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Will AI take your job?

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,990 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Who says I haven't.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 8,827 ✭✭✭plodder


    This is a really interesting article about English language text written by AI, how some people are recognising that it was, and particularly the curious places that it's showing up ... such as in speeches to the UK parliament. 😀

    In the British Parliament, for instance, transcripts show that M.P.s have suddenly started opening their speeches with the phrase “I rise to speak.” On a single day this June, it happened 26 times. “I rise to speak in support of the amendment.” “I rise to speak against Clause 10.” Which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is not something British parliamentarians said very much previously. Among American lawmakers, however, beginning a speech this way is standard practice. A.I.s are not always so sensitive to these cultural differences.

    The above is surprising because recently I learned that there is a huge corpus of English language text (called "The Pile") which is used to train these large language models. But, it specifically excluded the record of the US Congress, supposedly due to its racist content. But, some of these companies must be using it anyway.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/magazine/chatbot-writing-style.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6E8.7Lih.BgV7I1y9UO9m&smid=url-share

    This bit is good on the more creative/abstract type of language that it generates:

    Read any amount of A.I.-generated fiction, you’ll instantly notice an entirely different vocabulary. You’ll notice, for instance, that A.I.s are absolutely obsessed with ghosts. In machine-written fiction, everything is spectral. Everything is a shadow, or a memory, or a whisper. They also love quietness. For no obvious reason, and often against the logic of a narrative, they will describe things as being quiet, or softly humming. This year, OpenAI unveiled a new model of ChatGPT that was, it said, “good at creative writing.” As evidence, the company’s chief executive, Sam Altman, presented a short story it wrote. In his prompt, he asked for a “metafictional literary short story about A.I. and grief.” The story it produced was about 1,100 words long; seven of those words were “quiet,” “hum,” “humming,” “echo” (twice!), “liminal” and “ghosts.” That new model was an early version of ChatGPT-5. When I asked it to write a story about a party, which is a traditionally loud environment, it started describing “the soft hum of distant conversation,” the “trees outside whispering secrets” and a “quiet gap within the noise.” When I asked it to write an evocative and moving essay about pebbles, it said that pebbles “carry the ghosts of the boulders they were” and exist “in a quiet space between the earth and the sea.” Over 759 words, the word “quiet” appeared 10 times. When I asked it to write a science-fiction story, it featured a data-thief protagonist called, inevitably, Kael, who “wasn’t just good—he was a phantom,” alongside a love interest called Echo and a rogue A.I. called the Ghost Code.

    That's another thing. If you ask it to write a science fiction story, the chances are that a male character will be called "Kael"

    “The opposite of 'good' is 'good intentions'”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,533 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    AI slop in the written form.

    The fact that it's showing up in government speeches is a genuine worry.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭Emblematic


    And if the AI gets things wrong, the government ministers can blame the AI that wrote the speech.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 175 ✭✭justmehere


    A surprising lack of discussion of Google's NotebookLM on boards.ie

    Until Google introduces a way of searching for publicly available Notebooks, you may like to try out NBLM.LINK in the meantime. It's a free resource for you to browse existing notebooks and add your own notebooks that you want to share. Simple and it's free :-)



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    It is a good thing, it improves productivity. Productivity increases across society increase general levels of prosperity and reduces poverty.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭Emblematic


    You might be setting up a bit of a straw man here. Of course LLMs are "not healthcare". Obviously, healthcare is a very broad area and no technology will cover all of it. The most I hear people saying on this thread and elsewhere is that health advice is a potentially useful application of LLMs.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,533 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    Since when is people losing their jobs and livelihoods a good fucking thing.

    🙄



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44,375 ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Is it improving productivity though? Can you back this up?

    The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

    Leviticus 19:34



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    For many people who know how to use it, very much so. A three week task can become a 2 hour task. An hour task can become a 3 minute task.

    It will only get better from here and people will get better at knowing when and how to use it for productivity gains.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44,375 ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Sure but I meant more generally. Can you back this up at all? I can't see any evidence of it reducing poverty or boosting wages.

    The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

    Leviticus 19:34



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,221 ✭✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    AI will be huge in all healthcare settings.

    Bill Gates on AI: Humans won’t be needed ‘for most things’

    Bill Gates: Within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers—humans won’t be needed ‘for most things’

    At the moment, expertise remains “rare,” Gates explained, pointing to human specialists we still rely on in many fields, including “a great doctor” or “a great teacher.”

    But “with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth house?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 927 ✭✭✭littlefeet


    He is forgetting one vital issue: medication. Cuba has lots of medical professionals, but restricted access to high-tech medication. It will be fantastic when AI can diagnose some rare form of cancer much better and quicker than a medical professional, but that's not much use if the medication to treat the cancer costs over 100k.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    I don't have statistics on me to post, but it makes so many tasks much quicker. It's bound to improve productivity. I'm fairly certain there would be economic evidence that widespread higher productivity brings about greater prosperity and reduced poverty.

    With greater productivity more products and services are produced, lowering equilibrium prices, inflation adjusted.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44,375 ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    And what happens when the mass layoffs start?

    You're just repeating this line about productivity for some reason. This argument only applies if people are actually employed.

