How long before AI takes over your job?

Discussion
  • Here’s a great discussion topic, and one that is certainly close to my heart (some of you many know that whilst I’m not completely adverse to AI, I am concerned about the alarming pace it is being developed at).

    The article below goes into great depth in terms of impact, and is well with the read

    https://news.sky.com/story/artificial-intelligence-to-hit-workplace-like-a-freight-train-energy-boss-warns-12883712

    The message here is clear, but I’m interested to understand how it resonates with others. Is AI a risk to jobs once employers realize it’s full potential and ability to replace personnel? Robots do not get ill, need holidays, and do not need pensions and other benefits.

    Piqued your interest?

  • I asked Chatgpt whether it is planning to take over the jobs… and it basically says no but emphasizes collaboration between humans and AI.

    Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 17.50.29.png

  • My personal idea is that if your job can be taken over by AI, it should. In a sense, we have a lot of capabilities that AI cannot perform, so those people whose job is repetitive should focus on improving themselves.

    I would like to give “calculators” as an example. In the first civilizations, I am sure there were people whose only job was to calculate the amount of wheat, malt etc. that are collected and that should be distributed. Why not use calculators and get more efficient at this…

    Thanks to these technological improvements, we overproduced, overcreated, overgenerated, and therefore other members of society had the chance to engage in other activities such as art and science. Otherwise, we would be a primitive society in which everyone functions as “food producers” “consumers” and “protectors” ( I mean very basic functions of the society)

    Lechita Wielki Lechita GIF

  • @crazycells interesting argument, although I’m not sure it’s one I can fully agree with. I get that done jobs are repetitive, mundane, and probably executed with a higher degree of accuracy than if it were to be done manually.

    However, for some people - specifically those on low incomes, this could easily spell disaster if their jobs (the only source of income they have) are replaced by AI - or perhaps a machine. These people already live on the fringes of society, and by removing their only source of income and independence, we are effectively erasing their very existence.

    As companies across the globe look at AI to streamline existing functions and processes, it will be in the name of profit rather then the welfare of the employee currently performing that task.

    Given I earn a living from technology, my views may seem to odds. However, I believe technology should enrich lives, not replace them altogether.

  • @phenomlab although I agree with you about the problem, I do not agree with the solution. I believe we can start discussing “universal basic income” 🙂 I know it is a thing in Germany to some extent, although here in the US, we do not have such a thing. I believe this would solve the problem you mentioned, everyone could meet their basic needs, and then you can work if you want more.

    I believe we are living in an era in which this is possible. and then we can continue developing the AI technology further.

  • @crazycells yes, that I’d agree with in the sense of a basic (and liveable) income. It’s similar in the UK in the sense that you have minimum wage per hour and universal credit to top up any shortfall in income you may have.

    The US is also very different in terms of employment law. There are far less rights than the UK for example.

  • @phenomlab so, does that mean that if we can solve the basic income issue by other means, you would have no problem with AI replacing jobs it can?

  • @crazycells Yes, provided those affected could be redeployed elsewhere or re-skilled to perform other more complex jobs.

  • Here’s a BBC article around the same topic. It seems that AI has already caused job losses across the world in all sectors.

    The only organisation to effectively restain staff by training then deployment into the other areas of the business is IKEA.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65906521

  • Interesting article. Here, script writers voice their concerns around AI replacing them and their primary income

    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66289583

    This particular article does have my support. Script writers for movies can spend years in creating a million dollar generating script, and you only have to look at some of the undisputed classics that have cult status, effectively making them living legends - and they earned that right.

    However, with the onset of AI, their very means of income and stature is under threat. Then, there’s the inevitable plagiarism argument which we’ve already seen example of from two recent cases involving authors who insist that their work has been copied by AI.

  • @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    “universal basic income” 🙂 I know it is a thing in Germany

    It’s been a few days since your post but I’d like to add that we don’t have a universal basic income in Germany. What we have are unemployment benefits, provided by the Federal Employment Agency to cover you while you look for a job. I don’t think we are going to see something like universal basic income as politicans are scared that people could stop working.

    Back to topic, I’m not sure that I could be replaced as a software developer some day by AI. What I’m sure about is that the work will dramatically change. The focus will be more on reviewing machine-written code than on coding itself.

  • @dave1904 said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    The focus will be more on reviewing machine-written code than on coding itself.

    I’d agree with this. We are seeing more code written by AI these days, although I don’t think anyone is truly “safe” or exempt from being replaced eventually. Perhaps in a hundred years, but then I personally won’t care anyway!

  • @phenomlab said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    I don’t think anyone is truly “safe” or exempt from being replaced eventually. Perhaps in a hundred years, but then I personally won’t care anyway!

    I agree. In my estimation as for software developing for our lifetime there have to be people explaining AI what to do and reviewing everything. And that are the people who did the job before. Perhaps you would need less of those. You can not predict it but these are exciting times.

