chat
Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.
As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.
Thank you and happy chatting!
As someone looking to go back to community college to pursue a new degree (did general studies during covid) so I can escape retail hell, this is pretty scary. I've considered some kind of tech major (like CIS), mainly because I doubt I have the ability or energy to pursue engineering at this point, and non-STEM degrees are considered memes. But it seems pretty dire right now. And it seems like everything is fucked. Maybe the bubble will pop eventually but it does feel like we've crossed an event horizon.
I hope things work out for you and your wife, comrade.
Majoring in cis. Idk about that my man
Some trades will be automated away as well. I could see stuff like finish carpentry, and cabinetry going the way of the dodo. Panels/doors/trim will be cut by CNC, then robots will assemble. At some point i could see AI created cabinets, passed to an automated CNC, assembled and painted by robots, then given to a crew of two dudes who do nothing but installs. Paint and basic, non complex sheetrocking/taping/floating could be done by robots powered by AI. Eventually, some aspects of framing, and roofing, and maybe even foundation work. Not fully robot/AI but augmented enough that you no longer need a crew of 6 or 8 to rock/tape/paint a newly constructed home; instead a crew of two, or maybe three humans, to do the complex angles and stuff a robot cannot manipulate and refill the drywall banjo or reload collated screws when the robot gets jammed. Architectural drawings will be done by AI. Blueprints will be done by AI. I could see AI becoming the architect eventually.
service plumbing or new construction plumbing is probably far off if ever. Electric service work, and new construction too. Tile/flooring, HVAC, and a couple others that are similar enough that they aren’t worth repeating.
AI is coming for all of us, more or less. Not just tech jobs.
most of what you described won't ever happen because it'll almost always be more profitable to just pay people less money than to automate it away with lots of extremely expensive robots
Yes. I'm thinking trades like laying down network cable or electricians. Nobody I know in fields like this are seeing any issues with AI on their paychecks. Ain't no robots threating to take away the job of my engineer friend who installs pipe for the water company that hooks up to apartment complexes and business high-rises. His crew are still outside in the heat digging the ditch and getting muddy.
While automation and AI won't directly replace tradesmen and physical laborers, the massive layoffs in the white collar sector will create millions of unemployed workers seeking work in industries that won't be under threat from it. Wages will be driven down from the glut of available workers coupled with the shrinking middle class who employ their services. Much like climate change, capitalism will utterly fail to handle this transition.
Sorry to hear that 
So far in my tech bubble I haven't seen lay-offs explicitly due to AI, but there's been increasing usage of it to produce more content. So it's reducing the demand for contract writers and producers.
Tech does seem cooked at the moment, but I assume that's mostly due to no more free money.
I really wish Graeber was still here, I need the Bullshit Jobs vs AI synthesis.
For now, eventually they'll do as they did in retail, slowly revert back when they realize AI just can't adapt to all the scenarios they require it to, most importantly at the pricepoint they need (see the OG industrial revolution and machines, think there was a piece in vol 2 of capital) and lacks comprehension, it can pattern recognize all day but struggles with context. We lack the infrastructure for full much less partial automatization, computers require certain temps, humidity, electricity, etc, humans under capital do not, we're considered free to replace since very few places do any sort of training (expect you to come in fully trained for whatever the position is) vs what computers, networks and powerplants need to get going along with you must train AI for anything meaningful, and train it a lot.
Sure, we're at the point anyone can run LLMs on any standard gaming rigs from 10 years ago, but they're not that great, and it still requires all that infrastructure modern capital balks at upgrading or replacing, also a properly tuned network will btfo of any lone rig LLM with maybe a few exceptions, again thanks to capital (ex homebrew chatbot on a 4790k beats chatgpt3.5, but only because they want you to pay for all their outages thanks to our grid and internet being overcooked sad spaghetti).
For now? Survive, maybe try getting a more physical CS job, the pay isn't going to be great though, but software is getting the race to the floor treatment for some time. Or get into something being a system tenderer where AI is sort of messy legally, maybe medical, but I expect that to have some sort of really nasty crunch soon.
Is drug rehab white collar? Im a clinician in a residential treatment program
I'm gonna go back to school to learn how to be AI. I might get a job that way. As a software developer with a background in IT, that has been unemployed for 11 months, I get it.