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Will Artificial Intelligence take away our jobs? Or maybe our sanity?

edited December 2022 in Off-Topic
A few days ago Paul Krugman wrote a fascinating commentary contemplating some of the possibilities that the continual improvement in "AI" may bring. (Note: the link is likely valid only for NY Times subscribers.)

Below are a few excerpts from Mr. Krugman's commentary:
Will robots take away our jobs?

People have been asking that question for an astonishingly long time.

You can argue that what we often call artificial intelligence isn’t really intelligence. Indeed, it may be a long time before machines can be truly creative or offer deep insight. But then, how much of what human beings do is truly creative or deeply insightful? (Indeed, how much of what gets published in academic journals — a field of endeavor I know pretty well — meets those criteria?)

So quite a few knowledge jobs may be eminently replaceable.

What will this mean for the economy?

It is difficult to predict exactly how A.I. will impact the demand for knowledge workers, as it will likely vary, depending on the industry and specific job tasks. However, it is possible that in some cases, A.I. and automation may be able to perform certain knowledge-based tasks more efficiently than humans, potentially reducing the need for some knowledge workers. This could include tasks such as data analysis, research and report writing. However, it is also worth noting that A.I. and automation may also create new job opportunities for knowledge workers, particularly in fields related to A.I. development and implementation.

OK, I didn’t write the paragraph you just read; ChatGPT did, in response to the question “How will A.I. affect the demand for knowledge workers?” The giveaway, to me at least, is that I still refuse to use “impact” as a verb. And it didn’t explicitly lay out exactly why we should, overall, expect no impact on aggregate employment. But it was arguably better than what many humans, including some people who imagine themselves smart, would have written.

Scary!

Comments

  • And, some observations from another professional commentator. Here's excerpts from a column by John Naughton, in the Guardian:
    Those who, like this columnist, spend too much time online will have noticed a kind of feeding frenzy over the past two weeks. The cause has been the release of an interesting chatbot – a software application capable of conducting an online conversation. The particular bot creating the fuss is ChatGPT, a prototype artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that focuses on usability and dialogue and was developed by OpenAI, an AI research laboratory based in San Francisco.

    ChatGPT uses a large language model built via machine-learning methods and is based on OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, which is capable of producing human-like text when given a prompt in natural language. It’s an example of what has come to be called “generative AI”: software that uses machine-learning algorithms to enable machines to generate artificial content – text, images, audio and video content based on its training data – in a way that might persuade a human user into believing that its outputs are “real”.

    ChatGPT has become wildly popular because it’s easy to access and use: it can be run in a browser. All you have to do is open a free account with OpenAI and then give the program a task by describing what you want it to do in plain English. For example, you can ask it (as I did), “Is Donald Trump really a narcissist?”, and it will reply:

    “There is widespread speculation and debate among psychologists and mental health professionals about whether or not Donald Trump exhibits symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Some argue that his behaviour and statements align with the diagnostic criteria for the disorder, while others believe that his behaviour is better explained by other psychological factors.”

    Obviously, this is not exactly profound, but at least it’s grammatical. It also strives for a quasi-authoritative style, which should set some alarm bells ringing; authoritative-sounding misinformation may have more purchase on ordinary mortals than the usual guff. But people seem to love the new bot. Even the Daily Mail is impressed. “The release of the artificial intelligence chatbot,” it burbled, “led to speculation it could replace Google’s search engine within two years… Its ability to answer complex questions has led some to wonder if it could challenge Google’s search engine monopoly.”
    We seem to be heading toward a world of mirrors where it will be all but impossible to actually know the accuracy or truth of anything that we read or are told. The Trump administration redux. Every day. Regarding everything. Good luck to us.

  • I've read briefly the past few months about this particular A.I.
    I remain fascinated with all forms of technology in the broadest forms, but yes; the 'stuff' makes me twitchy.
    Years back I posted links here regarding robotics and their many uses. These continue to expand. Large scale 3D printing is another area.
    Some of this technology will remove some human work; but will also allow to assist humans by removing some work that is dangerous and allowing humans to be so much better with emergency situations. Drones for field study....farms, crops, forest and the 'eye in the sky' relative to the recent Florida hurricane. They could be flown into some houses without windows to 'look' for injured folks.
    In spite of bad things that will evolve from scientific/tech.; they will be 'good' uses, too.

