2/3 of Americans overestimate how much AI can do.
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
118 points (91.0% liked)
Technology
59589 readers
2946 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
If they are that uninformed, maybe we could replace them with AI.
lol nice
2/3 of Americans just want someone else to do their job.
Guilty
2/3rds of Americans can't believe they're actually paid to do this dumb, repetitive shit.
2/3rds of Americans don’t know what AI is or the limitations of LLMs.
Yeah I think people might be more thinking automation vs AI or AI automation. Two different scales but similar elements.
They have one conversation with ChatGPT, are convinced it's as smart as a person, and have no idea how it works.
AI today, or actual AI someday? And do they need to do the job well, or just at all?
I also wonder how many of these people are open to the idea of UBI when brought up in the context of AI replacing the majority of human labor.
Or the fear of AI advancement will force everyone to believe that they can work for far less than they are now.
AI will have a place in our future but for the foreseeable future, we'll still need people to do certain things and think of certain things. AI will also be a tool for the wealthy elite and corporations to better manage and manipulate people and forcing everyone to do more for less.
AI is basically the new gunpowder technology ... whoever has it and uses it to their best advantage gets to rule the world. And like with the invention of gunpowder, there's going to be a whole mess of people everywhere that will suffer and die while a small group of people try to figure out how to become the next momentary God King of the world.
But "future" in this case is surely 20 years or longer. People have been working on this since the 1950s, progress is very slow.
I see a tradeoff ... capitalists, wealthy elites and corporations only look at the bottom line and profit rather than in advancement of anything ... the only advancement they favour is profit at all costs.
What I see is the public's fear of AI will mean that people will become more willing to work for less. What this will mean is that as people begin to work for less, cheap human semi-slave labour will become more cost efficient than expensive modern AI, AI tools or even AI machines. Think about it ... would you rather invest in a few hundred thousand for a dozen people working for dirt low pay ... or a few hundred thousand for one machine that will require regular maintenance, us untested, may or may not be reliable and is still in active development.
I think at this point in development the biggest role that AI is playing is that it is putting fear in everyone and the more fear you put into everyone, the easier it is to control and manipulate them.
AI/automation could replace almost every job- but at a higher cost and a lower accuracy. Everyone is asking why AI is automating creative jobs an not manual labor. Automation COULD replace manual labor, it just costs more. Right now we are looking into which jobs are cost effective to replace with llms, which is why there is such investigation into copyright abuse. If you can't train AI without huge copyright payments, llms might cost more than just employing people to do the mind numming jobs that the llms could replace.
On another note two thirds of people don't actually know what ai is capable of
Remember when all the "burger flippers" got replaced in 2012 with the introduction of this robot?: https://www.businessinsider.com/burger-robot-could-revolutionize-fast-food-industry-2012-11
Much to the chagrin of execs, automation is not that straightforward. Then again, I bet CEOs would be more easily replaced with AI than a lot of these "no/low skill" jobs, but the AI would have to be tuned to spew even more bullshit than it is currently capable of.
No, but I do remember the advent of online ordering reducing the staff needed to answer phones and take orders at the counter at the pizza place I worked at.
And now those same restaurants don't even staff drivers anymore, they outsource to door dash (who are now getting paid less, with less protections)
Let's not pretend that technology improvements can't cause cascading changes in an industry.
"2/3rds of Americans don't understand AI"
Quick, everybody say AI could do their job so that the corporate airheads invest a bunch of money in AI, get sad when it doesn't deliver, and then become super pessimistic about AI
They’d be pulling that money out of our wages. They certainly aren’t going to give the C level execs a pay cut, never mind less of a pay raise or bonus.
I’m actively looking for opportunities to use AI to replace the work I do, and not finding many effective ones so far. Sure it can write some crappy code for me, but writing code comes after the hard part, which is identifying the problem and how it could be solved with tech. Novel problems need novel solutions and an LLM can’t generate those.
This would be tight if we weren't all beholden to Mammon and his devout.
I love this sentence ❤️
Had chatgpt poem it up:
In the shadowed halls of gold and greed, Where Mammon reigns, his creed they heed, A whisper winds, a somber song, Of hearts lost to the worldly throng.
Beholden to Mammon and his devout, Souls bartered in a faithless rout, Chained to desires, ever unfulfilled, In halls of opulence, unjustly built.
Their eyes, like hollow stars, gleam bright, Yet void of warmth, devoid of light, For in their quest for fleeting gain, They've traded joy for endless pain.
The nightingale, she weeps in woe, For those who wander, lost below, In labyrinths of gold they roam, Yet farther still from heart and home.
And I, a ghost among these halls, Echo Poe’s lament, his somber calls, For in this realm where shadows play, The soul’s true worth is cast away.
So heed this tale, this mournful verse, Lest you become Mammon's curse, For wealth unbound by love or grace, Leads but to a darkened place.
And there, in silence, you might find, The truest wealth – a peaceful mind, Unchained from Mammon, finally free, To embrace life's deeper mystery.
In the House of the Lord we devout our lives.
Each narrow fiscal year brings new tithes.
My family is hungry, my daughters are cold.
Clasped hands pray above an idol of gold.
We pray for prosperity, of which we were not blessed.
This condition is reserved for those who are His best.
"All are made to toil", the priest assures me yet.
The Lord requires extravagence, and I gave at His behest.
Fine silks, linens, and furs given freely to confer
our love for Him is beyond superb.
