I recently had approximately this conversation with my own employer’s HR department. We’re steadily refactoring tasks to find what can be automated, and it’s a much larger proportion of what our entry-level hires do. Current AI is an infinite army of interns we manage, three years ago they were middle school age interns and now they’re college or grad school interns. At some point, we don’t know when, actually adding net economic value will require having the kinds of skills that we currently expect people to take years to build. This cuts off the pipeline of talent, because we can’t afford to pay people for years before getting anything in return. Luckily (?) that is a temporary state of affairs until the AI automates the next levels away too, and the entire human economy disappears up its own orifices long before most of use would have retired.
In the intervening months or years, though, I expect a lot of finger-pointing and victim-blaming and general shaming from those who don’t understand what’s going on, just as I recall happening to many of my friends around my own college graduation in 2009 in the midst of a global recession. “No, mom, there’s literally no longer any field hiring anyone with less than a decade of experience. No, even if I wanted to go back to school, there’s a thousands times as many applicants as spots now, and most of those that get accepted will find the fields they picked are gone by the time they graduate and they have even more non-dischargeable debt. Sorry, but yes, I have to move back in with you. Also, most likely in a year or five you and dad will get fired and we’ll all be living off grandma’s savings that are growing at 80% a year.”
I recently had approximately this conversation with my own employer’s HR department. We’re steadily refactoring tasks to find what can be automated, and it’s a much larger proportion of what our entry-level hires do. Current AI is an infinite army of interns we manage, three years ago they were middle school age interns and now they’re college or grad school interns. At some point, we don’t know when, actually adding net economic value will require having the kinds of skills that we currently expect people to take years to build. This cuts off the pipeline of talent, because we can’t afford to pay people for years before getting anything in return. Luckily (?) that is a temporary state of affairs until the AI automates the next levels away too, and the entire human economy disappears up its own orifices long before most of use would have retired.
In the intervening months or years, though, I expect a lot of finger-pointing and victim-blaming and general shaming from those who don’t understand what’s going on, just as I recall happening to many of my friends around my own college graduation in 2009 in the midst of a global recession. “No, mom, there’s literally no longer any field hiring anyone with less than a decade of experience. No, even if I wanted to go back to school, there’s a thousands times as many applicants as spots now, and most of those that get accepted will find the fields they picked are gone by the time they graduate and they have even more non-dischargeable debt. Sorry, but yes, I have to move back in with you. Also, most likely in a year or five you and dad will get fired and we’ll all be living off grandma’s savings that are growing at 80% a year.”