    ChatGTP

    I plan to login to this site to discover what I can do. As PK noted, some of his write evolved from this A.I.
    Lastly, GULP......Elon Musk has his fingers in the OpenA.I. project.
  • edited December 2022
    Larry Summers on this week’s Wall Street Week references this new development as equivalent in significance to the inventions or the wheel and fire. (Overkill me thinks.) And Eric Savitz, writing in this week’s Barron’s, leads off the ”Up & Down Wall Street” column with the following:

    Excerpt* - Allow me for a moment to discuss a new poem that has the potential to be a classic… Here's an excerpt: “Oh Infield Fly Rule, thou art a treasure A beacon of fair play beyond measure We thank thee for thy guidance and thy grace In the great game of baseball, thou dost hold a special place.”Boffo, right? Exactly what the Bard (or at least Ernest Lawrence Thayer) might have written if he'd been inclined to pen poesy about rules to prevent baseball cheats. But the actual author of this brilliant work was ChatGPT, an ingenious piece of software in a budding category called generative AI, a fancy term for computer-generated art, text, and music. Goofing around with the software last week—it's free on the web—I simply told it to write an ode to the infield fly rule. Two seconds later, said ode appeared.

    * Excerpted from Barron’s December 12, 2022 issue



    Umm … This can’t be good news for teachers assigning at home writing to their students. Hell, a 2-hour project might be completed in 2-seconds!
  • edited December 2022
    @hank- my wife, also a retired teacher (35 years in the SF Public School "system") is in complete agreement. On the brighter side, there will likely be a significant improvement in the quality of the work that teachers will have to evaluate. Maybe we could check with ChatGPT on that.
  • edited December 2022
    @Old_Joe -

    Wife is right about quality of work improving.

    I recall 25 years ago or more when the internet was in infancy. An “enterprising” student turned in a “too good to be true” research paper. Not even having internet at home yet, it blew my mind. Did he look at an encyclopedia article and than type in every single word?

    Spent hours at the public library after school digging through books trying to track down the source. Finally, the librarian took pity and led me to a computer. We logged into this weird sounding place called “Yahoo” and after searching for a few key passages, up popped the entire document from which the plagiarized work had been drawn. Simple “cut & paste”.
  • I wonder if ChatGPT will keep a record of it's creations.
  • I suppose that you could try asking it about that. But how believable would the answer be?
  • ChatGPT does appear to have the potential to make the traditional teaching of English redundant. (BTW, in Great Britain, layoffs are known as redundancies.) A teacher of literature and composition commented in the WP that this software would remove the last standing screening device left to educators who need to assess student knowledge acquired by requiring a written essay. This guy even found that ChatGPT could edit and improve upon a decent first draft of an essay, turning it into the equivalent of a text worthy of a professional writer. What would be the point of taking a student through the laborious steps of improving writing if he/she could grab the finished product right off the web?
  • I hated writing papers in high school and college so reviewing ChatGPT would have been too great a temptation for me. As an accounting major, I managed my course load so that I only remember writing 4 papers, two of them group projects, after freshman year !
  • Well done!
  • SO !!! Who among us is going to be the first to write about an investment topic using this OpenAI??? Say 100 words or less. It should be a good one; say about derivatives, CLO's (collateral loan obligations) or similar.:)
  • edited December 2022
    @catch22- Well, I did think about that for a couple of minutes, but since my financial acumen is marginal at best I thought that the inspiration should come from someone who actually knows something about this stuff. So, without further delay, I hereby nominate YOU. :)

  • Well, I did check the free account login and they need an email address; and a first and last name. So, I'm thinking about using my email and your first and last name. I think that would work.
    An AI write request for me would be quantum physics or mechanics........'cause I'm a blank about these two areas.
  • Sounds good. My first name is Joe, and my last name is Blatz. Carry on!
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