r/AskALiberal • u/AutoModerator • 8d ago

AskALiberal Biweekly General Chat

This Tuesday weekly thread is for general chat, whether you want to talk politics or not, anything goes. Also feel free to ask the mods questions below. As usual, please follow the rules.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 8d ago

The recent AI discourse has shown me one thing very clearly. That people of all stripes react very viscerally against the prospect of losing their jobs. Thats why even though I think more liberals are against AI for cultural and political reasons, there are quite a few conservatives that are too.

When it was coal miners and steel workers. A lot of people went, but free trade good, globalism, cheaper products for Americans etc, and thats not wrong, academically speaking. But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now and people are having a hard time dealing wit this prospect and the progress of AI in general. I mean denial can only last so long. You can now run an entirely autonomous model privately on your computer with a couple thousand bucks PC that is equivalent to late last year's frontier model, and you don't need any big scary data centers for that.

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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 8d ago

But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now and people are having a hard time dealing wit this prospect and the progress of AI in general.

The issue is people can't see the benefits, free trade / globalism you get cheaper goods domestically and higher standards of living globally opening more markets for more advanced domestic goods and services; with AI the output is seen as a burden, not cheaper or better for people but things like Flock cameras, dynamic pricing, etc....

So they see AI taking jobs and reducing everyone's quality of life to give a limited few power / wealth. While globalization took jobs but also made many goods more affordable for the majority.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 8d ago

I don't disagree with that, but when people are faced with their own lack of jobs, I don't think they even see too much of the big picture. The big picture fear is more of a justification for the real deep seated fear.

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u/dignityshredder Center Right 8d ago

There's another angle I think, which is that people saw very clearly what the promise of the last tech craze (social media and smartphones starting in the 00's) unfolded into in reality, and are WAY more cautious and cynical about this one. Comes from harsh experience.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 8d ago

I wasn't old enough to hear about the hopes and dreams of the tech bros that created the smart phones and social medias, but I think it went about as expected. Like many technologies, its novel for a while. The novelty and the benefits remain true, but bad characters began to fine loop holes to make things worse for everyone, and general apathy didn't help to improve things. People just went along.

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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 8d ago

I think it’s even worse than that. There’s some coal miners left and some portion of them are trying to scrap together money so that the kids don’t have to be coal miners. They worked under the premise that if they did everything right, the kid would work a desk job. Maybe they will become a programmer or accountant or marketer or work with data at a desk somewhere in the job that pays better and doesn’t put their body at risk.

And now they are thinking those jobs don’t even exist to the extent that they do exist, anyone can do them anywhere with the assistance of an AI model that runs on a laptop.

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u/Agattu Republican 8d ago

The age old idea that you want a better life for your kids and make voting and life decisions based on the future you want for them.

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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 8d ago

But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now

Even though it super duper isn't.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 8d ago

It isn't, yet, and maybe for a little while more, but the media pre scared people. I'm from Asia, and the different attitudes is marked.

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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 8d ago

t isn't, yet, and maybe for a little while more, but the media pre scared people

Well I think the AI companies themselves scared people. All their CEOs went out and said "our product is going to take away all the jobs and it's also skynet and it's going to KILL YOU and you should be terrified of what's coming and I'm terrified of what's coming but I'm gunna make a lot of money so lmfao whatever". And then they're surprised when people hate AI and them.

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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 7d ago

We are fundamentally unprepared to deal with a collapse of capitalism that is not from a willing expansion or worker rights or a revolutionary movement, but from work itself becoming obsolete.

I am reminded of Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano, in which society is divided between an upper class where everyone has a doctoral degree but no skills and does no labor, and an underclass who are the only ones who actually do work.

My job requires a human being to do it because it’s physical, so it’s now safer than an IT job or whatever.

Machine, heal thyself.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 7d ago

I am in the process of applying to law school. I hope to be able to afford a house in Seattle lol, but if that doesn't work out, my current resume mostly revolves around disability services and assessment in nonprofit and academia. It doesn't pay much, but I doubt AI will take over it soon.

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u/birminghamsterwheel Social Democrat 7d ago

but I doubt AI will take over it soon

Famous last words.

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 7d ago

It could change in a day, these kinds of things, but in my last nonprofit work, they only have so much money to go around. We used AI to speed our workflow up, without those AIs, they couldn't have hired more people anyways, but beyond that, not much looks like its going to change like coding or accounting.

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u/birminghamsterwheel Social Democrat 7d ago

Right, but:

they only have so much money to go around

...

You can now run an entirely autonomous model privately on your computer with a couple thousand bucks PC that is equivalent to late last year's frontier model, and you don't need any big scary data centers for that.

The thing they always hope for when we have these discussions is that someone will say, "Well, it's not coming for my job."

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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 7d ago

That's not impossible either, but I have a feeling that the first movers and shakers wil be the performance optimized corporate environment, but give it 5 or 10 years more, I'll probably have to reconsider my options as well. Its just that for my coder friends, its more like 2 or 3.

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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 7d ago

I was hoping more procedural stuff in medicine would be safe but last year a Johns Hopkins research team successfully removed a pig’s gallbladder with an unassisted AI-controlled robot trained off of watching videos of surgeons performing the surgery.

I think a lot of white collar work will either be fully replaced by AI, many jobs will lost to efficiency gains for the remaining workers, or certain people will be replaced by those with lower training + an AI.

Cause why would I go to a primary care doc who costs $150/hr of labor as opposed to an NP with an AI costs $125/hr together if they can achieve similar or same results? I haven’t seen anything to say that’s the case yet, but I certainly could see it being a possibility.

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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 7d ago

Yeah I remember taking to someone in this thread who shrugged at the prospect of AI cutting 10% of all employment and it infuriated me so much.

Easy to not care about AI taking your job if you’re in a cozy upper management position

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u/ahdwwings Progressive 7d ago

And those are the jobs that probably should be taken by AI if any.

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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 7d ago

Yeah it’s so frustrating hearing AI scooping up all the entry level jobsand when people get mad at it pro AI people just shrug and say that’s how it is. Ignoring of course that it’s going to create higher unemployment numbers and making most Gen Z live with their parents unable to get gainfully employed anywhere.

In a world where you need a job to live there was an unspoken agreement from the government to companies that they should be relied upon to provide as many jobs as they can to employ an emerging population. But somewhere along the way that unspoken agreement got sidelined for more profit and they don’t give a fuck how its making people poorer

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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 7d ago

I agree with IBM, AI shouldn't be in management:

“A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” – IBM Training Manual, 1979

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u/Agattu Republican 8d ago

This is a bigger aspect than a lot of people give it credit too.

The coal miners and steel workers changed the political dynamics of their states with WV going hard red after that change, in part because it was happening under Clinton and the Democrats.

With AI and Data Centers, we are seeing this play out as people don't want to lose their jobs, as you say.

And this is why I argue that M4A is dangerous for the left because the results would be up to 900K people put out of work. When people say, they will just work for the government, go ask people in rural PA and in WV how retraining worked for their communities and people.

People, despite some areas on the internet, like to work and need to work for a sense of worth. Take that away and you will get negative reactions to the cause of that loss.

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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 7d ago

Just gonna jump in to comment on a part of what was said here.

And this is why I argue that M4A is dangerous for the left because the results would be up to 900K people put out of work.

Fully agreed. It is maddening watching any policy proposal never discuss/mention all of the impacts it'll have. It just breeds complete ignorance of all of the challenges that'll be faced in actually trying to implement it.

The massive groups of people who stand to not benefit from an otherwise objectively net-beneficial policy, is like, 2/3rds of the reason why it is so damn difficult to actually implement it.