Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
All I wanna know is if driverless cars will be able to feel fear. If I'm up ones arse cause they're ruining the fun and staying below 70, if I drive right up its arse, will feel pressure and move over. Robotic little twat
Sounds like a scene on an Inbetweeners reboot, when they’re in their 50s and driverless cars rule the roads.
The first time was a bit weird but after that they were great, sometimes can drop you a bit further away from your destination but that's because they are only finding a safe space to pull over.
Thinking this through more (and I do think it will happen) I suspect another challenge is not just pedestrians stepping out on the road when they should not , but also the rise in the ‘hooligan’ type behaviour of e-scooter and cyclists etc.
How you accommodate that erratic behaviour I can’t comprehend (yet).
Yeah exactly this.
I was headed south on the A3 yesterday at rush hour, 3 lanes of busy traffic but all still going at 50-mph ish.
I glanced in my mirror and it looked like there a bloke standing right behind me wearing a helmet.
I blinked/shook-my-head/double took and he’d gone. I’d barely had time to worry about if I’d maybe eaten cheese before bedtime when I was undertaken by a muppet on a scooter going between 55-60mph and I was in moving traffic at the speed limit (or thereabouts) in lane 3.
There's a lot of optimism on these pages. I hope it's precient optimism, but it really doesn't feel it to me. I think the first real big change is that it will put more power into the hands of the few organisations who can afford to be early adopters on a grand scale, cutting out the middle man in providing services to the public. Fast forward to taxi drivers, and their more humble counterparts, Uber drivers, being put out of work. Fast Forward to delivery companies wringing more out of their staff who will no longer be drivers but mobile parcel sorters. Fast forward to automated juggernauts relentlessly criss crossing the country whilst the lorry drivers of old sit at home on benefits funded by a dwindling number of tax payers.
As for automated cars solving our traffic problems, maybe there'll be a slight decrease in traffic in city areas, but here's the thing. Cities are already the places with the best public transport and still people choose to keep cars. People like cars and they like owning them. That's not going to change just because you can hire a Johnnycab to get somewhere. You can already get a cab. You might not have to pay for a driver in future, but you'll still have to pay for the billionaire class to make their profits.
Finally, I think some of the problems mentioned in above posts have been brushed over very glibly. It's not just Hyde Park Corner and A2 turn-offs that will be the problem, there are places all over the country where you have to be so bullish that you just couldn't possibly negotiate them without exceeding the bounds that the DVSA considers safe. Stating that driverless cars will be better because they can attend to more information doesn't even come close to solving the problem that sometimes you need to take risks when driving. So, either you'll need to allow for some element of risk taking, or you need a completely automatic system with no human drivers or you need to accept that some intersections may see far worse congestion because driverless vehicles won't get out.
I get what your saying and there is a real risk with this technology in the system we live in that what you say above happens. That risk feels more real when we look back at the last big tech steps we took in Computers, Email, internet whereby instead of the benefits of these being shared between shareholders/corporations and employees what actually happened was that all the benefits were taken by the large corporations and none given to employees. In fact even worse it allowed corporations to squeeze employees further and we have seen 40 years of downward pressure on wages. This is a major reason why we even have a billionaire class now.
So back on your point - I see an feel the risk of tech like this and AI. However it is not a fault of the tech itself but of the system under which we live. This post capitalist, race to the bottom, techno feudalism whereby large multinationals wielding their oligopoly power and huge state contracts, paying a fraction of the tax they are supposed to control almost every sector of not just the economy but our lives and have too much power over government.
So whilst that fear is real I dont think its a reason to not want progress. We have to take the progress and at the same time try and influence the system. This tech advancement is a massive opportunity to change the system, we missed the opportunity of the last major one so its even more important we right those wrongs. The godfather of AI has said that if we properly tax and regulate AI it can be the driver of massive social change, he specifically calls for socialism, universal basic income, reduced working hours tacking wealth inequality and the power of large corporations. Part of that is simply changing the conversation in the UK, so much of our focus is inward or to the US. If we look across the rest of the world so much progress is being made and if we can show that to people sooner or later they are gonna want a bit of it. We can start by bringing in some of the controls on large corporations/shareholder power that are common across Europe and the G20 (except for UK and US.
Let the tech progress bring social progress! Better is possible for all of us.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
Is the intention to roll these out nationwide? Because, the more I think about it, the more it seems these cars will only operate successfully in cities — and even then, primarily on main roads — or between services on motorways. I struggle to see how installing the necessary support infrastructure on every road across the UK could be financially viable or practical.
That's because it wont be needed. All of the support information will be attached to the road network elements that you see on a satnav eg Google Maps. For example, a single road element will be a straight line. It will hold information such as beginning and end coordinates, length, speed limit, road temperature and condition (fed back from cars), direction, current average speed of vehicles, an emergency closure indicator etc etc. This will need to be updated in real time in both directions. Much of this already exists.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
Jobs have always disappeared and been rendered obsolete... humans adapt and change to the tech and society they find themselves in
There's no intrinsic need or beauty in having supermarket check out clerks or taxi drivers... humans can thrive without them
Braziliance's point about humans needing some kind of tasks is valid, though. We don't want to be like the people in Wall-E.
I just like to think we can devote ourselves to more.... stimulating.... evolutionary pursuits than many of the mundane jobs that can be replaced by tech solutions.
I'll hold off on commenting on politico-economic possible backdrops... but that is a big factor here, too
Anything online can be hacked, and driverless cars is a technology that doesnt need to be invented - what is the problem with the current status quo ? As Braziliance says its human laziness that has allowed this technology to be developed - there is no need for it and it isnt going to make things better, simply create new dangers to replace the current danger of human error.
AI is also a disaster waiting to happen due to the complete lack of a co-ordinated international system of regulation of it. There has never before been a species more intelligent than humans, but soon there will be when AI has been allowed to grow, uncontrolled as it is at the moment, and becomes more intelligent than humans. What do humans do when another species becomes a threat - kill .
I heard an interview on radio 4 with the head advisor on AI to our government - the one and only benefit of AI that he saw was in the field of medicine where it will cut down on mis-diagnosis. That was it . He warned that the Chinese and other nations are developing who knows what and due to the complete lack of international regulation of the field, and warned that due to this lack of regulation there will come a pinch point in the future - probably when its too late - when we wake up and realise that we have created a monster that is out of the bottle and cannot be put back and at that point try to introduce regualtion and control at a point when it is too late - what will the AI do at this point - attack to defend itself against this threat to it. He was asked the direct question in this interview - "in what timescale will AI start to become a threat to the future of mankind" and the answer was "in 10 to 20 years" - as quickly as that.
A friend who has spent his life in computing said to me that theres no need to worry about global warning because AI will extinguish us long before global warning does.
There is an excellent X Files episode called "Killswitch" which sums up the dangers of AI - way ahead of its time.
I despair how we sleepwalk into disasters of our own making , and anyone who puts their hand up to object / question is shot down in flames quite often without any valid arguement to counter the alternative view
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
I think you're falling into the same trap as most, in seeing AI being used for searches/responses. It's not that which is going to destroy a huge percentage of jobs. It's the GenAI.
I'll give two examples - directly related to my field - cybersecurity.
I work very closely with software engineers. There are 2800 of them in my company, working on 300+ products across 12 different sectors. We've started to use Claude Code and Devin, along with N8n to automate a huge amount of development. Despite assurances to the contrary, when the speed at which devs can push out code increases by about 500%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the number of developers will be decimated.
It'll hit first with graduate/junior roles (very quickly destroying the main entry point into the field) and then with people leaving and not being replaced, then removing the offshoring (devs may consider that an unexpected bonus, but there's an entire industry of millions in India that stands to be completely obsoleted) and finally hitting the remaining devs as profit is further prioritised. Inside three years, there will be about 20% of the roles in software development that exist currently - and most of those roles will be people supervising/sanity checking stuff that AI has written (and another AI has already checked, I might add).
In my own specific field, one of my main responsibilities is managing the pen test programme (hiring ethical hackers to test our products). Testers come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is that they're EXPENSIVE. Day rate for a good tester is around £1200, when you wrap the assurance around it (eg: using a provider to sub through, with all the NDA/legal/insurance covered).
I am running a proof of concept currently for a 'virtual tester'. On the two products I'm using it with (both tested multiple times in the past) it's already found dozens of issues missed by previous testers - and I haven't even given it the source code to review yet (next stage of the POC is to see how good it is at uncovering business logic flaws within an application - something that no automated/DAST tool I've ever seen has a hope of doing).
