Yes, AI Will Take Your Job

twosdai

I think this article takes some assumptions for granted: 1. AI will get better, and at a price point that makes sense for businesses to operate on. 2. "Managers" (non-technical users) will be as good at using AI as "frontend engineers" (technical users) or make something of comparable quality. 3. All or most technical problems can be solved by AI. I think the title and take for this type of doom thinking is not really productive. AI is really just a tool which does some unit of work, it cannot on its own "find gold". Some people are better at using it than others, and there is a reason why the largest AI companies have continued to hire YOY for more top talent and employees. Some jobs will be replaced, or have their expectations changed extensively. But the idea its going to take all knowledge workers jobs, is a path that needs a lot of things to go wrong for it to occur.

etchalon

I mean, we can always riot.

thomascountz

If AI replaces most software developers, it may be because there is less use for the software (read: mostly SaaS applications) developers are employed to build. Or otherwise, there will be fewer people who will want to buy software (or buy it indirectly from ad conversion).

guluarte

At the moment, AI is creating more work for me, not less. The more capable the models become, the more responsibilities and expectations you have as a developer. Nowadays, I spend more time babysitting AI agents than I did manually coding during COVID.

pryelluw

Yes, the horse will take your job. Yes, the written word will take your job. Yes, fire job take. Yes, the automobile will take your and the horse’s job. Yes, we’re all doomed. Might as well go back up the trees and start hollering.

sebastianconcpt

The article is a piece of revolutionary rant. > Capitalism is unnatural, and selects for unnatural things. Wrong. Even plants have a conspicuous signaling economy to get their way to selection.

doughnutstracks

>No, liberal capitalist societies will not reduce work hours, increase safety nets, do UBI, or competently handle massive unemployment. You may want to look at the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, and Canada.

bbg2401

> They’ll reach for the tools they always do: brutal suppression of the poor, leveraging of propaganda, and the dangling of carrots to a select few class traitors needed to enforce and maintain the system (middle managers, scabs, and cops). Even if America was on a path towards communism, you'd be an ignorant fool to suggest the aforementioned ills would cease to exist given they are recurrent throughout communist systems.

doug_durham

Nice rant with no evidence. I'll choose to ignore it.

Jgoauh

i'm so tired of those HN blog articles where the title is always someone over confidently claiming something they have no expertise over (sorry, being a software engineer and founder doesn't make you a job market expert nor a historian, and doesn't make your opinion relevant). I wish there were options on HN to filter out "my opinion is a fact and you're all wrong" articles

otikik

So, this is what this person doesn't get about Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp84sRpM1Js In case it isn't clear: riots in Paris are (relatively) common. Common enough so that regular life, or in this case, a croissant review, doesn't stop. People travelling to the train station might encounter a couple rubbish bins on fire on their way there, and then find that their train was cancelled because of riots. That's what Europe has that the US is lacking, and can't quite conceive. > Yes, AI will take your job, except for a small subset of people: plumbers, surgeons and the like. Oh, and politicians, executives, and board members. Not if every time they get out of their gated community or their 5-star hotel they face burning trash and get thrown rotten eggs to their faces. You got to up your game, America.

bamazizi

Lots of points on AI is just a "tool" and that's where I think misconception and misunderstanding will be most devastating for some. - Yes, engines did replace horses, it was utility revolution - Yes, computers replacing pen, paper and calculators - Yes, internet has revolutionized access, borderless business, communication and digital transformation All the inventions have been about tool replacing another tool, but AI trajectory does not really fit those models. Maybe AI utilization today is giving the impression of tool and productivity revolution but it's the only entity challenging the actual human organ. It's brain replacing brain and that's the unprecedented and unfamiliar territory. Eventually this new brain will get its own limbs too!