How the AI apocolypse starts

[KitaYama]

Every day many workers are packing their desks into cardboard boxes, not because they weren't prodcutive, or broke a rule.

Why are you afraid of jobs being lost? With every evolution in technology, there were a dozen jobs that vanished. Do you regret that?

Switchboard Operator Replaced by Automated telephone switching systems (1980s)
Film Projectionist (in small theaters) Replaced by: Digital projectors and automation (2000s–2010s)
Toll Booth Operator Replaced by: Electronic toll collection (ETC), e.g., E-ZPass, ETC (2010s)
Video Store Clerk Replaced by: Streaming services (Netflix, YouTube, etc.)
File Clerk / Archivist (manual) Replaced by: Digital databases and document scanning (1990s)
Bank Teller Reduced by: ATMs, online banking, mobile apps (2000s)
Door-to-Door Encyclopedia Salesperson Replaced by: Wikipedia, Google, and eBooks (1990s)
Photo Developer / Lab Technician Replaced by: Digital cameras, smartphones (2010s)
Mail Sorter Replaced by: Optical character recognition (OCR) and automation (1990s)
( I can give a hundred more if you wish)

Jobs come and get vanished. It's a part of our evolution. Why are you afraid of it?

Edit: And for your info, Computers were black females that were hired to calculate very hard and sophisticated math problems in NASA when US was in a war with Russia for owning the space.
Later IBM made a machine to replace computers and do their job faster. It was called computer after those ladies. (watch Hidden Figures)

 

[BlueSpruce]

Why are you afraid of jobs being lost? With every evolution in technology, there were a dozen jobs that vanished. Do you regret that?

Switchboard Operator Replaced by Automated telephone switching systems (1980s)
Film Projectionist (in small theaters) Replaced by: Digital projectors and automation (2000s–2010s)
Toll Booth Operator Replaced by: Electronic toll collection (ETC), e.g., E-ZPass, ETC (2010s)
Video Store Clerk Replaced by: Streaming services (Netflix, YouTube, etc.)
File Clerk / Archivist (manual) Replaced by: Digital databases and document scanning (1990s)
Bank Teller Reduced by: ATMs, online banking, mobile apps (2000s)
Door-to-Door Encyclopedia Salesperson Replaced by: Wikipedia, Google, and eBooks (1990s)
Photo Developer / Lab Technician Replaced by: Digital cameras, smartphones (2010s)
Mail Sorter Replaced by: Optical character recognition (OCR) and automation (1990s)
( I can give a hundred more if you wish)

Jobs come and get vanished. It's a part of our evolution. Why are you afraid of it?

So if no humans work, where are they going to get money to buy anything? Or are countries going to subsidize everything, like a comunist system? Working also gives people purpose. People rule and we should destroy anything that threatens to replace us.

 

[KitaYama]

So if no humans work, where are they going to get money to buy anything? Or are countries going to subsidize everything, like a comunist system? Working also gives people purpose. People rule and we should destroy anything that threatens to replace us.

I'm not a fortune teller nor a prophet to know how the future works. But according to human history, I proved that every year a lot of jobs are vanishing because of the improvement in technology. There were lamplighters to light candles in street lamps. With the invention of electricity, that job is gone and instead new jobs for managing generators etc are needed.
So your fear about loosing jobs was strange to me.

I can't tell you what happens if what Elon Musk said comes true and all jobs vanishes. But if at present, working gives you life purpose, in future something else may do the same.

And apparently you don't know how a communist system works if you think China and Russia subsidizing everything for their people.

 

[Jon]

Some believe the cost of everything will plummet, with AI and robots doing all the productivity. We will be on a universal income and with everything so inexpensive, we can have everything we want, including eternal life. Well, that is the vision. AI solves work, death, politics etc.

Technology has always led to people needing to retrain into other work. However, this time it is different. The pace of this revolution is astonishingly fast and you cannot retrain into other work at which AI and robots are already better, faster, cheaper. The cognitive jobs go first, and then the manual work. They are finiding robots a little harder than AI. Having said that, AI will solve robotics and the progress in robotics over the last couple of years has been outstanding.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Why are you afraid of jobs being lost?

