OK but Maynard James Keenan said that some say we’ll see Armageddon soon; certainly hope we will. I sure could use a vacation from this bullshit three ring circus sideshow.
Comment on Bill Gates warns AI will take over most jobs and leave humans working just two days a week
tal@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
That’s possible.
That being said, Maynard Keynes also made a similar prediction:
The economist John Maynard Keynes once wrote an essay titled “Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren.” It was 1930. And in the essay, he made a startling prediction. Keynes figured that by the time his children had grown up, basically now, people might be working just 15 hours a week.
The specific quote:
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
“Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” (1930); appeared in the Nation and Athenaeum (1930)
Basically, had we decided to leave our standard of living where it was in 1930, we could have worked two days a week. But…that’s not generally what people wanted to do. We wanted to take advantage of new stuff that people produced to appeal to us, jack up our standard of living.
In the past, we’ve always managed to come up with new, appealing things that wind up making use of that new productive capacity. Climate control or anime video games or more space per person in housing.
Is it possible that in the future, we will be unable to make use of scarce human labor to provide something that humans want? Maybe! And that’s something to think about. But simply the fact that human labor is finite, that things that involve human labor can be used like a status symbol, might itself fill the problem. We shall see.
One thing that I do agree with is that transition from the world of to day to a world with AGI is going to be a very disruptive transition.
individual@toast.ooo 2 weeks ago
PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
The one thing that this whole analysis is missing is this: There is a ton of work to do. The oceans are dying. The planet is boiling. The garbage is stacking up, endless and endless. There are crimes big and small going undiscovered, or un-processed and dealt with in a trustworthy fashion if they are discovered. There are wars, there are dangerous materials that need to be removed from the soil and the rivers, and the policies need to be set up and enforced to stop their cousins from replacing them within the year. WE’RE NOT FUCKING DONE. This illusion is wholly wrong, that capitalism has created that it is fine to drive the car off the cliff, as long as we keep paying salaries and dividends up until the moment of impact comes
Yes, we’ve gotten more effecient and powerful in our ability to translate a human into an effective change in conditions at the earth’s surface. But the problems have gotten bigger, too, and more urgent to the point that they threaten our entire species. Just because we can now keep growing the food and doing layout for the advertisements with only 15 hours a week, doesn’t mean that’s all we need to fucking do.