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Comment by m_0x | Hacker News Reader

Automation does reduce the workload. But the quiet part is that reducing work means jobless people. It has happened before and it will be happening again soon. Only this time it will affect white collar jobs.

"My idea of a perfect company is one guy who sits in a small room at a desk, and the only thing he's allowed to decide is what product to launch"

CEOs and board members salivate at the idea of them being the only people that get the profits from their company.

What will be of the rest of us who don't have access to capital? They only know that it's not their problem.

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I dont think that will be the future. Maybe in the first year(s) but then it is a race to the bottom:

If it is that simple to create products more people can do it => cheaper the products.

A market driven by cheaper products that can also produce them easily is going into a price reduction loop until it reaches zero.

Thus I think something else wil happen with AI. Because what I described and what you describe is destroying the flow of capital which is the base of the economy.

Not sure what will happen. My bet (unfortunately) is on a really big mega corp that produces an AI that we all use.

It IS a race-to-the-bottom.

Products will be cheaper because they will be cheaper to produce thanks to automation. But less jobs mean less people to buy stuff, if it weren't for a credit-based society.

But I'm talking from my ass. I don't even know if there are less jobs than before. Everything seems to point that there are more jobs now than 50 years ago.

I'm just saying I feel like the telephone operators. They got replaced by a machine and who knows if they found other jobs.

It has not happened before and it will not happen again soon. Automation increases employment. Bad monetary policy and recessions decrease it.

Shareholders get the profits from corporations, not "CEOs and the board". Workers get wages. Nevertheless, US unemployment is very low right now and relatively low-paid workers are making more than they did in 2019.

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