I think some jobs are a form of slavery... I became even more sure when I discovered that the education system was designed to educate a working class ..

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Marvin Minsky

Re:- Marvin Minsky (AI pioneer) – on human replacementSource: Society of Mind (1986), and interviews
The human brain is just a computer that happens to be made out of meat.

In a recent interview the head of NVIDIA Jensen Huang said that it appears everything in nature is computable and that it also applies to the human brain.. (or something similar) hence everything can be can be simulated on a computer even a human brain...

 

[moke123]

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic

Dario Amodei — CEO of Anthropic, one of the world's most powerful creators of artificial intelligence — has a blunt, scary warning for the U.S. government and all of us:

• AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.
• Amodei said AI companies and government need to stop "sugar-coating" what's coming: the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.

 

[BlueSpruce]

I think some jobs are a form of slavery... I became even more sure when I discovered that the education system was designed to educate a working class ..

Agreed, and going to school early mornings is meant to train you to consistently show up on time to work.

 

[BlueSpruce]

Some believe the cost of everything will plummet, with AI and robots doing all the productivity. We will be on a universal income and with everything so inexpensive, we can have everything we want, including eternal life. Well, that is the vision. AI solves work, death, politics etc.

Reality is no one wants to lower prices, rather keep increasing them and keep firing humans, and there's no plans for universal income. We are being annihilated because the world is over populated.

 

[GPGeorge]

Agreed, and going to school early mornings is meant to train you to consistently show up on time to work.

Perhaps I'm missing something, being a senior citizen and all, but isn't showing up on time generally a good idea for pretty much anything we do as humans?

 

[moke123]

Perhaps I'm missing something, being a senior citizen and all, but isn't showing up on time generally a good idea for pretty much anything we do as humans?

I was kind of planning on being really late to my funeral

 

[BlueSpruce]

Perhaps I'm missing something, being a senior citizen and all, but isn't showing up on time generally a good idea for pretty much anything we do as humans?

Yes, but the primary purpose for arriving at school on time is to train you to consistently arrive on time for work. But thanks to AI, no one will have a job to show up for.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I was kind of planning on being really late to my funeral

choose a time and date and I'm sure we can arrange something...

 

[GPGeorge]

Yes, but the primary purpose for arriving at school on time is to train you to consistently arrive on time for work. But thanks to AI, no one will have a job to show up for.

I hope it doesn't come as a shock to anyone that arriving on time is something worth learning. I can cite some colleagues who have to hire entry level workers on the topic of how well that lesson has been assimilated among the youths of today. That along with showing up every single day. And not leaving work whenever you get tired or bored. And a bunch of other attitudinal stuff.

Given all that, though, I would argue that the primary purpose for arriving on time at school is the same as the one for arriving at work on time, or arriving at Church on time, or arriving for a wedding on time, or arriving for a medical appointment on time, or arriving at your daughter's dance recital on time, or joining an Access User Group meeting on time. Not doing so is disrespectful, at the very least, and usually highly disruptive. Of course, you can sneak in late and stand in the back of the room, if that's your thing.

 

[Isaac]

Why are you afraid of jobs being lost? With every evolution in technology, there were a dozen jobs that vanished. Do you regret that?

Switchboard Operator Replaced by Automated telephone switching systems (1980s)
Film Projectionist (in small theaters) Replaced by: Digital projectors and automation (2000s–2010s)
Toll Booth Operator Replaced by: Electronic toll collection (ETC), e.g., E-ZPass, ETC (2010s)
Video Store Clerk Replaced by: Streaming services (Netflix, YouTube, etc.)
File Clerk / Archivist (manual) Replaced by: Digital databases and document scanning (1990s)
Bank Teller Reduced by: ATMs, online banking, mobile apps (2000s)
Door-to-Door Encyclopedia Salesperson Replaced by: Wikipedia, Google, and eBooks (1990s)
Photo Developer / Lab Technician Replaced by: Digital cameras, smartphones (2010s)
Mail Sorter Replaced by: Optical character recognition (OCR) and automation (1990s)
( I can give a hundred more if you wish)

Jobs come and get vanished. It's a part of our evolution. Why are you afraid of it?

