The productive output of many people is also just mediocre. I think of chat AIs as near-zero cost interns or the boss's nephew. Probably doesn't know what it's talking about, but can get a lot done with supervision.
I hope the net result will be a shift toward upskilling employees to achieve the expertise handle the difficult edge cases and less time spent on the routine or the trivial. Seems like a win-win. Incentive structures might make this hard.
I think it was on the Ezra Klein show where he dropped the statistic? Almost 70% of employees are using ChatGPT in one way or another.
In many cases the bosses don't even know, but all it will do long-term is require everyone to produce more output. AI is not about to create 3-day work weeks and everyone living their best lives off of Universal Basic Income.
Literally nothing will change - except that all of us will be expected of more and we will be more stressed out and overworked.
It might not be that bad. Auto workers produce more cars per employee, but some of the really repetitive activities are done by robots now. I think not having to do the same weld 8+hrs a day every day with consumers still getting their car is a net positive for owners, consumers, and labor.
Personally, I would love to deliver more projects. The vast majority of my time is spent on mind-numbing drudgery that makes the job extremely unsatisfying. If someone offered me a job where I got to focus on the fun parts of my work, and I didn't have to dump the drudgery on a poor intern (the AI does it), but at half my pay, I'd resign the same day.
Just to voice the opposing view for lurkers: no, the safety concerns about this new and unexpected technology are not unfounded, and dismissing them because chatbots make mistakes is completely missing the point. The point is that experts have been thinking about AI for a long time, and have identified the theoretical limits that prevented us from reaching (‘real’ / ‘general’) AI. Those experts (other thank Chomsky, for now…) are now sounding the alarm — with the advent of intuitive algorithms, the Frame Problem dissolves and a ton of previously intractable problems become tractable.
The point isn’t that chatbots will take over the world through a browser window. The point is that someone’s going to connect 10,000 specialized GPT agents into a series of self-organizing hierarchical agencies, and then hook that up to their country’s justice system, propaganda & surveillance systems, and military systems. Not to mention replacing knowledge workers in mass and the well-discussed potential fallout therein.
We are living in the most exciting, important time since the world wars at the least, and I hope that choice of example drives home the seriousness. Short term, “Solidarity” and “basic human rights” need to enter all of our vocabularies, IMO…
Well, yes, but the problem is still the people, and these warnings are usually not clear, specific, or just confusing.
Then there is also the media, which breathlessly "translates" what you just wrote into "artificial intelligence is about to go sentient and kill us all".
AI can generate a lot of automated output, that is true, but my argument is that it's almost always mediocre at best.
There is a LOT to be said about the dangers of AI coming from the people running and funding it - not the AI itself. That stuff is complete bullshit.