If you really believe in the power of LLMs then it’s time to wake up. The writing is on the wall. Automation the workforce further into precarious jobs.
The idea that tech workers can’t stop so-called “progress” is at best a dumb self-fulfilling prophecy. Our workplaces depend on us. We have the power to put the brakes on whatever our employers are up to by organizing and striking.
Tech workers should be organizing to prepare for the profit-taking moves management has in store for us as the tech gets better and better. If LLMs really live up to their potential, It’s just going to get worse from here.
They keep bragging about how many people are going to lose their jobs and they mean us. They’re bragging about firing us! It’s foolish for us to sit idly by while we are the ones who make them their profits.
You have the power to do that in your own isolated environment, but it's a delaying tactic at best.
This whole thing is as inevitable as TV, smartphones, airplanes, tanks or guns. Everyone will use them, because they're so much better than anything that came before that there's no competition for the same use cases.
I think you think this is going to help tech workers, but raising the cost of employing humans is only going to incentivize companies to adopt AI faster.
You should do the opposite, and tax AI use. Though that's probably rife with potential issues too. I think as umemployment increases we're going to have to make a bad decision somewhere... and I'm guessing taxing AI is the lesser evil.
The time for tough decisions is today. There is no interest from the companies that control our politicians in supporting taxes, basic income, or whatever other policy proposal people think will occur after AI. Worker leverage will only be diminished after mass layoffs. We will end up in a situation of social unrest. To pull out of that workers will be forced to organize to increase negotiating power. Sooner is better than later, if we can realize it’s in our interests to do so.
The problem is capitalism not LLMs. Fighting against this progress just leaves us stagnant as a species.
Perhaps AI will lead to the revolution where automation frees the average person from having to toil in a factory or a cubical farm instead of trying to achieve infinite growth in a closed system.
Now, it’s also true that military force can make a revolution happen. But looking at developed countries I don’t see anti-capitalist military revolutions happening any time soon.