His steps bound over us, unrequited and unperturbed.
In the House of the Lord we devout our lives.
Souls transmute to gold, a baby's monetized cry.
Helpless towards each other, under His watchful eye.
Mammon's grip grows as our humanity dies.
No AI is gonna pick up a drill and some screws and put together these cabinets I'm installing today. In fact AI has zero use cases for me in construction. Absolutely nothing it can do.
Right because there definitely won't ever be machines that can assemble things. Just tell that to the dozen factory workers who were put out of a job by a single robotic arm 20 years ago
I think it's going to be interesting to watch machine labor continue to evolve.
Currently we have factories full of dedicated machines which specialize in a limited number of tasks. This makes sense because mass production involves doing a limited variety of jobs in a controlled environment, as part of a process that only rarely changes. A more general purpose robot adds little value.
Where things get interesting is when you leave the factory. New construction shares similarities to factory production. You have a mostly controlled environment, a predictable process, and most variables within a given job can be planned for in advance. But you can't throw a house or office building on an assembly line and move it past stationary robot arms. Which means that machines need to be light and mobile enough to move around a building throughout the process. And without the assembly line, extreme specialization is less practical. Better to have one machine that handles each stage of construction, as opposed to many machines which are only capable of a single task.
I could see some future prototype robot acting as an assistant, and slowly taking over more and more tasks. As it becomes more refined, its performance becomes more reliable, and we move more and more towards autonomous operation with human oversight.
The greater challenge is leaving the controlled environment of a construction site and into the real world. Going into some hundred year old building and assessing the existing condition, formulating a plan of action, and the executing that plan (adapting to unexpected complications along the way) is so much more complex and demanding. It's entirely possible for AI to get to the point where it can do that, but it's going to be a much longer journey.
Still, I could picture a more advanced version of that construction robot following a plumber or electrician and providing assistance while learning as it observes. As these trade bots expand their pool of knowledge and experience, they could gain the ability to recognize similarities to previous issues, and may learn to analyze and propose solutions which can be approved by a human on site. With each successful task, the machines get a little closer to functioning autonomously.
With a complex enough AI, we really could reach a point where the only jobs performed by humans are the ones where we value the human involvement. AI politicians probably aren't on the agenda, and there will always be a demand for human sex work. So if nothing else, know that there will always be a job out there for those who specialize in fucking the people.
But you can't throw a house or office building on an assembly line and move it past stationary robot arms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabricated_home
See modular and panelized homes
Yes, you can make a building from pieces that were produced on an assembly line. But the vast majority of construction doesn't happen that way. And even those require labor to assemble.
My point was that the stationary robot arm you see putting cars together make sense in a factory setting, but that it wouldn't be so practical on a job site compared to something less specialized and more versatile.
Give it a few more years. Robotics isn't some flash-in-the-pan fad. It's constantly improving in all kinds of ways. Just look at those Boston Dynamics dogs and leggy bois.
Of particular note is the fact that robotics advancements are part of one of the most powerful forces in the world right now: the military-industrial complex. So today it might be some weapons contractor inventing a drone that can navigate slightly more complex terrain in a bombed-out village, but tomorrow those same technological advancements are going to power the McMansion Assembler 3000.
Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
**Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled. Some current prefab home designs include architectural details inspired by postmodernism or futurist architecture.
"Prefabricated" may refer to buildings built in components (e. g. panels), modules (modular homes) or transportable sections (manufactured homes), and may also be used to refer to mobile homes, i.**
^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^
I'm not American but I guarantee an AI could do over 95% of my job (techops/devops datacenter). It's only a matter of time until the upper pencil pushers realise this as well.
As an aside, I know my future isn't in IT anymore, looking for an exit atm.
About the only jobs I believe to be AI-resistant are trade jobs. Until robotics catches up with AI (in regards to how capable it is in replacing humans) there won't be much use for AI in the trades except maybe as a reference tool. That would still lower the pay of the job (little skill required, just ask the AI what to do next) but at least AI can't actually do the thing because you can't digitize the flow of water or the laying of tiles.
Research is also fairly AI resistant. You need people coming up with ideas and be able to verify anything AI says, and conduct thorough experiments.
Ever heard of robots? You can't make the real world digital but you can certainly give computers access to the physical world.
I feel like exit from IT is the wrong move tbh. Senior workers will reap the rewards it's the newbies who are getting into IT now are potentially in trouble.
There will be new job possibilities and niches and AI will just empower people. Suddenly one person can launch and grow a startup which tbh not really possible today even if you're a straight up genius. Problems will be solved faster and competition will drastically raise the quality of all software.
Maybe, but I'm already getting on in years and my expertise is mediocre at best. I'm by no means intelligent enough to figure out LLM's myself so I need to be able to sidestep that gaping hole in my experience/future. I mean, I'm 40 years old and still doing support (for 15+ years now). If I could've escaped the helpdesk I probably would have by now. Besides, my heart's not in it anymore. I used to be very excited about new technologies and developments and now I just feel like a boomer who can't keep up with the younger generations anymore.
Nah, it's time for this old dog to find another stomping grounds. I can feel my time nearing its end (career-wise).
It’ll never happen. AI will know to switch to metric and timestamp things using the correct format.
Meaning 1/3 of Americans don't realize that AI could replace them.
/Sarcasm (at least for now)
I mean yeah. But can you really trust the judgment of someone whose job could be done an AI?
Actually even a monkey could do it