Unlike other methods of automation, AI is replacing human beings too fast. And before you say, "new jobs will be created" -- look at history. After the computer, new jobs have been created, but what kind of jobs? Every year, we are becoming more entwined in wage slavery as the wealth accumulates at the top and jobs become more meaningless.
So, no, new jobs will not be created, except the kind of jobs that crush the human spirit into oblivion so that the rich tech oligarchs can play God.
Calling something a fallacy does not mean it truly is one. I have not seen strong evidence that there is not a "lump of labor" in extremely high-rent countries like the US.
For a sufficiently small period of time, there absolutely is a "lump of labor". If I were to go into a county with robots and rent them out to employers for 1/4 of the wage of their current employees, and they all fired their employees and accepted my robots, do you really believe that all of ex-employees would be able to find work again within 6 months? Or even 70% of them? What about their new wages? Do you think these new jobs would pay as well? I have a hard time believing that to be the case.
There are a number of misconceptions when it comes to the lump of labor fallacy. The prevalent one is confusing the small and the big picture.
If a factory introduces automation, no doubt that the resulting job losses are a problem that must be addressed.
However, the lump of labor refers to the big picture - in the same time span, other jobs are created elsewhere. If they weren't, considering that automation started at least 200 years ago (in the most limited sense of the term), the whole planet would be out of jobs by now.
Who's upset here about the hordes of horse manure cleaners that lost their jobs due to the advent of cars? Does anyone miss the stench of a 1800s street in the summer heat?
No.
Lets ask the influencers, the twitch celebs, the podcasters id they would prefer to shovel horse crap, or play with their e-device all day.
And to be completely fair, the manufacturing jobs may be gone because elected leaders were told it was OK export the vast majority of those jobs (millions) abroad, where labor doesn't have govt benefits or red tape. This makes new jobs go to foreigners instead of staying stateside.
So, we all save a few pennies on each item made in china and sold on Amazon, at the price of nuking all US craftsmanship and artisans.
This is really aggressively reductive. Job elimination isn't entirely about people who were sweeping up horse dung, and the new jobs aren't all comfy podcasting and influencer gigs.
The job elimination can mean people who spent decades honing a craft and no longer have any realistic job opportunities at a remotely equivalent pay level, and have no path into a new career because they're now decades behind (or too old to realistically train up a new skill if they're a physical laborer). Sure, it's progress, but it's weird to imply that all the labor that's being eliminated lacks value or artistry.
And the new jobs are frequently things like acting as a babysitter for an AI or sitting in a call center pressing buttons. Certainly, this is also "work", but if we're comparing it to shoveling horse manure I wouldn't necessarily consider it elevated much even if it's more comfortable.
> Lets ask the influencers, the twitch celebs, the podcasters id they would prefer to shovel horse crap, or play with their e-device all day.
That reads like the premise of a joke: “What’s the difference between a manure cleaner and a social media influencer? The former reduces the amount of shit in your life, the latter adds to it”.
Preferences aside, if we take into account both physical and mental damage, I wonder which job is more harmful. Not only to the practitioner, but society in general. I’m not advocating for bringing back the job of horse manure cleaner, but I don’t think social media influencer should be a job either.
> Who's upset here about the hordes of horse manure cleaners that lost their jobs due to the advent of cars?
False dichotomy. Not every modern-day twitch celeb would be shoveling manure. And another false dichotomy: I was not arguing for either NOW or THE TIME before cars. And I wonder how many people would trade their modern influence job for shoveling manure in return for living in an area with cleaner air. Also, ask the question again to people living NEXT to tire factories that stink and whose only job is collecting garbage NOW like bottles from trash because they don't have enough education to get a proper job.
Besides, I am one of those "influencers" -- not exactly on Twitch, but a full-time content creator. And I WOULD go back to those times.
Why is it that every time I bring up the dangers of technology, some techie HAS to bring up cars versus manure shovelers, as if that settles every argument about the dangers of technology? Rather intellectually stifled, I feel. And rejecting technology doesn't mean going back to the way things WERE; rather it means making changes NOW to go to a NEW future that has less technology.
You're setting an extremely obnoxious tone by capitalizing random words like that. I suggest that you edit your post if you want to be taken seriously.
I would call the neighbour playing rap and full volume 'extremely obnoxious'. It's hard to believe that a few capitalized words would fall under the same category. Suggestion noted.
Technology disappears when it becomes ubiquitous. It never actually becomes less, because people don't want less. I can't see for example people wanting there to be fewer lightbulbs, or even refrigerators (mainly for those in warm areas). Everybody wants safe lighting and their food unspoiled after a day (once exposed to these things), and likely won't consider the means to be "tech". And it only improves over time. AI is just another tech that's in the early stage but also on it's way to ubiquity.
I do, the Amish do, and quite a few other people against technology DO want less. In fact, even ordinary people (non-techies) often tell me technology is too entrenched. What about those people ditching smartphones for dumphones. I don't think that tech improves things and I DO want less.
The general form of what you're describing ("I want product X to have less Y", in this case, tech) has been discussed by Joel Spolsky in an article about product design.
I can't find the article, but it said something around the lines of "each Microsoft Word user thinks that there are too many functionalities, and wants less".
His remark is that each user uses different functionalities, so one can't reduce a product's functionality in a way that satisfies everybody.
Everybody would sure love to have a smartphone tailored 100% to their usage, but in real world, either they accept smartphones in toto, or they just use a brick. In generalized form, the same concept applies to tech.
What do you want less of exactly? A dumbphone is still tech. Perhaps some would rather have just a land line (brings to mind that there are still places in my country without phone lines since the passage of hurricane Beryl)?
