replace the need for boring repetitive tasks. They are very good at that, they are very bad at problem solving. It is the junior employees who need to be concerned about their jobs since LLMs make their senior colleagues more productive. Any company thinking it can fire it's highly skilled workers and replace them with AI and a low skilled labour force, will probably not be a company for long.
People will need to learn how to use LLMs. That's the future. Just like you need to learn to drive, or use a washing machine, or even read. Will it erode some skills ? Yes. Just like nobody can remember a phone number these days because it's stored in your phone. Is that a bad thing ? It is if you lose your phone. But the benefits have been enormous. Technology changes the world, some people like it, some people don't, but since the day we discovered fire we have continued to invent. It's what we do best.
You make a good point. I do realise that LLM’s capabilities and potential are often seriously overhyped in today’s world, people are deluded by science fiction into thinking that they can casually surpass human intelligence and power when they have spent generations barely able to navigate any “real world” situation.
Nonetheless, so far I think they have demonstrated enough competence in writing, editing and image generation that they could definitely reduce the need for skilled work in those areas of work, though perhaps never entirely replace it. Maybe only a handful of skilled workers who help direct or correct an LLM’s work will be needed, instead of a large team of skilled workers. I think that the standards of the work will determine how much skilled workers will be kept on also. If some company only produces products that require modest standards , let’s say advertising or “Brainrot” videos and music for children, then that would be far more amenable to LLM dependence than something requiring far higher standards, such as dense scientific or philosophical texts.
Well I definitely agree that the production of mindless "Brainrot" could easily be automated and those people's jobs replaced. But one has to ask, were those people really thinking anyway ? Or were they just enacting formulaic recipes? LLMs are not going to replace any Kants, David Humes, Schroedingers or Heisenbergs. I suppose the lesson to be learned out of all this is that people should lean towards preparing for employment that leverages their most useful tool, their brain.
But even more basic roles, that require empathy and interaction, have been turning away from AI. Support roles in customer facing businesses have been finding out that AI is not generating the success they hoped and that human interaction is king.
The whole thing about AI increasing productivity and getting rid of human workers, thereby decreasing the bottom line, is something companies have been trying to sell their shareholders to justify the lofty multiples of their share price. It's not reality. AI wil increase productivity but by enabling humans to do their jobs more efficiently, and it's the companies that can successfully integrate it into their human workforce that will be successful.
In film, music and media ... it's not like people haven't been copying, mimicking or faking things in these industries before. It's just technology is making it easier and faster to do. But that's what technology does. It's always been that way, from the day one primate came up with the idea of attaching a sharp rock to a long stick.
I think that one flaw in the "oppression forever" idea in 1984 is the apparent lack of succession processes in the Inner Party. Rulers eventually age out. If they stay on too long (as Joe Biden), they leave a leadership vacuum that allows revolutionary change to spring up. North Korea seems to have found a way for a family dynasty to persist, but North Korea is a small country, not an Empire, and three generations is not "forever".
There are certainly many flaws in the “Oppression forever” idea, but that is definitely a crucial one since dictatorships are more reliant on a centralised authority and cult of personality than other modes of government.
A compelling critique that echoes Orwellian concerns about the erosion of individual expression. Your insights prompt a necessary reflection on the implications of outsourcing our voices to AI.
I am not sure that LLMs replace highly skilled work. My experience of using them is the exact opposite, they replace the need for boring repetitive tasks. They are very good at that, they are very bad at problem solving. It is the junior employees who need to be concerned about their jobs since LLMs make their senior colleagues more productive. Any company thinking it can fire it's highly skilled workers and replace them with AI and a low skilled labour force, will probably not be a company for long.
People will need to learn how to use LLMs. That's the future. Just like you need to learn to drive, or use a washing machine, or even read. Will it erode some skills ? Yes. Just like nobody can remember a phone number these days because it's stored in your phone. Is that a bad thing ? It is if you lose your phone. But the benefits have been enormous. Technology changes the world, some people like it, some people don't, but since the day we discovered fire we have continued to invent. It's what we do best.
You make a good point. I do realise that LLM’s capabilities and potential are often seriously overhyped in today’s world, people are deluded by science fiction into thinking that they can casually surpass human intelligence and power when they have spent generations barely able to navigate any “real world” situation.
Nonetheless, so far I think they have demonstrated enough competence in writing, editing and image generation that they could definitely reduce the need for skilled work in those areas of work, though perhaps never entirely replace it. Maybe only a handful of skilled workers who help direct or correct an LLM’s work will be needed, instead of a large team of skilled workers. I think that the standards of the work will determine how much skilled workers will be kept on also. If some company only produces products that require modest standards , let’s say advertising or “Brainrot” videos and music for children, then that would be far more amenable to LLM dependence than something requiring far higher standards, such as dense scientific or philosophical texts.
Well I definitely agree that the production of mindless "Brainrot" could easily be automated and those people's jobs replaced. But one has to ask, were those people really thinking anyway ? Or were they just enacting formulaic recipes? LLMs are not going to replace any Kants, David Humes, Schroedingers or Heisenbergs. I suppose the lesson to be learned out of all this is that people should lean towards preparing for employment that leverages their most useful tool, their brain.
But even more basic roles, that require empathy and interaction, have been turning away from AI. Support roles in customer facing businesses have been finding out that AI is not generating the success they hoped and that human interaction is king.
The whole thing about AI increasing productivity and getting rid of human workers, thereby decreasing the bottom line, is something companies have been trying to sell their shareholders to justify the lofty multiples of their share price. It's not reality. AI wil increase productivity but by enabling humans to do their jobs more efficiently, and it's the companies that can successfully integrate it into their human workforce that will be successful.
In film, music and media ... it's not like people haven't been copying, mimicking or faking things in these industries before. It's just technology is making it easier and faster to do. But that's what technology does. It's always been that way, from the day one primate came up with the idea of attaching a sharp rock to a long stick.
I think that one flaw in the "oppression forever" idea in 1984 is the apparent lack of succession processes in the Inner Party. Rulers eventually age out. If they stay on too long (as Joe Biden), they leave a leadership vacuum that allows revolutionary change to spring up. North Korea seems to have found a way for a family dynasty to persist, but North Korea is a small country, not an Empire, and three generations is not "forever".
There are certainly many flaws in the “Oppression forever” idea, but that is definitely a crucial one since dictatorships are more reliant on a centralised authority and cult of personality than other modes of government.
Fascinating - as it is decades since I had read it, I had completely forgotten about the versificator.
A compelling critique that echoes Orwellian concerns about the erosion of individual expression. Your insights prompt a necessary reflection on the implications of outsourcing our voices to AI.