Does Mike Rowe have some particular expertise in AI that would make his opinion more valuable than the thousands of other commentators saying it will ruin and/or save the world?
Doesn’t he make his money opining about how great blue collar jobs are and how “the kids these day” don’t want to do it. I’m not exactly surprised by his statement here.
It's a particularly interesting contradiction for Mike Rowe, who has lamented the loss of skilled blue collar workers who can do the "dirty jobs", which robots certainly have not replaced yet.
Automation has made an impact on manufacturing, and will continue to, and AI will have an impact on knowledge work, but thus far technological leaps have lead to increased productivity rather than increased unemployment, although the changes in industries may cause displacements in the labor force. It seems logical to expect that this may play out similarly.
Dunno... I'm pretty AI positive, but after using ChatGPT 4 last night and having it hallucinate badly on a basic technical question I'm feeling much more confident I won't be replaced this year.
Whether or not ChatGPT can replace you is less immediately important than whether decision makers /believe/ it can replace you.
Organizations adopt non-productive practices for many different reasons and the consequences are often not felt for a long time.
Imagine a scenario where an executive decides that ChatGPT/CoPilot/Whatever makes a junior dev as productive as a senior. Even if they are wrong it could take years for the tech debt to build up enough for the organization to recognized it as a mistake.
>Even if they are wrong it could take years for the tech debt to build up enough for the organization to recognized it as a mistake.
This sounds like the weakest value proposition of your contribution ever. If you told me this was your greatest contribution over a junior with GPT I would take the junior with GPT any day. Things getting deployed for years before you start noticing the effects ? Most projects don't even last that long.
Anyway the current state of tech is that it can't really do that much outside of impressive demos and minor flow improvements, anyone taking a bet on that replacing people is going to lose big short term.
Just look at OpenAI - like I've said the other day, they have huge resources, can hire top talent, and all the infra they want at their disposal - they are still failing at solved problems (web app/payments), and the support they provide is worse than Google. Couldn't they dogfood a little having access to this tech far sooner than everyone else, with no restrictions and top talent available ?
And you're going to achieve that in an enterprise org that can't even hire mediocre talent and has no experience with AI ?
The only thing that's coming is crypto bro consultants and pundits, HODL AI too the moon !
My thesis: a combination of lower-cost deskilling and automation of labor management will have far more pernicious wage effects than higher-cost complete automation. Both white collar and blue collar skilled labor will be impacted.
A few other notes:
1. Lag Effects.
My father in law worked at an auto plant for most of his career and regularly pointed out that his job didn't exist at any of the newer factories. He continued working at that factory for over a decade after his position had already been automated on newer lines, and lost his job only when the factory was scrapped and replaced (and moved to a different state in the process, for tax benefits).
Robots destroyed a lot of skilled labor, em masse, over the last thirty years. And many of the jobs that it didn't already destroy will cease to exist over the next thirty years as new major capital investments are made and capital investments from 30+ years ago are wound down.
2. Automation/Optimization of Labor Management.
Over shorter time frames -- in-between large capital outlays -- automation of labor management ("Uberfication") is a lot more impactful than automation of labor. There are a lot of skilled jobs, both blue-collar and white-collar, which are now effectively commodified. Not automated, mind you, but definitely commodified. I think that's a much larger threat to plumbing and electrical work than automation.
3. Meta RE: Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe is a (very rich) media personality whose brand was built on calling attention to the trades as a viable path to the middle class and questioning the necessity of "four-year college for all". I think that's admirable.
Lately he's turned this into a wedge for separating two components of the non-managerial working class. I think that's deplorable. Software Engineers and Welders should be in solidarity, and as far as I can tell people like Mike Rowe function -- intentionally or unintentionally -- as lackeys for the ownership class.
IMO, the distinction between white collar and blue collar work is just red meat. Of course language models won't have any effect on plumbing or electrical work! But the idea that robotics won't de-skill a huge portion of blue collar work as well seems extraordinarily naive. (NOT automate. De-skill. Which, combined with automation of labor management, turns a career track into low-pay/no-benefit gigwork.)
My father was a plumber. A true trades/craftsman. Big new construction projects were deskilled with "installers" who were mostly under the table immigrants. The warranty claims on $800K became a cottage industry. Custom homes, commercial, and repairs still require skill and experience as far as I can tell.
> People used to say that the robots are going to destroy skilled labor.
Who was saying that? It was established (and has come to fruition) that robots would replace a lot of manual workers in unskilled jobs in places like factories. Much of this has been automated or outsourced. But we have millions of factory workers today that are working with robots and/or doing more complex manufacturing than in years past.
I also think there's a real 80/20 problem with LLMs right now. Having worked with them for a few months they are undoubtedly helpful, especially for simple things. And people will build useful and productive tools with them. But, in my experience, they only get you at best 80% of the way there - the remaining 20% just isn't there. Not yet anyways.
"The robots are coming for your job" is something that has been spouted for decades now. Pundits love to make these shortsighted predictions to get some air time.
I see AI as an enhancer, not a replacement, like computers or the Internet were before it.
I mean how many Horse Carriage Drivers are still around? Or blacksmiths?
Mike Rowe has a very good point, some fields will be losers and some fields will be winners. Some of those losing fields will be white collar workers so if you're in that losing field you should be prepared to career switch or become unemployed.
Obviously the headline is much more ominous that what he said.
> I mean how many Horse Carriage Drivers are still around?
Aren't there just drivers anymore?
> Or blacksmiths?
Metal workers are still a thing.
> Mike Rowe has a very good point, some fields will be losers and some fields will be winners.
He doesn't. For starters, he doesn't have a basic understanding of what AI does or means. In his mind, AI will replace workers because it is seen as autonomous, which definitely is not.
Though I find it ironic that AI could, theoretically, help replace TV show hosts like him pretty much tomorrow. We already have virtual hosts and AI could create both the character and the scripts.
It seems to me that the problem is that the number of well paid fields seems to be decreasing and the difficulty of switching is prohibitive. E.g. I don't have the time or resources to go back to college in a new field and then rebuild a career from the ground up all over again.
The way people work will certainly change. AI tools can or will soon be able to produce pretty good art, music, texts (both original and translations), etc. I think there will still be people working with these tools (to select, touch up, set the tasks, etc.), as well as more people producing such tools, but unquestionably the efficiencies created by these new technologies will result in a shrinking of headcounts in traditional areas.
Readit News
https://mikerowe.com/2022/03/the-origin-of-safety-third/
Automation has made an impact on manufacturing, and will continue to, and AI will have an impact on knowledge work, but thus far technological leaps have lead to increased productivity rather than increased unemployment, although the changes in industries may cause displacements in the labor force. It seems logical to expect that this may play out similarly.
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Organizations adopt non-productive practices for many different reasons and the consequences are often not felt for a long time.
Imagine a scenario where an executive decides that ChatGPT/CoPilot/Whatever makes a junior dev as productive as a senior. Even if they are wrong it could take years for the tech debt to build up enough for the organization to recognized it as a mistake.
Even if you're right you're still unemployed.
This sounds like the weakest value proposition of your contribution ever. If you told me this was your greatest contribution over a junior with GPT I would take the junior with GPT any day. Things getting deployed for years before you start noticing the effects ? Most projects don't even last that long.
Anyway the current state of tech is that it can't really do that much outside of impressive demos and minor flow improvements, anyone taking a bet on that replacing people is going to lose big short term.
Just look at OpenAI - like I've said the other day, they have huge resources, can hire top talent, and all the infra they want at their disposal - they are still failing at solved problems (web app/payments), and the support they provide is worse than Google. Couldn't they dogfood a little having access to this tech far sooner than everyone else, with no restrictions and top talent available ?
And you're going to achieve that in an enterprise org that can't even hire mediocre talent and has no experience with AI ?
The only thing that's coming is crypto bro consultants and pundits, HODL AI too the moon !
A few other notes:
1. Lag Effects.
My father in law worked at an auto plant for most of his career and regularly pointed out that his job didn't exist at any of the newer factories. He continued working at that factory for over a decade after his position had already been automated on newer lines, and lost his job only when the factory was scrapped and replaced (and moved to a different state in the process, for tax benefits).
Robots destroyed a lot of skilled labor, em masse, over the last thirty years. And many of the jobs that it didn't already destroy will cease to exist over the next thirty years as new major capital investments are made and capital investments from 30+ years ago are wound down.
2. Automation/Optimization of Labor Management.
Over shorter time frames -- in-between large capital outlays -- automation of labor management ("Uberfication") is a lot more impactful than automation of labor. There are a lot of skilled jobs, both blue-collar and white-collar, which are now effectively commodified. Not automated, mind you, but definitely commodified. I think that's a much larger threat to plumbing and electrical work than automation.
3. Meta RE: Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe is a (very rich) media personality whose brand was built on calling attention to the trades as a viable path to the middle class and questioning the necessity of "four-year college for all". I think that's admirable.
Lately he's turned this into a wedge for separating two components of the non-managerial working class. I think that's deplorable. Software Engineers and Welders should be in solidarity, and as far as I can tell people like Mike Rowe function -- intentionally or unintentionally -- as lackeys for the ownership class.
IMO, the distinction between white collar and blue collar work is just red meat. Of course language models won't have any effect on plumbing or electrical work! But the idea that robotics won't de-skill a huge portion of blue collar work as well seems extraordinarily naive. (NOT automate. De-skill. Which, combined with automation of labor management, turns a career track into low-pay/no-benefit gigwork.)
Can somebody please dig up all the “the internet can potentially replace all jobs by next Tuesday” articles written 20 years ago?
Who was saying that? It was established (and has come to fruition) that robots would replace a lot of manual workers in unskilled jobs in places like factories. Much of this has been automated or outsourced. But we have millions of factory workers today that are working with robots and/or doing more complex manufacturing than in years past.
I also think there's a real 80/20 problem with LLMs right now. Having worked with them for a few months they are undoubtedly helpful, especially for simple things. And people will build useful and productive tools with them. But, in my experience, they only get you at best 80% of the way there - the remaining 20% just isn't there. Not yet anyways.
I see AI as an enhancer, not a replacement, like computers or the Internet were before it.
Mike Rowe has a very good point, some fields will be losers and some fields will be winners. Some of those losing fields will be white collar workers so if you're in that losing field you should be prepared to career switch or become unemployed.
Obviously the headline is much more ominous that what he said.
Aren't there just drivers anymore?
> Or blacksmiths?
Metal workers are still a thing.
> Mike Rowe has a very good point, some fields will be losers and some fields will be winners.
He doesn't. For starters, he doesn't have a basic understanding of what AI does or means. In his mind, AI will replace workers because it is seen as autonomous, which definitely is not.
Though I find it ironic that AI could, theoretically, help replace TV show hosts like him pretty much tomorrow. We already have virtual hosts and AI could create both the character and the scripts.
If it’s a popular enough topic (and the flamewar detectors doesn’t hit) it will stay. I’ve seen tabloids make it to and stay on the front page.
Deleted Comment