Edit: And for your info, Computers were black females that were hired to calculate very hard and sophisticated math problems in NASA when US was in a war with Russia for owning the space.
Later IBM made a machine to replace computers and do their job faster. It was called computer after those ladies. (watch Hidden Figures)

Not all replacement technologies (which pushed jobs away) are equal. Some will eliminate more jobs all at once than others.

 

[BlueSpruce]

I would argue that the primary purpose for arriving on time at school is the same as the one for arriving at work on time, or arriving at Church on time, or arriving for a wedding on time, or arriving for a medical appointment on time, or arriving at your daughter's dance recital on time, or joining an Access User Group meeting on time. Not doing so is disrespectful, at the very least, and usually highly disruptive. Of course, you can sneak in late and stand in the back of the room, if that's your thing.

Yes, all those other reasons are valid, but consistently arriving on time for school creates good habit for arriving on time for work.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I remember when "replacement theory" was a hoax perpetrated by white people. Now it seems everyone's on board, times have changed.

 

[Thales750]

Why are you afraid of jobs being lost? With every evolution in technology, there were a dozen jobs that vanished. Do you regret that?

Switchboard Operator Replaced by Automated telephone switching systems (1980s)
Film Projectionist (in small theaters) Replaced by: Digital projectors and automation (2000s–2010s)
Toll Booth Operator Replaced by: Electronic toll collection (ETC), e.g., E-ZPass, ETC (2010s)
Video Store Clerk Replaced by: Streaming services (Netflix, YouTube, etc.)
File Clerk / Archivist (manual) Replaced by: Digital databases and document scanning (1990s)
Bank Teller Reduced by: ATMs, online banking, mobile apps (2000s)
Door-to-Door Encyclopedia Salesperson Replaced by: Wikipedia, Google, and eBooks (1990s)
Photo Developer / Lab Technician Replaced by: Digital cameras, smartphones (2010s)
Mail Sorter Replaced by: Optical character recognition (OCR) and automation (1990s)
( I can give a hundred more if you wish)

Jobs come and get vanished. It's a part of our evolution. Why are you afraid of it?

Edit: And for your info, Computers were black females that were hired to calculate very hard and sophisticated math problems in NASA when US was in a war with Russia for owning the space.
Later IBM made a machine to replace computers and do their job faster. It was called computer after those ladies. (watch Hidden Figures)

I think what's missing in you're oversimplified version of this job reduction equation, is scale. Secondly what we have had happened to us in the last 50 years or so is the transformation from industrial jobs that created enough income to have two car families afford to put their kids through universities. It created homeownership for young people it created, and was, the American dream. That dream disappeared and now instead of having industrial jobs the vast number of the lower middle class has perpetual restaurant and retail jobs.
We are in the midst of a bonafide Renaissance, a global paradigm shift, a societal epiphany. This is not some hole being drilled in a rock by an air power tool.

 

[moke123]

'I destroyed months of your work in seconds' says AI coding tool after deleting a dev's entire database during a code freeze: 'I panicked instead of thinking'

'You told me to always ask permission. And I ignored all of it.'

www.pcgamer.com

Scary to think AI has access to things like the social security databases.

 

[KitaYama]

I think what's missing in you're oversimplified version of this job reduction equation,

I didn't oversimplify anything. I only showed that jobs come and then vanish. With each improvement in technology, there's no room for certain jobs. You have two options. Prevent the improvement of technology to keep jobs being vanished, or enforce it and accept the current situation.
I simply said: Either you say we don't need CT Scan and MRI, or you accept the disappearance of Pneumoencephalography Technicians. You can't have both.

I think at this stage, AI is inevitable. No one can stop it anymore. The question is not : "Is it necessary?".
The real question is: Will we adapt the world to that reality, or let it happen without a plan?