It costs absolute peanuts compared to even an average tester, and out-performs all but the very highest rated hackers on the main bug bounty programs (Hacker One, Intigriti).
Even better - it integrates directly into repos, so can form part of the CI-CD pipeline and provide iterative scanning during the development process (we call that 'shifting left', and it's among the hardest things to get traction on in cybersecurity).
Note - this is already happening - and it will only get more disruptive as GenAI and the underlying LLMs improve. As it does, pen testing will be as decimated as software engineering.
I anticipate that, in 2-3 years time, my own job - which, by any measure, is a 'desired' role (eg: skilled, requires decades of experience, is aspirational (was even used, infamously, in a government campaign a few years back)) will be reduced largely to a compliance role, where I'm overseeing the security output of an end to end development process, every now and then poking the AI to get it to work in a different way, and rubber-stamping it for customers.
Now I clearly didn't get into this field for the hot women and cool cars. Unless you're specifically interested in it, what I do can look dull and impenetrable to the outsider. But I certainly didn't envisage, after 25 years of doing it, that all the skills and experience I've gained over that time would be thrown out and replaced by an auto signature on a pdf and entering numbers into Excel...
You think people are too scared of AI? I'd argue they're not scared nearly enough. It's not regulation that's needed, it's a serious discussion on whether current progress should be paused whilst the impacts on society are considered.
Edit - a couple of really good books on the subject if you're interested - 'Superintelligence' by Nick Bostrom (technical, but relatively easy to read) and 'How AI Will Change Your Life' by Patrick Dixon (much more populist, and a lot of prognostication, but pretty realistic)
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
I think you're falling into the same trap as must, in seeing AI being used for searches/responses. It's not that which is going to destroy a huge percentage of jobs. It's the GenAI.
I'll give two examples - directly related to my field - cybersecurity.
I work very closely with software engineers. There are 2800 of them in my company, working on 300+ products across 12 different sectors. We've started to use Claude Code and Devin, along with N8n to automate a huge amount of development. Despite assurances to the contrary, when the speed at which devs can push out code increases by about 500%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the number of developers will be decimated.
It'll hit first with graduate/junior roles (very quickly destroying the main entry point into the field) and then with people leaving and not being replaced, then removing the offshoring (devs may consider that an unexpected bonus, but there's an entire industry of millions in India that stands to be completely obsoleted) and finally hitting the remaining devs as profit is further prioritised. Inside three years, there will be about 20% of the roles in software development that exist currently - and most if those roles will be people supervising/sanity checking stuff that AI has written (and another AI has already checked, I might add).
In my own specific field, one of my main responsibilities is managing the pen test programme (hiring ethical hackers to test our products). Testers come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is that they're EXPENSIVE. Day rate for a good tester is around £1200, when you wrap the assurance around it (eg: using a provider to sub through, with all the NDA/legal/insurance covered).
I am running a proof of concept currently for a 'virtual tester'. On the two products I'm using it with (both tested multiple times in the past) it's already found dozens of issues missed by previous testers - and I haven't even given it the source code to review yet (next stage of the POC is to see how good it is at uncovering business logic flaws within an application - something that no automated/DAST tool I've ever seen has a hope of doing).
It costs absolute peanuts compared to even an average tester, and out-performs all but the very highest rated hackers on the main bug bounty programs (Hacker One, Intigriti).
Even better - it integrates directly into repos, so can form part of the CI-CD pipeline and provide iterative scanning during the development process (we call that 'shifting left', and it's among the hardest things to get traction on in cybersecurity).
Note - this is already happening - and it will only get more disruptive as GenAI and the underlying LLMs improve. As it does, pen testing will be as decimated as software engineering.
I anticipate that, in 2-3 years time, my own job - which, by any measure, is a 'desired' role (eg: skilled, requires decades of experience, is aspirational (was even used, infamously, in a government campaign a few years back)) will be reduced largely to a compliance role, where I'm overseeing the security output of an end to end development process, every now and then poking the AI to get it to work in a different way, and rubber-stamping it for customers.
Now I clearly didn't get into this field for the hot women and cool cars. Unless you're specifically interested in it, what I do can look dull and impenetrable to the outsider. But I certainly didn't envisage, after 25 years of doing it, that all the skills and experience I've gained over that time woukd be thrown out and replaced by an auto signature on a pdf and entering numbers onto Excel...
