A simple example of job loss that has already occurred is in the manufacturing industries with CAD/CAM . In the 60s the design process was an engineer did a design on paper (with a slide rule- remember those?) A rough sketch then went to a draftsman who fleshed out the drawing into a blueprint for the manufacturing department. That drawing went into the hands of a skilled worker who created the part. All were high paying jobs requiring various levels of higher education.
With the advent of cad/cam the draftsman job has been completely eliminated, the skilled worker has been reduced to someone pushing a button to create the part and the part is created by a CNC machine in 1/10 or less the time. Engineers, draftsman and skilled labor jobs were all eliminated by computer technology.
This is the simplified version and the job loss has been far more extensive. In the 60s all of this "futuristic" technology was going to lead to a 20 hour work week and an abundance for all with an unimaginable high standard of living. Promoted in school I might add. Now 40 years later what do we have? Low paying poverty wage jobs. A largely unskilled uneducated workforce working 2 jobs living paycheck to paycheck. An increasing population of homeless. A society which is controlled and manipulated by the government, corporations and financial institutions. Mass production of useless junk with built in planned obsolescence resulting in ecocide and overuse of resources as well as the establishment of a two class system, the wealthy and the poor.
Currently the main function of AI is for control of the masses by surviallance programs, psychological manipulation by the media and government and the effectiveness of the manipulation. LLMs are predictive algorithms which can be used to establish the outcome of government policies by monitoring people's reactions in realtime by email, voice comments and public reaction and adjusted accordingly for the desired result. It's all part of a psychological Operations plan developed by the air force back in the 70s and enhanced by the development of the internet and computer technology.
PsychologicalOperationsGoldstein.pdf
The greatest inevitable danger of AI is going to be the reduction of intelligence and creativity in humans. Not to mention the job losses in more skilled jobs and increased poverty. Robot development will eliminate the more mundane tasks such as stocking shelves and maintenance very soon. So the question is when most jobs for humans are eliminated who will buy the products being produced?
I'd be interested to see what AI would propose for solutions to homelessness or ecocide/climate change. Currently it's being used by Israel for targeting sites in Gaza for the military. Killing in a word. More people have been killed with it than lives saved. I think we can assume that it's being used in the US for monitoring and targeting dissidents here. It's how you get the enhanced security check at the airport with the SSS on your ticket.
Stephen Hawking believed that AI was the greatest danger to humanity more so than nuclear weapons.
So where does this all end?
Thanks for a great well researched article. I guess we can thank AI at least in part.
Toma, thank you for such a high compliment. This article was difficult to write because, as you point out, AI comes with so many issues. I may need to write others on this, but for now tried to stick close to my mandate focused on climate change.
I am well-acquainted with job loss from technology. It turned my former profession of graphic design upside down, eventually making it so poor paying as not to be worth the effort.
Yes, surveillance is one of the powerful capabilities of AI, right down to watching workers motions in warehouses and monitoring keystrokes at a computer terminal. Perhaps releasing DALL-E as a toy is in part to make people like it and not understand the hazards. You mentioned its role in the Gaza genocide, I'm aware. Self-autonomous weapons were predicted decades ago in science fiction, and here we are. It's almost beyond words to imagine such a thing being one's last sight on our formerly beautiful Earth.
When one thinks about history, there are few examples of freedom and equality. For a handful of decades in the US, it appeared we were moving in that direction. The overarching history of humanity though is warring, slavery, and power in the hands of a few. Our government created these conditions when Chicago School economics triumphed over Keynesian economics, creating the billionaire class. Where this ends? In complete societal breakdown across the planet and unspeakable violence and tragedy I fear.
Toma: You summed it up very well. After working in Manufacturing for for over 35 years, the skill sets have been iterating. It's as if employees are chasing their tails just to keep food on the table. As a retired HR professional I saw the hurt, the gain and the pain. I appreciate your insights into Geoff's AI article. To both, thank you!
What a fascinating and eye-opening read. Thank you, staggering outlook on one of the world’s biggest recent developments. Especially your reporting of the energy it takes to use A(N)I.
Thank you, Jack, I'm glad you found it useful. Integrating ANI into everything we do is like pounding a finish nail with a 30 pound sledgehammer, unnecessary and wasteful. Having information filtered through AI makes me nervous as well, its misuse for politics and profit are likely to be profound.
Steven, it appears you have a serious background in computers. The climate crisis is real, your comment somewhat cryptic. Are you saying AI will not create significantly more and unnecessary energy demand?
Climate scientists like James Hansen have been warning about the effects of GHGs in the atmosphere for decades. Scientists funded and employed by Exxon were aware of the kind of effects we're seeing today in the mid 1970s. We can see the physical effects of global warming easily in melting ice sheets and warmer ocean temperatures, which are saturated with CO2. While I can buy into conspiracies (many are exposed after the fact), the warming climate and link to GHGs are linked beyond a doubt. The CIA of course has done all sorts of dirty business over time. The Deep State isn't very deep, rather parading openly, the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned of, although the secretive meetings such as the Bilderberg group, and annual billionaire meetings in Sun Valley, Idaho bear scrutiny.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 (and water vapor), however, has been known since scientist Eunice Foote published a paper on it in 1856.
If you have specific, compelling evidence the climate crisis is a hoax, I would be keen on seeing it.
This article was well worth the wait.