But back to the primary: is it really tech that some want less of, or the negative effects caused by its overuse/abuse? For example, IIUC the Amish are against modern tech primarily because it's changing their communities in ways they aren't fond of. But they still use tech that's not so modern, such as buggies (as opposed to just riding horses), manual plows for farming, saws and hammers for building, etc. Can anyone even go less than that? And that relative "less" only moves forward over time.
I would like fewer lightbulbs. Modern omnipresent light pollution is harmful to ourselves and our environment, and probably doesn't need to be at the level it is now for "safe lighting". It's okay to have some darkness sometimes, inside your house and inside your neighborhood.
Agreed that some darkness is OK, particularly in unused areas of a home. And there're already solutions for that, such as motion sensors.
I doubt you want much dark in a neighborhood though, particularly if there are unsavory elements potentially roaming around. A sliver of light may be the difference between someone being attacked or a home robbed.
The problem is that we are hurtling towards the unknown without a plan, driven by the “need” to make higher returns for shareholders and to capture the new market.
It may be that some new types of employment magically appear that soak up the jobs lost, but you can be sure there is no one working on solving that problem since the goal is to eliminate labor not create it.
It's not like it's mindless drudgery either. Losing as little as possible in translation while fitting within the constraints of subtitles (people can only read so fast) can be very challenging. And decent dubbing tries to approximately match the mouth movements, which puts further constraints on the translation and often requires creative text changes.
There is a point about industry size (not that many countries dub all their movies), but it is one of the intellectually more challenging professions.
Translation work is often associated with horrible working conditions and poor pay. It definitely fits OP's description of "jobs that crush the human spirit into oblivion." This might not be the case if you're a renowned translator of famous literature, but that is not representative of the majority of translators.
It takes a fluent, language specific bilingual with domain knowledge just to verify work. That's a high skilled job. It's just massively underappreciated because (same).
Voice acting (dubbing) is acting, which is a "high form of labor". In some languages/countries, most of the dubbing is performed by a few extremely good voice actors.
LLMs aren't going replace all actors or all voice actors just as they won't replace all illustrators or writers.
LLMs provide a certain level of mid/low quality content in nearly all mediums. And given that there many people producing such mid/low quality content today, LLMs will have an impact. LLMs affecting sales writers? Sure (not the best sales writers but the point is sales is mediocre but acceptable is a norm).
And say LLMs specifically. There's good evidence the technology has roughly peaked. That doesn't mean it's impact has peaked but it's indication that "all jobs at risk" might be an exaggeration.
they wont replace voice actors for that. Rather it will replace voice actors for niche languages for niche content. Just like AI generated images doesnt replace artists working on the latest pixar movie but rather lets some small blog ad an image they would never had otherwise.
But there's a lot of people who have been working as voice actors for small/medium visibility content. Toothpaste ads, Kickstarter promo videos, corporate training videos, mid-range video games... a chunk of that is going away, and it's going to hurt a bunch of people who were previously able to make a decent living off it without being a star.
In which country? Germany and France put some effort in and it’s still not great most of the time but most languages dub only in 1 or 2 voices for all characters. Just look at the ridiculous long credits of Netflix shows.
Brazil has a long history of dubbing, not only translating but also localizing tv shows and movies. In some cases the shows are actually better dubbed, because the voice actors are better at emoting than the original cast.
Anime dubs from Japanese into English are often quite good, even idiomatic (I am sure there's some license taken, say for something like <<Kill La Kill>>, but the overall result is much better for it).
the reaction is wrong. it shouldnt be "oh no, jobs are being removed" but "nice, less work more automatization, let's make sure we all benefit through less work and not only the rich with more profits"
> let's make sure we all benefit through less work and not only the rich with more profits
It's fairly clear by now that that is not what happens and that the real AI risk is not the "grey goo" one of everything being converted to nanomush, but the age-old one of landlordism soaking up all the returns to economic activity.
>...new jobs will not be created, except the kind of jobs that crush the human spirit into oblivion...
AI certainly means everyone will be able to create 'art' and as a result we'll have more art than we know what to do with, music and images are already confetti, soon so will full length 'films/movies'. That leaves anyone who can actually sing, paint, play, dance, in prime position to take up those mantles.
What do you mean by the last sentence? Isn't it the opposite? People who could do art stuff won't be able to sustain themselves using those skills anymore because those will be devalued a lot.
> After the computer, new jobs have been created, but what kind of jobs? Every year, we are becoming more entwined in wage slavery as the wealth accumulates at the top and jobs become more meaningless.
What are you talking about? Many of us have tech jobs with much more comfort, creativity and autonomy than the jobs they displaced, and computerisation has made it much more practical for those who dare to strike out their own rather than needing wealthy family or friends before you can even begin to think of starting a business.
so maybe don't cling on to "the job" so much and hoping it somehow can fulfil your life. If the job can be automated by a machine then isn't it already meaningless and mundance and bore you to death anyway?
I agree with the point about "wealth accumulates at the top" though. Maybe Karl Marx was right about a thing or 2. Maybe the distribution of wealth should not fall into the hand of non-elected corporations. Whatever it is, it should be determined by a democratic process and not some "market mechanism" that is actually just arbitrary algorithms optimized for metrics no actual human cares about.
How is it subjective? Can't terms like "replacing" and "fast" be quantified by metrics related to rates of unemployment and adoption of AI systems for tasks previously manned by humans? I'm not saying the data is readily available, but I do see a route to objectively measuring this.
I don't think generative AI is replacing humans at all. It's like how SQL replaced software engineers, with added bonus of copyright doubts gatekeeping common folks from exploiting it. It's obviously killing open Internet fast and encouraging power concentration too. It's worst of couples of worlds.
So, no, new jobs will not be created, except the kind of jobs that crush the human spirit into oblivion so that the rich tech oligarchs can play God.