You thing people are too scared of AI? I'd argue they're not scared nearly enough. It's not regulation that's needed, it's a serious discussion on whether current progress should be paused whilst the impacts on society are considered.
Edit - a couple of really good books on the subject if you're interested - 'Superintelligence' by Nick Bostrom (technical, but relatively easy to read) and 'How AI Will Change Your Life' by Patrick Dixon (much more populist, and a lot of prognostication, but pretty realistic)
I agree with you completely. I hold anyone working in (cyber) security in very high regard. It's certainly a job requiring far more ability than accountants and lawyers. Hopefully AI will replace them ! When I started out only about 5% of my job was tech based. Long before I retired it had risen to 95%. Personally, I'd bring back hanging for hackers !
I do worry about AI but I cannot envisage how regulation could work or even be adhered to, particularly as we are talking about a global phenomenon.
I still think generative AI is potentially and fatally flawed. There is so much incorrect information out there that will inevitably make it a difficult technology on which to rely. Much like voice recognition.
Driverless cars - the solution to a problem no one knew existed.
Over 1,000 fatalities per year on UK roads. I'd say that's a problem.
Have you seen the clip of the self driving Tesla mowing down the dummy child in the States?
I mean, first up - it's Tesla. So it's inherently a con anyway - they rely solely on cameras - which means it will never pass regulations here. Waymo are much more advanced, using lidar and radar to augment cameras (the cars also cost a huge amount more as a result)
But even taking that incident (which is the single one highlighted every time in anti self-driving concerns), in the time since I've started typing this post, statistically speaking, dozens of people have been seriously injured on crashes on the road caused by inattentive drivers, bad drivers, or belligerent drivers. 1600+ people a year are killed on Britain's roads - the vast majority due to bad driving.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a proponents of self-driving. Our roads aren't fit for it in any shape or form apart from motorways, and it will take decades to get them up to the standards required. As a cyclist as well as a driver, I'm also extremely concerned about the collision detection mechanisms and algorithms - I've seen far more worrying footage of cyclists on the verge of being hit in self driving tests than I have pedestrians or other cars. Just saying that using one incident as an argument against it doesn't really hold water, given the statistics involved with human drivers.
Yes I accept that it’s going to happen but the merits of this “revolution “ are I think less clear. We’ve heard it all before where the next technological leap will benefit us all and give us workers more time to do nicer things while the machines do those boring mundane jobs. It never happens and never will because some huge corporation is going to make us all pay through the nose for whatever benefit the AI revolution brings. There’s no altruistic vision here just bigger profits. Looking deeper into AI it’s pretty clear that it will eventually be able to replace 99% of jobs. What then ? Who pays for “the new leisure time” we’ll supposedly enjoy ? The way I look at it’s not which jobs AI will replace but try and think of one that it won’t. Forget The Spinning Jenny and The Rocket. What’s coming is literally going to change everything.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
Really good and informative post tbh. I see your point but the only thing I will say, is we are in the early stages, once all the errors and bugs have been weeded out, that's my concern.
People will say it's overthinking it etc, but I think in 50 years or maybe less we will be at the point of no return.
Technology just advances at a rapid rate, there are things now that if you explained to people even as early as the 80s, they wouldn't be able to comprehend.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
I think you're falling into the same trap as most, in seeing AI being used for searches/responses. It's not that which is going to destroy a huge percentage of jobs. It's the GenAI.
I'll give two examples - directly related to my field - cybersecurity.
I work very closely with software engineers. There are 2800 of them in my company, working on 300+ products across 12 different sectors. We've started to use Claude Code and Devin, along with N8n to automate a huge amount of development. Despite assurances to the contrary, when the speed at which devs can push out code increases by about 500%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the number of developers will be decimated.
It'll hit first with graduate/junior roles (very quickly destroying the main entry point into the field) and then with people leaving and not being replaced, then removing the offshoring (devs may consider that an unexpected bonus, but there's an entire industry of millions in India that stands to be completely obsoleted) and finally hitting the remaining devs as profit is further prioritised. Inside three years, there will be about 20% of the roles in software development that exist currently - and most of those roles will be people supervising/sanity checking stuff that AI has written (and another AI has already checked, I might add).