  • @dave1904 said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    “universal basic income” 🙂 I know it is a thing in Germany

    It’s been a few days since your post but I’d like to add that we don’t have a universal basic income in Germany. What we have are unemployment benefits, provided by the Federal Employment Agency to cover you while you look for a job. I don’t think we are going to see something like universal basic income as politicans are scared that people could stop working.

    Back to topic, I’m not sure that I could be replaced as a software developer some day by AI. What I’m sure about is that the work will dramatically change. The focus will be more on reviewing machine-written code than on coding itself.

    thanks for the explanation; actually, from my viewpoint, there is not much difference between unemployed benefits in Germany and universal basic income… just some technicalities 🙂 so, I understand your explanation but my point there was how easy it is to get in Germany, so it is almost the same as UBI, however, it is very hard to get any benefits in the US, you have to show a lot of proof that you have been working, and you had to leave not because of your fault and you are actively looking for work. Being from Turkey and living in the US, I know many people getting this benefit in Germany, but know no one in the US 😄

  • @phenomlab what about SEO friendly articles coming from AI 🙂

    Is there any way to distinguish? I hope Bing takes over Google so we have various methods to calculate this, right now everyone only cares about how Google is calculating this index, I hope we do not have to deal with these fake pages…

    For some time now, I started to skip the first part of the google search results (I use startpage) , since they are usually junk pages that hacked the calculation method and has no information in it.

  • @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    it is very hard to get any benefits in the US, you have to show a lot of proof that you have been working

    Very easy in the UK - all you have to do is simply arrive! And yes, that is said with the cynicism that was intended.

  • @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    Is there any way to distinguish?

    I don’t think there is currently - although doesn’t having AI written articles detract from the human element?

    @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    For some time now, I started to skip the first part of the google search results (I use startpage) , since they are usually junk pages that hacked the calculation method and has no information in it.

    Funny you should mention this. I’ve also noticed that the top results returned on the first page always seem to be the worst (dependant on the content you are searching for of course). I suspect it’s possible to “buy your way” into the Google Search ecosystem like it seems to be with everything else.

  • @phenomlab yeap, I totallay understand this… And this was what I was talking about… it is so easy to get these benefits in some countries that there is almost no difference between UBI and these benefits…

  • @phenomlab yeah, I also experience the same thing, and I am not talking about sponsored content. Those are easy pass for me 😄

  • @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    it is so easy to get these benefits in some countries that there is almost no difference between UBI and these benefits…

    Yes, agreed - far too easy. It’s a running “joke” in the UK, but it’s not actually funny when taxpayers have to foot the bill.


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    @crazycells I’m totally unsurprised by any of this. Musk is well known for creating schemes meaning that he profits out of pretty much anything these days.

    Whilst I admire the business acumen, I certainly don’t agree with the ethics.

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    @phenomlab lol yeap, very smart… I read it and immediately ask the same question to ChatGPT and saved the letter sample 😄

    I might use it in the future.

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    @crazycells this perhaps? 🙂

    terminator_endoskeleton_1020.webp

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    @downpw Yes, exactly. Sudonix is about much more than NodeBB 🙂

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    expert.webp
    One thing I’ve seen a lot of over my career is the “expert” myth being touted on LinkedIn and Twitter. Originating from psychologist K. Anders Ericsson who studied the way people become experts in their fields, and then discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in the book, “Outliers“, “to become an expert it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years) of deliberate practice”. This paradigm (if you can indeed call it that) has been adopted by several so called “experts” - mostly those within the Information Security and GDPR fields. This article isn’t about GDPR (for once), but mostly those who consider themselves “experts” by virtue of the acronym. Prior to it’s implementation, nobody should have proclaimed themselves a GDPR “expert”. You cannot be an expert in something that wasn’t actually legally binding until May 25 2018, nor can you have sufficient time invested to be an expert since inception in my view. GDPR is a vast universe, and you can’t claim to know all of it.

    Consultant ? Possibly, yes. Expert ? No.

    The associated sales campaign isn’t much better, and can be aligned to the children’s book “Chicken Licken”. For those unfamiliar with this concept, here is a walkthrough. I’m sure you’ll understand why I choose a children’s story in this case, as it seems to fit the bill very well. What I’ve seen over the last 12 months had been nothing short of amazing - but not in the sense of outstanding. I could align GDPR here to the PPI claims furore - for anyone unfamiliar with what this “uprising” is, here’s a synopsis.

