This should make for interesting conversation at "Career Day" at my daughter's elementary school next week :)
The traditional format of questions: What do you? What was your career path to where you are today? Where did you go to school and what degrees did you get?
My path and current job don't feel relevant to these kids. It won't be their world. What do I say to them?
Mar 22, 2023·edited Mar 22, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Tomas, you provide new ways of seeing the world by revealing previously unrecognized patterns in events and in society. Once seen and understood, seeing these patterns is extremely valuable. This article does than in spades. Thank you so much for your careful research and very thoughtful analysis. I’ve come away from reading your article seeing the world in a new way, which will help me navigate the future.
I really have a problem when we talk about AI replacing Authors and Artists like its nothing. Likewho actually wants that? who does that serve? do we sacrifice creativity to become mindless consumers?
people churning out AI generated content are often doing so for a quick buck. Which I guess the end product is not much different from typical mid level commercial art. But they don't understand that engaging with the process really is the act of creation. I guess I can see a situation where real artists and writers could use tools to speed up their work (since there is a lot of tedious stuff involved) while maintaining their artistic integrity.
But the reason a lot of artists/creatives view AI with such distain is they understand that there's no sense of control to what the AI spits out. It's not their work. It has none of them in it.
But hey, maybe we have a future where those who have the fundament skills in art/writing can put out elevated content. It's not there yet.
I'm not hopeful though. "Good enough" is good enough for the vast majority of people and companies.
Do we want to read novels and listen to music created by AI? half the appeal is to engage with the human behind the work.
Tomas you haven't allowed for the upswing in live music that is happening. More and more bands, from the large to the small, the well-known to the extremely local, are touring, playing their music to live audiences. At least here in Aotearoa New Zealand any way!
I think this clearly leads to the conclusion that somewhere, not so far, in the future (or would it be 'somewhen'?) the balance job creation-job destruction will got persistently in the negative side.
For me it means, that we (the whole humanity) will need to switch to some 'Star Trek'-like 'economy' where means of survival (with adequate quality of life) and growth (intellectual, social, etc.) are not contingent on 'jobs/salary'.
Some 'Singularity' pundits take it as a given that exponential growth would bring solutions faster and faster, bringing a nearly painless transition to an 'abundance' heavenly scenario , but I think a more tortuous, and suffering-ladden for billions of people, path is presently at our door.
Until we have ubiquitous energy supply and energy to mass hardware (food synthesizers, etc.) like Kirk/Picard/et al.. I think we will need to accelerate some huge efforts on UBI (Universal Basic Income) implementation.
That is a socio-political nightmare as complex to unravel as climate change de-worsening initiatives (we can't prevent significant climate change anymore, so we hope that work can be done to make it less harmful), and this AI-boosted clock is also ticking fast...
PS.: there is also the 'crime' business to consider, where sadly many jobless people find their new "way-of-life"
Dear Tomas, Please address the following issues in your next articles on AI.
1) while the criteria for “ good“ soccer playing he’s quite straightforward, the criteria for “good“ stories or drawings or architecture arr not straightforward. For example trumplican‘s would prefer to have stories in which virtuous white protestants crush evil “ others” . As we have seen in social media, what is good for advertisement is not necessarily good for society. How would we resist a race to the bottom in bad taste.
2 with regard to Bloom, training is different from educating. You can train a composer in musical Theory but what are the conditions that allow a greater proportion of latent geniuses to become a Brahms or Schoenberg?
Tomas, from a practical perspective, what would you do if you currently worked in a profession that’s likely to be automated away in the near future? Let’s say you’re mid-career, kids, mortgage, etc. Do you proactively quit your job and transition into a manual labor-oriented field that pays far less than what you currently make as a white-collar worker? Hold on at your current job as long as you can and hope society figures out a safety net before your job gets eliminated, so you don’t end up on the street? I 100% agree with your conclusions about future job loss, but have no idea how to plan for the future in a world where thinking has no economic value.
Your posts are way too long and too detailed. I don't really know if people in general are interested in that so much detail. And I'm sure they can be summarized.
Excllent overview of an important and urgent topic, as always. The one issue I have my doubts about, though, is childcare. Would parents feel comfortable leaving their young children in the care of AIs? They might, but I suspect culture and social stigma might hinder or at least slow this development (on a gut level I'm not sure that would be a bad thing, either)
I was in Semiconductor Manufacturing for 30yrs and the whole time the threat of automation was on our minds. Turned out it was a great boost to productivity and repeatability but had little impact on fixing and maintaining machines and developing processes. Even the threat of oversees competition wasn't that much of an issue since innovation was our strength. AI might take that role but we will have to watch.
Mar 22, 2023·edited Mar 22, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
We have fewer farmers than before, but what about the food industry itself? Maybe the numbers of jobs in the field of food actually went up (fast food, food companies). The snack industry now is surely much bigger than whatever it was back then, for example. Total demand in calories may not have went up too much, but now people want food that never spoils, portable food, etc.
I am disconcerted by the idea of AI raising children. I think we need a lot of research into brain development before we allow such a thing in society. The human component of loving and caring makes a big difference in the way a child‘s brain and personality develops.
This should make for interesting conversation at "Career Day" at my daughter's elementary school next week :)
The traditional format of questions: What do you? What was your career path to where you are today? Where did you go to school and what degrees did you get?
