Will AI take your job?

The idea of making clothes by hand … would be absurd to us today

A good example, even if you didn't mean it to be so, of some of the hysterical scaremongering we're seeing around AI. Clothes today are still made by hand - all of them. Not just your haute-couture Armani suit, but every one-wash t-shirt and cheap pair of jeans that you might find in Penneys, and everything in between. No amount of technological development over the last 300 years has taken the human out of clothes-making, and the sector is still one of the biggest employers worldwide.

Equally, it's good example of how AI risks eating it's own. The online fashion space is now heavily contaminated with AI generated images of various items of clothing offered for sale, many of which are simply impossible to recreate in real life and most of which are (like excessively filtered profile photos) a great disappointment when they turn up in real life. This doesn't mean that pattern drafting software which includes AI can't be a great help to a designer, but it means the online retail space is swamped with AI fakery, which will push consumers to find real-world, real-people businesses instead.

The foundation for this reaction is already well laid in western Continental Europe, with a significant rejection of excessive corporate digitalisation of our personal lives. It won't spell the end of the "AI revolution" by any means - but it'll be an important brake on rampant unregulated development, and a reservoir of knowledge for anyone living in countries that have sold their souls to "les GAFA" as the French call them.

Yes but it takes less people using machines than people using machines to do any job.

The JCB does the work it takes 10 men a week to do in a couple of hours with one man and a JCB.

So unless you are the JCB driver, the owner of the building company or the buyer of the hole its digging you are on the wrong end of that equation. But most people who are made redundant by machines, find other types of work. Work evolves, same as technology evolves.

The cost of intelligence (A1) is going to near zero so anyone with the domain knowledge will be able to create what they(SAS) currently offer.( Obviously will be a small company with some capital backing)

SAS businesses can build a bigger moat but no-one is going to pay the toll to cross the bridge.

If you haven't come across this article yet its worth a read, it spooked the financial markets yesterday which says something for how many people are taking it seriously.

One of the big takeaways that honestly scares me a bit is the idea that new technology always leads to new different jobs to replace the ones it took. This article argues that's because the new jobs need intelligence to do but AI is/will be increasingly intelligent and will be able to do them too and better and cheaper than any human as well. Sobering to think about, article describes this point and many more better than i could.

I posted the guardian article about that above - again a good read and yes equally depressing 😀

You’re not totally wrong in some respects- and if you want to produce “stuff” without oversight and governance, such as we see on social media- then yes, totally agree.

But if you want bespoke, correctness, tailored- it will still take human intervention to make that so. The tools are incredible there’s no doubt- but humans aren’t totally redundant - but we do have to catch up, and decide just what a huge range of businesses are prepared to accept, as “acceptable”.

I wouldn’t be throwing degrees and qualifications in the bin just yet- for starters, “compliance” is not a friend of AI- that’s a good thing because it means humans will continue to be required.
Marketing? AI can “enhance”- or get you to a very cheap but good first draft MVP- - but again, if you want your marketing to do what’s expected of it, you will require human intervention.

There’s no doubt A LOT of jobs will be lost - but there will also be a new framework and ways of working in place in time - it’s “worrying” - but I’m hoping it won’t be doomsday - I’m in learning mode and getting used to a range of tools - some incredible technology out there- but businesses need to engage too and decide what works for them - I think that’s where the proof will be- currently social media is awash with propaganda about AI, promoting the tools whilst also preaching doom - that’s merely a marketing tool to encourage uptake which means profit - let’s see and in the meantime keep a cool head

If you look at Tik tok for example, it’s awash - wall to wall - with AI promotion - I don’t believe in conspiracy theories normally- but there’s no doubt, there’s a serious effort from AI affiliates and interested parties let’s say, to ensure AI explodes into action - a counterbalance force needs to develop organically in my view to this organised onslaught - and I believe it will

Yeah there's a clear bias for adoption. I think that's what gives me greatest pause, everyone is incentivised to drink the ai cool aid and indeed anyone negative will be pushed to the side regardless of merit. So we will all go along with it and whether it is successful or not, it must be declared a success. I wonder will we end up with so many agents producing so much output that it will be beyond our capability to even digest or understand our own workflows. Just because I can build something doesn't mean I should

It's anecdotal but my friends accounts of MNC life run from being overworked to being overstaffed. I suspect the latter applies to some of our resident MNCs and AI is a convenient scapegoat.

Something of an aside ...but…Why would you turn that into an opportunity to criticise men ffs

It could well be what you say ..but in all fairness Who truly knows exactly what motivation that lady has beyond being open for revealing the info

Maybe its not refreshing honesty/openess maybe she made a rash judgement in the heat of the moment...maybe she has qualms....maybe shes angling for something

I've seen plenty of women concoct ways of blaming something or someone else for things in my time.....I hardly think men have the monopoly on that as a behavioural trait..