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An Olivetti PC was an ultimate dream to have in the late 80s and the early 90s for me, in impressionable age of adolescence, prone to the call of tinkering, hacking and programming. They were the brand, at least in Europe.Such a nice memory :)
I also had a 'faulty' Olivetti inkjet printer that was written off under warranty with a mysterious fault. I eventually managed to fix it by bending the metal paper detector arm so that it slotted properly into the optical sensor - it was a little out of whack and the sensor sometimes couldn't work out whether there was paper in the tray.
I'm out of that game now though so don't have the challenge.
Sad when I first heard B&W sold 10 years ago. I had their 600 series and still wish someday I could afford their top range model.
I used to work in a building next to a B&W place where they either made speakers or at least the drive units. The day was punctuated regularly by rather loud audio frequency sweeps!
Junior developers require guidance but are still producing value. And with good guidance, they will do amazing work.
With AI we need fewer programmers, and the juniors will possibly be the first to go, but they might me retrained for other careers (which might eventually get cancelled too because of AI), or out of work.
The software they produced did something - it might have been a CRM or a game, but out of work people might have to cut back on their gaming spend. As for the CRM app business, the customers and potential software customers are also cutting back in staff, and the CRM apps will be able to conduct direct B2B negotiations with client CRMs, so there's no job opportunities there, and so more people are out of work. Perhaps the businesses that used the AI-based B2B and B2C CRM and ERP systems won't be needed any more, or not have a viable customer base, too.
Other industries are replacing folks with 'AI', so the unemployment pool is getting larger. This means the luxury and non-vital goods manufacturers will have less revenue and they are laying off staff so there's some compensation there, but eventually not enough for survival - which is 'fine' because AI is replacing all this stuff.
This snowballs into other industries, leaving just those jobs that can be done more easily by a human, but those jobs will also reduce as AI and surrounding robotics etc improve, so what do all these unemployed people do all day. Some will embrace leisure activities that don't break the bank. Some may volunteer for community work or projects to improve the World, but they still need to eat and pay bills - who's going to help with that?
One solution might be a 'Star Trek' economy not based on work for reward, but that's a big cultural shift that people and governments will struggle massively to get their heads around conceptually.
There will also be powerful resistance to such a radical rebasing of the planet-wide financial model, especially by those people and organisations that have amassed wealth and don't want to give it up. They'll even fight back with lobbying and arguments against change while they're getting replaced with AI.
Or...?
If only people would learn to cut the ends off correctly, so the next guy doesn't tear his arms to shreds.
After the fact, when I moved more in to systems and networking, I found that flat, nylon, waxed lacing cord, with a small nut tied to the end, was lightweight and perfect for throwing through ducting and ceiling spaces very long distances, so you could backhaul cables through the void. It was a real time saver.