In my own specific field, one of my main responsibilities is managing the pen test programme (hiring ethical hackers to test our products). Testers come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is that they're EXPENSIVE. Day rate for a good tester is around £1200, when you wrap the assurance around it (eg: using a provider to sub through, with all the NDA/legal/insurance covered).
I am running a proof of concept currently for a 'virtual tester'. On the two products I'm using it with (both tested multiple times in the past) it's already found dozens of issues missed by previous testers - and I haven't even given it the source code to review yet (next stage of the POC is to see how good it is at uncovering business logic flaws within an application - something that no automated/DAST tool I've ever seen has a hope of doing).
It costs absolute peanuts compared to even an average tester, and out-performs all but the very highest rated hackers on the main bug bounty programs (Hacker One, Intigriti).
Even better - it integrates directly into repos, so can form part of the CI-CD pipeline and provide iterative scanning during the development process (we call that 'shifting left', and it's among the hardest things to get traction on in cybersecurity).
Note - this is already happening - and it will only get more disruptive as GenAI and the underlying LLMs improve. As it does, pen testing will be as decimated as software engineering.
I anticipate that, in 2-3 years time, my own job - which, by any measure, is a 'desired' role (eg: skilled, requires decades of experience, is aspirational (was even used, infamously, in a government campaign a few years back)) will be reduced largely to a compliance role, where I'm overseeing the security output of an end to end development process, every now and then poking the AI to get it to work in a different way, and rubber-stamping it for customers.
Now I clearly didn't get into this field for the hot women and cool cars. Unless you're specifically interested in it, what I do can look dull and impenetrable to the outsider. But I certainly didn't envisage, after 25 years of doing it, that all the skills and experience I've gained over that time would be thrown out and replaced by an auto signature on a pdf and entering numbers into Excel...
You think people are too scared of AI? I'd argue they're not scared nearly enough. It's not regulation that's needed, it's a serious discussion on whether current progress should be paused whilst the impacts on society are considered.
Edit - a couple of really good books on the subject if you're interested - 'Superintelligence' by Nick Bostrom (technical, but relatively easy to read) and 'How AI Will Change Your Life' by Patrick Dixon (much more populist, and a lot of prognostication, but pretty realistic)
Thanks for this excellent and informative post. If people take the time to read this they will get the idea of the bigger picture.
I have left my last two jobs because of a concern over them being future proof/job cuts. I'm currently training to learn a new skill as I am trying to plan a career that will be relatively future proof.
Bad news - I don's think ANY career will be future-proof! Closest you'll be able to get is in a trade - it'll be donkeys years before that's automated/mechanised.
Bad news - I don's think ANY career will be future-proof! Closest you'll be able to get is in a trade - it'll be donkeys years before that's automated/mechanised.
Anything that requires a screwdriver and a toolbag is relatively future proof for quite a long time I’d say. Any job that’s effectively admin or desk based will be gone. Personal care occupations like nursing and allied jobs like physiotherapists, Radiography etc are fairly hands on and although I see them being somewhat de skilled they’ll be around for a long time. Not too much else is safe although there will be more than I can readily think of.
All I wanna know is if driverless cars will be able to feel fear. If I'm up ones arse cause they're ruining the fun and staying below 70, if I drive right up its arse, will feel pressure and move over. Robotic little twat
I hope it’s going the same way as you all the way to your destination.
Jokes aside, ideas like this are terrible. AI, automation, robot work etc. People's laziness towards it all winds me up.
Without sounding like a meme, the robots will end up taking all our jobs. Jobs like taxi driving, delivery drivers, truck drivers, pilots, train drivers etc are essential to the economy. You start taking away these jobs, where do these workers go?
And it won't be as simple as "they'll do the picking/packing" as at some stage companies will use AI or some form of robot/technology for that too.
Even things like music, films, TV. The creativity will soon go and people will be using automated websites to get ideas.
The world is in a state of de-evolution imo. What people may see as convenience, I see as social fracture.
Not going to bring AI into your vlogs then?
I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs.
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
"I know you're joking but this is another example of AI/technology taking jobs" ..... that were created when computers were invented and people complained they would take their jobs and and .....
And lots of people have lost their jobs because of technology advancements. Particularly low skill jobs, which are still essential and allow our system to work as it does.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
I didn't start out in IT cos in 1974 it was called computing. But all through my working life people have been saying precisely what you have said above, although perhaps not as eloquently. Things change. They always have. It's just the pace of change that seems always to increase but maybe that's an illusion.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
I think you're falling into the same trap as most, in seeing AI being used for searches/responses. It's not that which is going to destroy a huge percentage of jobs. It's the GenAI.
