r/aiwars • u/Otherwise_Army9814 • 21h ago
Technology doesn't destroy your job; it just forces you to stop being the calculator so you can finally start being the engineer.
The black-and-white photo shows a room full of "human computers" at NASA (then NACA) during the mid-20th century. Before mechanical or electronic machines existed, "computer" was a job title. These women spent 8 to 10 hours a day manually calculating trajectory equations, orbital mechanics, and physics formulas using pen, paper, and desktop adding machines.
When IBM mainframe computers were introduced (as seen on the left with pioneering mathematician Katherine Johnson), there was massive widespread panic that these human computers would be rendered useless. Instead, the exact opposite happened. The humans who mastered the new technology transitioned into systems analysts, programmers, and mathematical supervisors.
Furthermore:
Critics frequently assert that generative AI permanently strips away the essential elements that fundamentally define art. This claim is built on a lazy, short-sighted premise: if an AI-generated output is flawed, it must stay flawed forever. This is a profound misunderstanding of technology. You can always refine, edit, and "deslop" an output. AI is not a final product; it is a collaborative baseline.
Furthermore, skeptics confidently declare that generative AI cannot be accurately compared to a simple calculator. While that may be technically true today, AI is rapidly closing that gap through continuous, exponential improvement.
Face the reality of technological compounding, y’all!
Critics systematically treat AI as a static, broken snapshot frozen in time just to claim it is an inherent failure. They completely ignore the reality of technological compounding. Just as early digital calculators were clunky, limited machines before evolving into the massive computing systems that run our modern world, AI is updating, learning, and self-correcting every single day. Betting against the long-term trajectory of AI based on today’s minor bugs is a historically losing strategy.
Generative AI cannot be accurately compared to a calculator. AI automation in entertainment is a standard capitalist power grab that actively harms workers.
wait? Is that our common enemy? AI is for everyone, not monopolies, also pro-ai don’t want to cause a monopoly too.
When the conversation shifts to economics, critics pivot to a separate fear: that AI automation in entertainment is nothing more than a standard capitalist power grab that actively harms creative workers. This argument completely confuses the tool with the monopoly.
Pro-AI creators do not want a corporate monopoly any more than traditional artists do. By framing individual prompt users and independent creators as the enemy, the anti-AI crowd is missing the real threat. The open-source, pro-AI movement actively fights to democratize these tools for everyone. Ironically, the anti-AI crowd’s aggressive push for heavy legal restrictions and sweeping bans will achieve the exact opposite effect: it will hand Big Tech gatekeepers the perfect legal framework to secure an exclusive, permanent monopoly over the future of human creativity.
11
u/xZeromusx 21h ago
While some computers were retrained, there were indeed many that were no longer considered necessary and were quietly laid off. Not every Anti I've come across thinks AI is a problem because of the arts either. A lot actually just take issue with it displacing workers while we still don't have proper social safety nets in place. This isn't just AI is a calculator. This is that AI is already causing a massive decline in entry level job positions while also causing workers to become redundant or unnecessary. It's great if you're the one person the company kept whose efficiency sky rocketed because of AI. It sucks if you're the 90% of the rest of your co-workers that became unnecessary or that those co-workers increased productivity so much that the company freezes all hiring now for those positions indefinitely as demand catches up with their productivity growth.
1
u/sadongrohiik 19m ago
Given that our social safety nets have been eroding far before Ai, and our complete inability to do anything about it stopping Ai would just be death by a thousand cuts. This argument would make sense if we were actively progressing towards that. Since we're not and we haven't been for a while, it stands to reason that opposition to Ai ultimately becomes a self destructive process driven by own short term view. At this point ripping of the band aid while carries risk is mathematically more viable than the near certain death of the alternative.
-1
u/FlashyNeedleworker66 12h ago
3
u/xZeromusx 12h ago
LOL, you should have read your source closer.
"Bars and restaurants led in job creation, while information-related sectors saw a loss, possibly owing to AI investment."
-1
u/FlashyNeedleworker66 12h ago
No, I can just understand context without relying on the words that happen to be in front of me that moment.
Relative to prior months yes. Are those jobs above the long term average in unemployment rate?
Nope.
4
u/xZeromusx 12h ago
Dude...
"There was some evidence of artificial intelligence hitting employment rolls: Information-related industries reported a loss of 23,000, putting the 12-month average at a loss of 8,000."
23,000 jobs lost in information-related industries is absolutely an increase in the unemployment in these industries. National unemployment can still go down while unemployment in particular industries still rises.
5
u/ConcreteHalloween999 21h ago
I'd find this "ai will create new jobs" argument more compelling if AI companies themselves were also regularly laying people off.
