In a 1938 article, MIT’s president argued that technical progress didn’t mean fewer jobs. He’s still right.

In a 1938 article, MIT’s president argued that technical progress didn’t mean fewer jobs. He’s still right.

Compton drew a sharp distinction between the consequences of technological progress on “industry as a whole” and the effects, often painful, on individuals.

For “industry as a whole,” he concluded, “technological unemployment is a myth.” That’s because, he argued, technology "has created so many new industries” and has expanded the market for many items by “lowering the cost of production to make a price within reach of large masses of purchasers.” In short, technological advances had created more jobs overall. The argument—and the question of whether it is still true—remains pertinent in the age of AI.

Then Compton abruptly switched perspectives, acknowledging that for some workers and communities, “technological unemployment may be a very serious social problem, as in a town whose mill has had to shut down, or in a craft which has been superseded by a new art.”

  • @[email protected]English
    8•4 months ago

    IT guy here, I am not that worried about AI, I kinda see it in a similar situation as 3D movies, a fad, with a cool core technology, but way overhyped.

    Right now AI companies are trying to find their place, and some will, but most will fail.

    The main issue woth AI as we see it today is that it is too unreliable, while stating incorrect informstion as if it is completely true.

    I tried Bings AI a few times last year, and while cool, it would often lie or if I am asking for a powershell script to do X, it would send me incomplete or broken scripts, I’d have to talk to it and explain what was missing, then baby it through completing the task.

    AI as it is now, will not work good enough to be usefull data

    • alphacyberrangerEnglish
      5•4 months ago

      I’m also a IT guy, I can see many things like data engineering, document verification, data entry etc being automated. Some jobs won’t disappear but the headcount in companies surely will decrease. A lot of these automation stuff don’t even need AI, it’s just smarter and more efficient softwares we are having nowadays. A lot these high paying jobs won’t need experienced high salaried people instead companies will hire freshers or those from developing countries at low wages.

    • osarusan
      4•4 months ago

      IT guy here, I am not that worried about AI

      That’s pretty much because you’re an IT guy. You’re in an industry that AI won’t replace any time soon.

      If you were a cashier, or a stock clerk, or a busboy, you should be terrified by AI. The speed at which those jobs are already vanishing is astounding. The other day I was at a restaurant, and I never interacted with a human. The ordering was done by touch panel at my table, the food was delivered to the table by a robot and I paid at an automated terminal. I don’t know how many staff were on duty but it had to be a fraction of what it would have been a decade ago. I bought clothes last week and there was one employee in the store, overseeing the self-checkout lanes (but really just sitting idly by in case anyone had issues). I read an article yesterday about how robots are now being distributed to convenience stores that can clean, stock, and reorder items, so these shops will pretty soon have only one employee in them.

      The gimmicky shit that your browser AI and chatbots can do is nothing compared to how this is already revolutionizing the world.

      • @[email protected]English
        0•4 months ago

        This is a bit dystopian, but not entierly wrong, I doubt that stores will only have one employee in them any time soon, but you are right in that the chats we have seen are just gimmicks.

        • osarusan
          2•4 months ago

          I doubt that stores will only have one employee

          It’s already here, my dude. Not every store, but some are doing this now. It’s just a question of how fast it will spread.

    • @AsocilEnglish
      2•4 months ago

      That’s only text generation, but we see AI art everywhere. Just think that every piece of AI art you see could have been comissioned.

      Hell, Prince of Persia:The last crown launched with a character that had ai voice over

      Is worth mentioning that you only scratched the surface of chat bots. ViewGrabber on Youtube shows how chat bots now can have character cards, a description of the world they live in, their relation with others, a history of every event that happened…

      The potential of that is shown in this video of Two Minute Papers which shows a full AI video game company powered by ChatGPT that has made games you can play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlgkzjndpak