Hindsight is 20/20. Besides, what good is panicking? It won’t help with the inevitable; better to adapt and save for it.
> the tools that make the problem require better tools to solve them
You’ve found the opening :-)
I'm not worried about myself, I've had a lot of luck in my life for which I'm super greatful. But I'm also quite aware of the exceptional position that puts me in and how many people are not so fortunate that they could probably live on their savings for the rest of their life if things ground to a halt.
Most people live paycheck to paycheck, or they may have a few thousand bucks in savings at most. They've worked hard all their lives and simply were never in a position to save enough against this kind of eventuality because the deck was stacked against them.
Have a heart, and realize that barring a couple of unfortunate moves it could be you looking at your last 500 bucks with rent due and a couple of mouths to feed.
I agree, but I'd like to think these people come from a optimistic point of view.
A lot of people don't seem to understand that the "human in the loop" is exactly the thing the big AI leaders want to cut out as much as possible.
I’m sorry if it’s coming across that way. It’s not my intent, and I’m aware that many people are a lost paycheck away from a crisis.
But if you really think the right thing to do in response is to complain and commiserate, I don’t think that is helpful, either. I think it’s much better to encourage behavior that has a chance of being effective.
If you think it’s somehow wrong to encourage people to behave in such a way that has a better chance of setting them up for success, then I vehemently disagree.
> To effectively tell them... to adapt when that simply isn't an option is losing sight of the human angle.
You must have a pretty low opinion of people if you think they can’t adapt.
What if complaining and commiserating leads to fighting for political actions that lead to outcomes we like better?
This thread is not designed for discussion? I'm not even sure what that means. If the sentiments expressed in this thread lead to people discussing the same topic elsewhere, does it matter what this thread is "designed for"?
> 2/I’m not sure what outcome you’re contemplating
What does that have to do with anything? I'm responding to a comment complaining about the fact that others were complaining about a narrowly envisioned future which seems, to them, inevitable. I'm merely pointing out that the dissenting opinions could have value to individuals who want different outcomes from the ones predicted.
It means that that’s not where the conservation in this thread is going, and in my experience on HN, almost never does. There’s no organizing going on here. It’s not even clear what a group of organized people would fight for based on the conversations here.
Finally, I’m not telling people they can’t commiserate or complain. It’s an open forum for people to speak their minds. However, that freedom cuts both ways; people are equally allowed and encouraged to have contrarian views that are respected.
How do you know there aren't people organizing after discussing something online and realizing there are others out there who agree with them? You assume, but you don't know.
And yet, you speak confidently, as though you do know. What's with that?
I’m not going to produce a laundry list of how it’s already impacting engineering productivity and practice. You can look that up yourself.
That's because you don't have one.
I work for a big tech company. My org is being asked to be more judicious with AI usage because there is no evidence that it improves productivity and is in fact slowing some work down. Recent studies back this up. It is affecting practice, not productivity.
> The fear and anxiety are driven by some people’s natural responses to that, as they see it, too.
How do you separate that out as the cause of the anxiety, when the leaders of AI companies are actively fearmongering about the power of their technology?