Thoughts of Yore

Ruminations

It is always interesting to go back and read what you have written, what your thoughts were. I've done this with regard to my thoughts on AI.

What I wrote then has now either come to fruition or is in the process of coming to fruition. I am not an oracle or anything. It is just that I've been following AI developments long before it was cool to follow them.

And at the time, these had given me perspective on how things would be in the future. Roughly 2.5 years ago, I wrote a post about the acceleration of AI progress and the job market difficulties to come. Of course, in today's job market difficulties, there are other factors playing a part as well. Nonetheless, here we are.

With the technologies of yesteryear, they took away low-skilled jobs, and some people retired during the transition period or upskilled into new jobs. As an example, when mechanized tools like tractors became commonplace on farms, farmhands moved onto better jobs. They became office workers.

There are a ton of people who think that these AI job losses will be transitional, that we will find new jobs for people to do. I am not one of those people. Because I do not see how office workers will move onto a better job. I do not see how a better job that we invent wouldn't get automated by AI.

You should start planning for a future where you could be laid off easily.

Universal Basic Income

People scoff at the idea of UBI, but they also can't come up with an alternative to the job losses that would be created by AI.

People are losing their jobs to AI? Then they should petition for UBI. That is the only way we can lessen the pain in the short term. But they would rather petition to stop data center build-up, the use of AI, or whatever else they think of. People are like that sometimes; they do not like a solution if it creates a benefit for people they do not want to receive that benefit, even if they would also benefit.

And that is how it is with UBI, an initiative that certainly will benefit everyone, which is dismissed under stupid pretenses.

Would UBI be costly? Most likely, it would. But don't you think that destabilization of our society would be costlier?

People can dismiss everything I've written today if they wish. They can try to resist the progress of AI. Reality will not care, we passed the critical threshold long ago. If the future ahead is one of greater displacement and greater instability, then the least we can do is to stop pretending that old answers will solve our future problems.