I'll give two examples - directly related to my field - cybersecurity.
I work very closely with software engineers. There are 2800 of them in my company, working on 300+ products across 12 different sectors. We've started to use Claude Code and Devin, along with N8n to automate a huge amount of development. Despite assurances to the contrary, when the speed at which devs can push out code increases by about 500%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the number of developers will be decimated.
It'll hit first with graduate/junior roles (very quickly destroying the main entry point into the field) and then with people leaving and not being replaced, then removing the offshoring (devs may consider that an unexpected bonus, but there's an entire industry of millions in India that stands to be completely obsoleted) and finally hitting the remaining devs as profit is further prioritised. Inside three years, there will be about 20% of the roles in software development that exist currently - and most of those roles will be people supervising/sanity checking stuff that AI has written (and another AI has already checked, I might add).
In my own specific field, one of my main responsibilities is managing the pen test programme (hiring ethical hackers to test our products). Testers come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is that they're EXPENSIVE. Day rate for a good tester is around £1200, when you wrap the assurance around it (eg: using a provider to sub through, with all the NDA/legal/insurance covered).
I am running a proof of concept currently for a 'virtual tester'. On the two products I'm using it with (both tested multiple times in the past) it's already found dozens of issues missed by previous testers - and I haven't even given it the source code to review yet (next stage of the POC is to see how good it is at uncovering business logic flaws within an application - something that no automated/DAST tool I've ever seen has a hope of doing).
It costs absolute peanuts compared to even an average tester, and out-performs all but the very highest rated hackers on the main bug bounty programs (Hacker One, Intigriti).
Even better - it integrates directly into repos, so can form part of the CI-CD pipeline and provide iterative scanning during the development process (we call that 'shifting left', and it's among the hardest things to get traction on in cybersecurity).
Note - this is already happening - and it will only get more disruptive as GenAI and the underlying LLMs improve. As it does, pen testing will be as decimated as software engineering.
I anticipate that, in 2-3 years time, my own job - which, by any measure, is a 'desired' role (eg: skilled, requires decades of experience, is aspirational (was even used, infamously, in a government campaign a few years back)) will be reduced largely to a compliance role, where I'm overseeing the security output of an end to end development process, every now and then poking the AI to get it to work in a different way, and rubber-stamping it for customers.
Now I clearly didn't get into this field for the hot women and cool cars. Unless you're specifically interested in it, what I do can look dull and impenetrable to the outsider. But I certainly didn't envisage, after 25 years of doing it, that all the skills and experience I've gained over that time would be thrown out and replaced by an auto signature on a pdf and entering numbers into Excel...
You think people are too scared of AI? I'd argue they're not scared nearly enough. It's not regulation that's needed, it's a serious discussion on whether current progress should be paused whilst the impacts on society are considered.
Edit - a couple of really good books on the subject if you're interested - 'Superintelligence' by Nick Bostrom (technical, but relatively easy to read) and 'How AI Will Change Your Life' by Patrick Dixon (much more populist, and a lot of prognostication, but pretty realistic)
One of the most articulate posts I have read on the subject and agree everyone is not concerned enough about the impact AI will have on ‘desirable’ blue collar jobs.
Comments
If I currently use AI, it won't change much as I don't get paid enough to pay someone to do my editing for me, so no one would be out of pocket but, creators who don't edit and can afford to pay would be putting someone out of pocket using AI instead of an editors services. Of course the person who makes that AI programme would be being paid in some capacity, but it wouldn't be charging as much as a pure editor cause of time alone.
The main point is, the more we lean into laziness, the more it will damage our economy in the long run. As much as people may see the practicality of it all, I view the danger of a socioeconomic collapse in the not so distant future.
The first time was a bit weird but after that they were great, sometimes can drop you a bit further away from your destination but that's because they are only finding a safe space to pull over.
So back on your point - I see an feel the risk of tech like this and AI. However it is not a fault of the tech itself but of the system under which we live. This post capitalist, race to the bottom, techno feudalism whereby large multinationals wielding their oligopoly power and huge state contracts, paying a fraction of the tax they are supposed to control almost every sector of not just the economy but our lives and have too much power over government.