    The “expert” fallacy

    Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) is the insurance sold alongside credit cards, loans and other finance agreements to ensure payments are made if the borrower is unable to make them due to sickness or unemployment. The PPI scandal has its roots set back as far as 1998, although compensatory payments did not officially start until 2011 once the review and court appeal process was completed. Since the deadline for PPI claims has been announced as August 2019, the campaign has become intensively aggressive, with, it would seem, thousands of PPI “experts”. Again, I would question the authenticity of such a title. It seems that everyone is doing it, therefore, it must be easy to attain (a bit like the CISSP then). I witnessed the same shark pool of so called “experts” before, back in the day when Y2K was the latest buzzword on everyone’s lips. Years of aggressive selling campaigns and similarly, years of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt - more effectively known as complete bulls…) caused an unprecedented spike that allowed companies and consultants (several of whom had never been heard of before) to suddenly appear out of the woodwork and assume the identity of “experts” in this field. In reality, it’s not possible to be a subject matter expert in a particular field or niche market unless you have extensive experience. If you compare a weapons expert to a GDPR “expert”, you’ll see just how weak this paradigm actually is. A weapons expert will have years of knowledge in a field, and could probably tell you which gun discharged a bullet just by looking at the expended shell casing. I very much doubt a self styled GDPR expert can tell you what will happen in the event of an unknown scenario around the framework and the specific legal rights (in terms of the individual who the data belongs to) and implications for the institution affected. How can they when nobody has even been exposed to such a scenario before ? This makes a GDPR expert in my view about as plausible as a Brexit expert specialising in Article 50.

    What defines an expert ?

    The focal point here is in the comparison. A weapons expert can be given a gun and a sample of shell casings, then asked to determine if the suspected weapon actually fired the supplied ammunition or not. Using a process of proven identification techniques, the expert can then determine if the gun provided is indeed the origin. This information is derived by using established identity techniques from the indentations and markings in the shell casing created by the gun barrel from which the bullet was expelled, velocity, angle, and speed measurements obtained from firing the weapon. The impact of the bullet and exit damage is also analysed to determine a match based on material and critical evidence. Given the knowledge and experience level required to produce such results, how long do you think it took to reach this unrivalled plateau ? An expert isn’t solely based on knowledge. It’s not solely based on experience either. In fact, it’s a deep mixture of both. Deep in the sense of the subject matter comprehension, and how to execute that same understanding along with real life experience to obtain the optimum result. Here’s an example   An information technology expert should be able to

    Identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks Address security concerns, Design high availability Factor in extensible scalability Consider risk to adjacent and disparate technology and conduct analysis Ensure that any design proposal meets both the current criteria and beyond Understand the business need for technology and be able to support it

    If I leveraged external consultancy for a project, I’d expect all of the above and probably more from anyone who labels themselves as an expert - or for that fact, an architect. Sadly, I’ve been disappointed on numerous occasions throughout my career where it became evident very quickly that the so called expert (who I hasten to add is earning more an hour than I do in a day in most cases) hired for his “expertise and superior knowledge” in fact appears to know far less than I do about the same topic.

    How long does it really take to become an expert ?

    I’ve been in the information technology and security field since I was 16. I’m now 47, meaning 31 years experience (well, 31 as this year isn’t over yet). If you consider that experience is acquired during an 8 hour day, and used the following equation to determine the amount of years needed to reach 10,000 hours

    10000 / 8 / 365 = 3.4246575342 - for the sake of simple mathematics, let’s say 3.5 years.

    However, in the initial calculation, it’s 10 years (using the basis of 90 minutes invested per day) - making the expert title when aligned to GDPR even more unrealistic. As the directive was adopted on the 27 April 2016, the elapsed time period isn’t even enough to carry the first figure cited at 3.5 years, irrespective of the second. The reality here is that no amount of time invested in anything is going to make your an expert if you do not possess the prerequisite skills and a thorough understanding based on previous events in order to supplement and bolster the initial investment. I could spend 10,000 practicing a particular sport - yet effectively suck at it because my body (If you’ve met me, you’d know why) isn’t designed for the activity I’m requesting it to perform. Just because I’ve spent 10,000 hours reading about something doesn’t make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination. If I calculated the hours spanned over my career, I would arrive at the below. I’m basing this on an 8 hour day when in reality, most of my days are in fact much longer.

    31 x 365 x 8 = 90,520 hours

    Even when factoring in vacation based on 4 weeks per year (subject to variation, but I’ve gone for the mean average),

    31 x 28 X 8 = 6,944 hours to subtract

    This is only fair as you are not (supposed to be) working when on holiday. Even with this subtraction, the total is still 83,578 hours. Does my investment make me an expert ? I think so, yes - based on the fact that 31 years dedicated to one area would indicate a high level of experience and professional standard - both of which I constantly strive to maintain. Still think 10,000 hours invested makes you an expert ? You decide ! What are your views around this ?

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    @crazycells I guess the worst part for me was the trolling - made so much worse by the fact that the moderators allowed it to continue, insisting that the PeerLyst coming was seeing an example by allowing the community to “self moderate” - such a statement being completely ridiculous, and it wasn’t until someone else other than myself pointed out that all of this toxic activity could in fact be crawled by Google, that they decided to step in and start deleting posts.

    In fact, it reached a boiling point where the CEO herself had to step in and post an article stating their justification for “self moderation” which simply doesn’t work.

    The evidence here speaks for itself.

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    @Sala impressive. That’s actually a lot harder than it looks. I once worked for a trading firm in the 90s and a trader came to me with a corrupted floppy disk demanding I get it to work.

    Evidently, it had all of his trading positions on it and he had no backup 😧 and he wasn’t impressed when I told him that the chances of data recovery were less than zero.