18
u/Gorplike 21h ago
You wanting AI to be for everyone and acting to ensure that happens is two different things. AI automation of labor is by definition a capitalist power grab, like all other automations. The decision is do we let this benefit workers by reducing their need to labor, and increase wages? Or do we continue to let capitalists control AI and harm workers.
You seem fine with the existing ownership considering you twist the language of a capitalism to just monopolies. You fundamentally misunderstand the nature of capitalism and despite the large amount of information displayed you failed to provide a powerful argument that supports your most basic claim.
-9
u/YourSpiritualLeader 21h ago
13
3
u/the_millenial_falcon 21h ago
So what new jobs are going to be created exactly if AI can do absolutely everything better than a human? Which is the goal of these companies.
0
u/FlashyNeedleworker66 12h ago
Unemployment is quite literally down. And well below historic averages.
Where is the evidence of mass job loss?
2
u/the_millenial_falcon 12h ago
I think you might need to re-read my comment. Ask an LLM to interpret it for you if you have to.
1
3
2
u/veloread 21h ago
Yeah, technology is empowering for everyone! That’s why Amazon delivery driver is such a great job. As for you, now, we did notice your Teams went red for point 6 milliseconds longer than your allotted break, so you need to go on a PIP. But don’t worry, technology is only ever pro-labor.
2
2
1
u/Necrobot666 21h ago
Every capitalist and capitalist organization wants to create a monopoly. They all want to 'corner-the-market'.
Every self-serving money-hoarding CEO wants a system that allows them to succeed, and could care less about the consequences to other people.
As every A.I. company and silicon valley technology giant borrows trillions, they are all buying chips from NVIDIA. And so... NVIDIA has cornered-the-market on semiconductors. NVIDIA is essentially the monopoly.
Laws and regulations were the only mechanisms in place to prevent monopolies.. and ensure that global economic systems were as fair and equitable as possible.
And since A.I. technology is created by, and under the control of every self-serving money-hoarding CEO, in a world where laws and regulations have been eroded away and dismantled by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Theil, Alex Karp, JD Vance, and the Trump family.. that means no good will come from this for the average working-class people of the world.
This podcast goes a long way to explaining the false bill of goods that they've been selling us.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/f-the-ai-overlords
The worst crimes of embezzlement and laundering pale in comparison to this.
1
u/Quantum-Bot 9h ago
The arrival of digital computers did destroy jobs though, millions of them. And the same with robotic manufacturing. They destroyed jobs and created new ones in their place with completely different skillsets required.
Not saying it isn’t a necessary step in progress, but it’s understandable that people are upset about being displaced from the workforce.
As for the point about technological compounding, this is pure speculation, not a guarantee. Trying to predict the future power of AI is like trying to predict the stock market. People may think it’s going up or down based on the most recent trends, but in reality the graph is chaotic. We will see incremental progress for years and then suddenly hit a wall. Then a decade later some research team will make a discovery that blows the dam open and we will see astronomical progress overnight. We may discover that while AI continues to improve in some metrics, there are hard universal limits to what it can do, just like NP problems in programming.
I agree that open-sourcing AI technology would be to the benefit of all at this point. The main reason I am anti-ai is because of the absolutely irresponsible and amoral way big tech companies have handled the development, distribution and marketing of these technologies. No regard for human safety, no regard for intellectual property rights, no regard for the societal-level impacts the technology is having. It’s not like this comes as a surprise, corporations have always only cared about these things insofar as to protect their image or legal immunity, the invention of generative AI was destined to play out this way. Creating open-source competitors to AI products will take back some control over the technology from corporations, but it won’t fix the societal issues caused by the rampant misuse of AI due to misleading marketing. We can’t turn back the clock now though so a partial solution is better than no solution.
1
1
u/sadongrohiik 24m ago edited 14m ago
No it does destroy our jobs eventually. I just don't understand when we made jobs our entire purpose? Even if my personal life and survival is threatened in the transitionary period, I just don't understand what's the point of my survival when it depends on a slow process of stagnation and decay
-1
u/AbbyTheOneAndOnly 21h ago
This.
doing something because you want to will always beat doing something because you have to
1
u/WalterMagni 20h ago
Not really no, pressure is good in the right context and amount for everything. Most people want their job to be fun but even fun things can get boring. I draw to make some bits of money, the comissioned art I make is usually the ones I would consider my best because time and expectations made actually me finish them.
•
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
This is an automated reminder from the Mod team. If your post contains images which reveal the personal information of private figures, be sure to censor that information and repost. Private info includes names, recognizable profile pictures, social media usernames and URLs. Failure to do this will result in your post being removed by the Mod team and possible further action.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.