So whilst that fear is real I dont think its a reason to not want progress. We have to take the progress and at the same time try and influence the system. This tech advancement is a massive opportunity to change the system, we missed the opportunity of the last major one so its even more important we right those wrongs. The godfather of AI has said that if we properly tax and regulate AI it can be the driver of massive social change, he specifically calls for socialism, universal basic income, reduced working hours tacking wealth inequality and the power of large corporations. Part of that is simply changing the conversation in the UK, so much of our focus is inward or to the US. If we look across the rest of the world so much progress is being made and if we can show that to people sooner or later they are gonna want a bit of it. We can start by bringing in some of the controls on large corporations/shareholder power that are common across Europe and the G20 (except for UK and US.
Let the tech progress bring social progress! Better is possible for all of us.
The more advanced the technology, the less need for humans. I've worked in many different roles in many different organisations and I know how impactful technology advancement can be.
If it carries on as it is, we will have an overpopulated planet, with not enough jobs to pay people.
This is all race to the bottom stuff, corporate greed will inevitably/eventually be the reason we come to a standstill.
Surely you must see the bigger picture here. There is a beauty in humans fulfilling tasks. I like interactions with humans, I like engaging with the delivery driver, cab driver etc.
When you break it all down, it's all about control. Robots/AI, whatever you want to call it don't require holiday pay, won't get sick, won't get tired, won't make mistakes, won't need maternity leave. This is all very deliberate.
It's a bit deep considering it's a thread about a self driving taxi, but it just sums up where the future is headed for me. We are going backwards as a society.
My point was that you are worried about losing a job that nobody new would exist in 1974 or even 1984. There will be new jobs - guaranteed.
As for AI, I don't see it yet as a 100% technology. The text generating type is good but with fatal flaws. Ie Ask AI to tell you how to do something and it could give you the perfect answer but it could also give you an incorrect answer in a very plausible way.
The breast screening AI appears to be an excellent answer to a big problem.
Driverless cars are a solution that will need to be 99.99% correct and existing technologies are working towards that.
We use Alexas around the house and we have Google Home in our Volvo. From what I have learnt I can’t see voice control being anywhere near a 100% technology for the foreseeable future. But it is very useful and will be even more so in the car if I can remember to use it !
And before you put me down as a techno freak, I only like and use technology that works for me. That's why I am getting a physical season ticket (whoops, wrong thread).
There's no intrinsic need or beauty in having supermarket check out clerks or taxi drivers... humans can thrive without them
Braziliance's point about humans needing some kind of tasks is valid, though. We don't want to be like the people in Wall-E.
I just like to think we can devote ourselves to more.... stimulating.... evolutionary pursuits than many of the mundane jobs that can be replaced by tech solutions.
I'll hold off on commenting on politico-economic possible backdrops... but that is a big factor here, too
AI is also a disaster waiting to happen due to the complete lack of a co-ordinated international system of regulation of it. There has never before been a species more intelligent than humans, but soon there will be when AI has been allowed to grow, uncontrolled as it is at the moment, and becomes more intelligent than humans. What do humans do when another species becomes a threat - kill .
I heard an interview on radio 4 with the head advisor on AI to our government - the one and only benefit of AI that he saw was in the field of medicine where it will cut down on mis-diagnosis. That was it . He warned that the Chinese and other nations are developing who knows what and due to the complete lack of international regulation of the field, and warned that due to this lack of regulation there will come a pinch point in the future - probably when its too late - when we wake up and realise that we have created a monster that is out of the bottle and cannot be put back and at that point try to introduce regualtion and control at a point when it is too late - what will the AI do at this point - attack to defend itself against this threat to it. He was asked the direct question in this interview - "in what timescale will AI start to become a threat to the future of mankind" and the answer was "in 10 to 20 years" - as quickly as that.
A friend who has spent his life in computing said to me that theres no need to worry about global warning because AI will extinguish us long before global warning does.
There is an excellent X Files episode called "Killswitch" which sums up the dangers of AI - way ahead of its time.
I despair how we sleepwalk into disasters of our own making , and anyone who puts their hand up to object / question is shot down in flames quite often without any valid arguement to counter the alternative view
I'll give two examples - directly related to my field - cybersecurity.