My path and current job don't feel relevant to these kids. It won't be their world. What do I say to them?
Tomas, you provide new ways of seeing the world by revealing previously unrecognized patterns in events and in society. Once seen and understood, seeing these patterns is extremely valuable. This article does than in spades. Thank you so much for your careful research and very thoughtful analysis. I’ve come away from reading your article seeing the world in a new way, which will help me navigate the future.
Qué maravilla de artículo. Para leerlo una segunda vez, con mucha calma. ¡Gracias Tomás!
I really have a problem when we talk about AI replacing Authors and Artists like its nothing. Likewho actually wants that? who does that serve? do we sacrifice creativity to become mindless consumers?
people churning out AI generated content are often doing so for a quick buck. Which I guess the end product is not much different from typical mid level commercial art. But they don't understand that engaging with the process really is the act of creation. I guess I can see a situation where real artists and writers could use tools to speed up their work (since there is a lot of tedious stuff involved) while maintaining their artistic integrity.
But the reason a lot of artists/creatives view AI with such distain is they understand that there's no sense of control to what the AI spits out. It's not their work. It has none of them in it.
But hey, maybe we have a future where those who have the fundament skills in art/writing can put out elevated content. It's not there yet.
I'm not hopeful though. "Good enough" is good enough for the vast majority of people and companies.
Do we want to read novels and listen to music created by AI? half the appeal is to engage with the human behind the work.
Tomas you haven't allowed for the upswing in live music that is happening. More and more bands, from the large to the small, the well-known to the extremely local, are touring, playing their music to live audiences. At least here in Aotearoa New Zealand any way!
I think this clearly leads to the conclusion that somewhere, not so far, in the future (or would it be 'somewhen'?) the balance job creation-job destruction will got persistently in the negative side.
For me it means, that we (the whole humanity) will need to switch to some 'Star Trek'-like 'economy' where means of survival (with adequate quality of life) and growth (intellectual, social, etc.) are not contingent on 'jobs/salary'.
Some 'Singularity' pundits take it as a given that exponential growth would bring solutions faster and faster, bringing a nearly painless transition to an 'abundance' heavenly scenario , but I think a more tortuous, and suffering-ladden for billions of people, path is presently at our door.
Until we have ubiquitous energy supply and energy to mass hardware (food synthesizers, etc.) like Kirk/Picard/et al.. I think we will need to accelerate some huge efforts on UBI (Universal Basic Income) implementation.
That is a socio-political nightmare as complex to unravel as climate change de-worsening initiatives (we can't prevent significant climate change anymore, so we hope that work can be done to make it less harmful), and this AI-boosted clock is also ticking fast...
PS.: there is also the 'crime' business to consider, where sadly many jobless people find their new "way-of-life"
Excellent article! Time to incorporate AI into my job!
Dear Tomas, Please address the following issues in your next articles on AI.
1) while the criteria for “ good“ soccer playing he’s quite straightforward, the criteria for “good“ stories or drawings or architecture arr not straightforward. For example trumplican‘s would prefer to have stories in which virtuous white protestants crush evil “ others” . As we have seen in social media, what is good for advertisement is not necessarily good for society. How would we resist a race to the bottom in bad taste.
2 with regard to Bloom, training is different from educating. You can train a composer in musical Theory but what are the conditions that allow a greater proportion of latent geniuses to become a Brahms or Schoenberg?
Tomas, from a practical perspective, what would you do if you currently worked in a profession that’s likely to be automated away in the near future? Let’s say you’re mid-career, kids, mortgage, etc. Do you proactively quit your job and transition into a manual labor-oriented field that pays far less than what you currently make as a white-collar worker? Hold on at your current job as long as you can and hope society figures out a safety net before your job gets eliminated, so you don’t end up on the street? I 100% agree with your conclusions about future job loss, but have no idea how to plan for the future in a world where thinking has no economic value.
Your posts are way too long and too detailed. I don't really know if people in general are interested in that so much detail. And I'm sure they can be summarized.
Excllent overview of an important and urgent topic, as always. The one issue I have my doubts about, though, is childcare. Would parents feel comfortable leaving their young children in the care of AIs? They might, but I suspect culture and social stigma might hinder or at least slow this development (on a gut level I'm not sure that would be a bad thing, either)
I was in Semiconductor Manufacturing for 30yrs and the whole time the threat of automation was on our minds. Turned out it was a great boost to productivity and repeatability but had little impact on fixing and maintaining machines and developing processes. Even the threat of oversees competition wasn't that much of an issue since innovation was our strength. AI might take that role but we will have to watch.
Elon Musk's solution seems like the only path for people who want to survive post-AI. Get implanted with Neuralink and live the borg lifestyle.
This is the natural evolutionary step for a single hivemind. People prefer security over freedom. They will get the conformity so desired.
We have fewer farmers than before, but what about the food industry itself? Maybe the numbers of jobs in the field of food actually went up (fast food, food companies). The snack industry now is surely much bigger than whatever it was back then, for example. Total demand in calories may not have went up too much, but now people want food that never spoils, portable food, etc.
I am disconcerted by the idea of AI raising children. I think we need a lot of research into brain development before we allow such a thing in society. The human component of loving and caring makes a big difference in the way a child‘s brain and personality develops.
Really interesting read. Thanks for this.