    The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

    Leviticus 19:34



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,420 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    you need to seriously look into the fundamental flaws of neoclassical economics, equilibrium, supply and demand, and all that horsesh1t, cause thats all it is, bullsh1t, its not how our reality works at all. increased productivity doesnt always mean utopia, such as less working hours etc, and greater prosperity doesnt always mean, everyone gets a fair share of the wealth created, sometimes the complete opposite happens, i.e. increasing wealth inequality, i.e. exactly whats currently happening, which tends to lead to more unstable societies, and increasing poverty, which is exactly whats currently happening!

    such dynamics tends to lead to highly monopolised markets, which in turn can cause havoc with inflation, as those monopolising entities can do whatever the fcuk they want, whenever the fcuk they want, like yanking the price of vital societal needs such as energy prices, which is pretty much what caused our current inflationary problems, i.e. supply side inflation!

    be very wary of utopias, as they tend to be very utopic!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,420 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    be interesting to see if those data centers are viable if theres significant levels of unemployment!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    I never said greater productivity brings utopia. It does generally raise people's standard of living.

    Poverty levels globally have been falling susbtainally since around around 1820. Poverty has also been falling in Ireland, that is driven by greater productivity.

    Wealth isn't money, money is merely infrastructure that supports wealth. Wealth is access to goods and services. Greater productivity increases the availability of goods and services.

    Poverty occurs when there is insufficient goods and services to meet people's basic needs. Greater productivity reduces the likelihood that there is insufficient goods and services for people.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    There have been countless new technologies in the past, and they haven't led to widespread unemployment. We're at full employment in Ireland despite countless advanced technologies that improve productivity.

    Economies evolve, new businesses will become viable thanks to AI



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,420 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    jesus more neoclassical horsesh1t, again, this is not how our reality works, it just isnt.

    wealth, in the modern word, is generally stored in the value of assets such as property, land, stocks, shares, bonds etc, of which the ownership of is in fact slowly and gradually concentrating.

    again, increasing productivity doesnt always mean people will in fact work less, sometimes the opposite is in fact true.

    yes the access to goods and services has rapidly grown over time, but the wealth generated from these activates has not spread very well, it has in fact been concentrated more so, over time.

    poverty ultimately occurs from the implementation of sh1t polices, that do not address widening and growing wealth inequality, such as low taxation on the accumulation of wealth, e.g. encouraging hyper inflation in property prices etc!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,420 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    yes, new technology in the past has generally lead to more employment, but there is a possibility ai may in fact reverse this trend, we simply dont know, i personally think its horse1ht, i believe ai is generally creating sh1t thats actually not of much use to humanity, but of course there will be positives, the tech sector is very likely currently in a bubble, and will very likely pop, soon, so that should wipe out a lot of the sh1t, and hopefully leave us with the better tech.

    but if ai wipes out a load of jobs, it will very likely mean a lot of the tech supporting it, such as data centers etc, become redundant, modern economies also ant function with high levels of unemployment, if ai causes this, there would also be significant knock on effects such as a catastrophic financial crash.

    economies are not smooth transiting entities, if people are made unemployed, it can sometimes take many months, even years to re-enter the workforce, and in same cases, never, if ai causes large amounts of rapid unemployment, the whole thing crashes, including the tech sectors, so be careful what you wish for!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    When did I say increasing productivity means people will work less?

    Poverty Has substantially decreased, even since 1990, never-ending 1890. I refer you to the below information.

    https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

    Wealth is the ample availability of products and services that people value. That has grown substantially across the globe and all sections of society.

    Inequality is of course a problem, however poverty is a bigger problem than inequality and it is being addressed, with growing wealth thanks to increasing productivity.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    AI can help find and organise information for people much more quickly than they otherwise could. That saves people time and allows them to use that time in better ways. That is of huge use to humanity, time is our most valuable asset, AI frees up people's time for more meaningful pursuits.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,533 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    AI has the very real potential to put a lot of people out of work.

    It'll "free up their time" alright.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 3,200 ✭✭✭Hoop66


    Wealth is the ample availability of products and services that people value

    And when people who lose their jobs to AI have no money to pay for these products and services, what then? In your scenario, and forgive me if I've misunderstood, it seems like you're assuming that benevolent corporations will make products cheaper? That, and once again forgive if I have misunderstood, seems astonishingly naive given what we see over the history of capitalism.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    New jobs will likely emerge as they have everytime new technologies have been introduced in the past that caused job losses. The tractor, spreadsheet, steam engine, electrification all caused job losses. The economy then changed and new jobs emerged. There will always be people looking to make a profit. New opportunities for businesses will emerge, and with those, new jobs, as has always been thr case. AI is a tool, a very useful tool that enhances productivity.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,533 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    Every reply you make comes off like it's been cobbled together from a thousand cliches.

    Frankly, you sound like an AI.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,221 ✭✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    AI will take a lot more jobs that it replaces in my opinion. It will have cognitive abilities far in advance of most humans and eventually all humans. And it will work for free 24/7.

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth house?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 360 ✭✭JM2300


    Similarly a spreadsheet and general code has abilities far greater than humans. Millions of admin jobs were eliminated due to the spreadsheet. That freed up people's time to perform tasks that provided more value.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,420 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    you ve unfortunately swallowed a whole pile of nonsense, believing tech such as ai will resolve many human issues, but are failing to realise, tech can and has created many human problems, again, if ai does in fact significantly disrupt many sectors, causing significant job losses, we ll have major problems on our hands, and its very likely the value of the assets supporting ai, will fall!

    a lot of ai is actually not adding value at all, a lot is actually complete muck, not truly benefiting humanity at all, some is probably beneficial though



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