Ask HN: Can we just admit we want to replace jobs with AI?

57 points · colesantiago · 5 hours ago

I think it is best to be just straightforward about this.

With open models like DeepSeek-R1, Llama, Qwen, etc and closed source models like o1, o3, Claude etc and even OpenAI's upcoming agentic operator.

At this point knowledge work is going to be white hot with automation in the focus this year and the next.

Can we just be real and just say we aren't advancing humanity with AI, it is just focused on automating out jobs.

OpenAI even admitted that their definition of AGI is:

"By AGI we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work." (0)

I knew this for the longest time, but I still see and talk to researchers in AI companies that still believe they are furthering humanity with AI and all this optimism of the future. While I like to be optimistic about it, just tell the truth plainly that everybody hasn't actually thought about what happens when AGI comes.

The more we just admit this to ourselves the more people can be prepare for when AGI inevitably comes.

Otherwise everybody will prepare to fail.

(0) https://openai.com/index/how-should-ai-systems-behave/

81 comments

gnfargbl · 3 hours ago

But how is an individual supposed to "prepare" for AGI?

The outcome of further automation will be to move even more capital under the control of an even smaller number of hands. It's that increasing inequality which is the problem, not AGI.

Show replies

gregjor · 4 hours ago

Who hasn’t admitted this already, either outright or by their actions?

Going back to the industrial revolution the people who control capital and production have openly sought to replace human labor with automation. Nothing new, just that this time it threatens “knowledge workers” and the techie HN crowd. If you hear someone claim that they want to “advance humanity” with automation they profit from you can safely assume they don’t mean that sincerely.

rustcleaner · 3 hours ago

As for why people losing economic power is a bad thing, see CGP Grey's Rules for Rulers videos. AI is about to make a whole bunch of people superfluous, and superfluous people might as well be rhinos on a safari as the techno-war overlords cruise by in their jeeps. It means our societies will degrade into natural resource rich but skill poor countries: disenfranchised poor hordes kept in check by the zoo keepers.

Are you ready for your Brave New World? :^)

Tade0 · 3 hours ago

My position is that the demographic collapse in countries with a near 100% literacy rate is going to more than make up for any jobs replaced by AI.

It is said that AI will make 200 million jobs redundant. China's workforce alone shrunk by 80 million during the previous decade according to their 2020 census.

Overall I think we need to increase efforts with AI, particularly make it more energy efficient, as currently it's simply expensive to run, if we wish to not bear the consequences of having a globally ageing literate population.

Gud · 46 minutes ago

I would absolutely embrace AI if the means of production was owned collectively, not by the few privileged.

It seems to me, that the path we are on will lead us closer to a Terminator-like future, and less likely to lead to a positive future.

Our leadership are greedy fools.