I work very closely with software engineers. There are 2800 of them in my company, working on 300+ products across 12 different sectors. We've started to use Claude Code and Devin, along with N8n to automate a huge amount of development. Despite assurances to the contrary, when the speed at which devs can push out code increases by about 500%, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the number of developers will be decimated.
It'll hit first with graduate/junior roles (very quickly destroying the main entry point into the field) and then with people leaving and not being replaced, then removing the offshoring (devs may consider that an unexpected bonus, but there's an entire industry of millions in India that stands to be completely obsoleted) and finally hitting the remaining devs as profit is further prioritised. Inside three years, there will be about 20% of the roles in software development that exist currently - and most of those roles will be people supervising/sanity checking stuff that AI has written (and another AI has already checked, I might add).
In my own specific field, one of my main responsibilities is managing the pen test programme (hiring ethical hackers to test our products). Testers come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is that they're EXPENSIVE. Day rate for a good tester is around £1200, when you wrap the assurance around it (eg: using a provider to sub through, with all the NDA/legal/insurance covered).
I am running a proof of concept currently for a 'virtual tester'. On the two products I'm using it with (both tested multiple times in the past) it's already found dozens of issues missed by previous testers - and I haven't even given it the source code to review yet (next stage of the POC is to see how good it is at uncovering business logic flaws within an application - something that no automated/DAST tool I've ever seen has a hope of doing).
It costs absolute peanuts compared to even an average tester, and out-performs all but the very highest rated hackers on the main bug bounty programs (Hacker One, Intigriti).
Even better - it integrates directly into repos, so can form part of the CI-CD pipeline and provide iterative scanning during the development process (we call that 'shifting left', and it's among the hardest things to get traction on in cybersecurity).
Note - this is already happening - and it will only get more disruptive as GenAI and the underlying LLMs improve. As it does, pen testing will be as decimated as software engineering.
I anticipate that, in 2-3 years time, my own job - which, by any measure, is a 'desired' role (eg: skilled, requires decades of experience, is aspirational (was even used, infamously, in a government campaign a few years back)) will be reduced largely to a compliance role, where I'm overseeing the security output of an end to end development process, every now and then poking the AI to get it to work in a different way, and rubber-stamping it for customers.
Now I clearly didn't get into this field for the hot women and cool cars. Unless you're specifically interested in it, what I do can look dull and impenetrable to the outsider. But I certainly didn't envisage, after 25 years of doing it, that all the skills and experience I've gained over that time would be thrown out and replaced by an auto signature on a pdf and entering numbers into Excel...
You think people are too scared of AI? I'd argue they're not scared nearly enough. It's not regulation that's needed, it's a serious discussion on whether current progress should be paused whilst the impacts on society are considered.
Edit - a couple of really good books on the subject if you're interested - 'Superintelligence' by Nick Bostrom (technical, but relatively easy to read) and 'How AI Will Change Your Life' by Patrick Dixon (much more populist, and a lot of prognostication, but pretty realistic)
I do worry about AI but I cannot envisage how regulation could work or even be adhered to, particularly as we are talking about a global phenomenon.
I still think generative AI is potentially and fatally flawed. There is so much incorrect information out there that will inevitably make it a difficult technology on which to rely. Much like voice recognition.
But even taking that incident (which is the single one highlighted every time in anti self-driving concerns), in the time since I've started typing this post, statistically speaking, dozens of people have been seriously injured on crashes on the road caused by inattentive drivers, bad drivers, or belligerent drivers. 1600+ people a year are killed on Britain's roads - the vast majority due to bad driving.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a proponents of self-driving. Our roads aren't fit for it in any shape or form apart from motorways, and it will take decades to get them up to the standards required. As a cyclist as well as a driver, I'm also extremely concerned about the collision detection mechanisms and algorithms - I've seen far more worrying footage of cyclists on the verge of being hit in self driving tests than I have pedestrians or other cars. Just saying that using one incident as an argument against it doesn't really hold water, given the statistics involved with human drivers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr510p7kymo
People will say it's overthinking it etc, but I think in 50 years or maybe less we will be at the point of no return.
Technology just advances at a rapid rate, there are things now that if you explained to people even as early as the 80s, they wouldn't be able to comprehend.
I have left my last two jobs because of a concern over them being future proof/job cuts. I'm currently training to learn a new skill as I am trying to plan a career that will be relatively future proof.