The CEO of IBM says A.I. is going to replace ‘clerical white-collar work’

https://fortune.com/2023/02/16/ibm-ceo-ai-will-replace-clerical-work-and-avert-labor-crisis-population-crisis/

by RickJWagner • 3 years ago

35 46 3 years ago

cratermoon3• 3 years ago

Remember back in the day when writers predicted that as computers and machines replaced humans it would lead to more leisure time for everyone, a 3-day or less workweek, and all that jazz? Why hasn't that happened? Why do the benefits of automation only accrue upwards and not across society?

rhelz• 3 years ago

Because (as the old Latin proverb has it) the strong do what they want; the weak suffer what they must.

breckenedge• 3 years ago

Man I wish there was an easy answer to that. I think because workers have not succeeded in making it a priority. Sure we can blame politicians too, but there’s a mentality that it’s out of our control to make it happen, and who knows, that could change. A lot of unemployed white-collar workers would be a huge force for change.

superchroma2• 3 years ago

Because until we cook up an acceptable UBI and solve scarcity of basics, you are competing with (increasingly) everyone on earth (as international borders decrease in relevance), and there's always someone willing to debase themselves for a wage lower than yours.

Automation isn't cheap either. We see very real divides today where it is still a lot cheaper to have people in a sweatshop do things for basically no pay rather than get a multi-million dollar robot to do the same.

In societies like America which fetishize hard work and hustle culture, and where tremendous struggle is still present or a vivid recent memory in the minds of people, UBI and guaranteed basic quality of life are a tough sell.

m348e9122• 3 years ago

Unpopular opinion I know, but instead of UBI, I would rather see the state create fulfilling jobs for unemployed or underemployed. Many people need meaning, purpose, and the need to feel productive. UBI doesn't address any of that.

__pache__3• 3 years ago

that literally has happened. many many people are depressed and anxious all day because they play video games and doordash food into their mouth.

there are 20 million millionaires in the USA. tons of success, tons of people investing in the companies creating this wealth..

what.

lotsofpulp2• 3 years ago

Humans, like many other animals, are also competitive by nature. Whereas previous standards were to secure resources for the day, the week, the month, now you play the game to secure resources for the decade, and the future generation.

And once you secure shelter, water, and food, you move on to trying to secure education, healthcare, and legal/political protections. And once you have that, you move on to securing it for your children, family, and further members of your tribe.

thatboyz• 3 years ago

My God. You really live in a bubble and don't know how the other half of this country lives do you?

_gmax0• 3 years ago

Those predictions came from who exactly?

Assuming that their vision was well-intentioned (insofar as having the government subsidize GPS development was well-intentioned by selling them the fact that it could not be extended to support commercial use), those predictions were fundamentally flawed without understanding the cynical side of human nature.

badestrand• 3 years ago

Also we have constant progress of automation and technology since thousands of years already, so there would need to be a reason why this step out of all steps suddenly elevates us to Eden.

1letterunixname3• 3 years ago

Greed is why.

Further automation destroys jobs.

The very top gain efficiencies of production and immense wealth, while the bottom lose more and more opportunities without magical, handwaving "better" or "other" jobs.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

Only because we choose to let it absolutely no reason for us to move closer to a 0 zero sun game society.

chii• 3 years ago

Why do the benefits of automation only accrue upwards and not across society?

it is benefiting across society - the availability of goods that would not otherwise have been available is the benefit, not direct financial gain.

The people who do get direct financial gain are the ones that invested their capital into producing the automation and tools.

As for why isn't everyone doing 3-day weeks, the answer is that almost everybody still has wants that could not be fulfilled by automation, and that as basic wants are fulfilled, they get higher and more wants that aren't just basic essentials, which leads to more work to fill back up the work week.

cratermoon3• 3 years ago

availability of goods

Doesn't help much when so many are working full time or more just to afford food, clothing, and shelter. And sometimes not even all three.

they get higher and more wants that aren't just basic essentials

Key word: wants. Which takes us back to the problem of why people who have fulfilling, rich lives are socialized to feel the need to have 'more'

aliqot• 3 years ago

Watson got layed off too? Ruthless.

dilyevsky• 3 years ago

I think he means himself

ddtaylor• 3 years ago

IBM has been wrong about these types of things many times in the past.

oxfordmale3• 3 years ago

Unlikely. Clerical work mostly requires to handle messy input data from humans. It is hard to automate this. Jobs that are easy to automate often already have been automated with non-AI processes.

mola2• 3 years ago

Instruct gpt is pretty good at transforming messy input data to structured one.

Try it out.

One of the BDRs at my company had a boring task of transforming paragraphs that describe individuals role company location etc from natural language to an excel table. He decided to let chatgpt do it for him. Basically gave him the columns he wants (including calculated columns like the state code instead of its full name.) And the raw text.

gpt did it perfectly on the first go.

oxfordmale3• 3 years ago

Thanks, will have a look!

victor106• 3 years ago

Instruct gpt

What is Instruct gpt?

kitd• 3 years ago

OTOH, that input is messy because it is "only" humans dealing with it. If the imperative to enable AI in clerical work gets stronger, there will be an equally strong imperative to clean up the data.

oxfordmale3• 3 years ago

Once the data is clean, you can use non-AI algorithms.

Regulators tend to take a dim view if you rely on probability models to process your data. Therefore, AI algorithms are only helpful when you do not necessarily care if the results are correct, for example, in marketing.

stevenhuang• 3 years ago

It's precisely the handling of messy data that chatgpt excels at. Plenty of people use it to normalize arbitrary data even now. You should look up the examples, you'll be surprised.

ejanus• 3 years ago

Won't AI also replace CEO like him, too?

survirtual• 3 years ago

AI will replace CEO and most other executive staff before it replaces professional employees. They won’t let it happen, but the capability will be there and sooner or later businesses with worker / stakeholder guided AI leadership will significantly outcompete human leadership.

atemerev• 3 years ago

Good.

jmpman• 3 years ago

I remember working at IBM and attending an All Hands where someone from HR came in to speak about the future where everyone at IBM would be contractors. She espoused the benefits to IBM. Seemed out of touch as she never discussed how it would benefit the employees. Obviously the good ones would leave to work for companies that valued them, and didn’t treat them like disposable commodities.

IBM MBAs have a history of dreaming about destroying their employees - the only thing standing between them and their bonus.

joshilaurain17• 3 years ago

Many times IBM predictions failed. I thing we don't relay on them

The CEO of IBM says A.I. is going to replace ‘clerical white-collar work’

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