A simple example of job loss that has already occurred is in the manufacturing industries with CAD/CAM . In the 60s the design process was an engineer did a design on paper (with a slide rule- remember those?) A rough sketch then went to a draftsman who fleshed out the drawing into a blueprint for the manufacturing department. That drawing went into the hands of a skilled worker who created the part. All were high paying jobs requiring various levels of higher education.
With the advent of cad/cam the draftsman job has been completely eliminated, the skilled worker has been reduced to someone pushing a button to create the part and the part is created by a CNC machine in 1/10 or less the time. Engineers, draftsman and skilled labor jobs were all eliminated by computer technology.
This is the simplified version and the job loss has been far more extensive. In the 60s all of this "futuristic" technology was going to lead to a 20 hour work week and an abundance for all with an unimaginable high standard of living. Promoted in school I might add. Now 40 years later what do we have? Low paying poverty wage jobs. A largely unskilled uneducated workforce working 2 jobs living paycheck to paycheck. An increasing population of homeless. A society which is controlled and manipulated by the government, corporations and financial institutions. Mass production of useless junk with built in planned obsolescence resulting in ecocide and overuse of resources as well as the establishment of a two class system, the wealthy and the poor.
Currently the main function of AI is for control of the masses by surviallance programs, psychological manipulation by the media and government and the effectiveness of the manipulation. LLMs are predictive algorithms which can be used to establish the outcome of government policies by monitoring people's reactions in realtime by email, voice comments and public reaction and adjusted accordingly for the desired result. It's all part of a psychological Operations plan developed by the air force back in the 70s and enhanced by the development of the internet and computer technology.
PsychologicalOperationsGoldstein.pdf
The greatest inevitable danger of AI is going to be the reduction of intelligence and creativity in humans. Not to mention the job losses in more skilled jobs and increased poverty. Robot development will eliminate the more mundane tasks such as stocking shelves and maintenance very soon. So the question is when most jobs for humans are eliminated who will buy the products being produced?
I'd be interested to see what AI would propose for solutions to homelessness or ecocide/climate change. Currently it's being used by Israel for targeting sites in Gaza for the military. Killing in a word. More people have been killed with it than lives saved. I think we can assume that it's being used in the US for monitoring and targeting dissidents here. It's how you get the enhanced security check at the airport with the SSS on your ticket.
Stephen Hawking believed that AI was the greatest danger to humanity more so than nuclear weapons.
So where does this all end?
Thanks for a great well researched article. I guess we can thank AI at least in part.
Toma, thank you for such a high compliment. This article was difficult to write because, as you point out, AI comes with so many issues. I may need to write others on this, but for now tried to stick close to my mandate focused on climate change.
I am well-acquainted with job loss from technology. It turned my former profession of graphic design upside down, eventually making it so poor paying as not to be worth the effort.
Yes, surveillance is one of the powerful capabilities of AI, right down to watching workers motions in warehouses and monitoring keystrokes at a computer terminal. Perhaps releasing DALL-E as a toy is in part to make people like it and not understand the hazards. You mentioned its role in the Gaza genocide, I'm aware. Self-autonomous weapons were predicted decades ago in science fiction, and here we are. It's almost beyond words to imagine such a thing being one's last sight on our formerly beautiful Earth.
When one thinks about history, there are few examples of freedom and equality. For a handful of decades in the US, it appeared we were moving in that direction. The overarching history of humanity though is warring, slavery, and power in the hands of a few. Our government created these conditions when Chicago School economics triumphed over Keynesian economics, creating the billionaire class. Where this ends? In complete societal breakdown across the planet and unspeakable violence and tragedy I fear.
Thanks for the PDF, I'll check it out.
Toma: You summed it up very well. After working in Manufacturing for for over 35 years, the skill sets have been iterating. It's as if employees are chasing their tails just to keep food on the table. As a retired HR professional I saw the hurt, the gain and the pain. I appreciate your insights into Geoff's AI article. To both, thank you!
What a fascinating and eye-opening read. Thank you, staggering outlook on one of the world’s biggest recent developments. Especially your reporting of the energy it takes to use A(N)I.
Thank you, Jack, I'm glad you found it useful. Integrating ANI into everything we do is like pounding a finish nail with a 30 pound sledgehammer, unnecessary and wasteful. Having information filtered through AI makes me nervous as well, its misuse for politics and profit are likely to be profound.
Steven, it appears you have a serious background in computers. The climate crisis is real, your comment somewhat cryptic. Are you saying AI will not create significantly more and unnecessary energy demand?
Climate scientists like James Hansen have been warning about the effects of GHGs in the atmosphere for decades. Scientists funded and employed by Exxon were aware of the kind of effects we're seeing today in the mid 1970s. We can see the physical effects of global warming easily in melting ice sheets and warmer ocean temperatures, which are saturated with CO2. While I can buy into conspiracies (many are exposed after the fact), the warming climate and link to GHGs are linked beyond a doubt. The CIA of course has done all sorts of dirty business over time. The Deep State isn't very deep, rather parading openly, the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned of, although the secretive meetings such as the Bilderberg group, and annual billionaire meetings in Sun Valley, Idaho bear scrutiny.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 (and water vapor), however, has been known since scientist Eunice Foote published a paper on it in 1856.
If you have specific, compelling evidence the climate crisis is a hoax, I would be keen on seeing it.
YouTube? No links, no evidence, no credibility. That is not meant to be disrespectful, simply what you have offered. Be well.
What can you do when ‘evidence’ isn’t enough 😂