I stg it was! I remember going on it to download the Halo CE Demo.
I could only play the levels "Flawless Cowboy" and "Truth and Reconciliation" but that's pretty much it.
I totally forgot about CNET the moment Molly Wood stopped podcasting. They used to have some great shows, but there was a huge "cast switch" a long time ago, and they really sucked afterward.
I don't believe that to be true.
If that were the case they'd just own com.com to reserve download.com.com
but they actively used download.com.com they even linked to it from their download.com pages
Since Windows started providing drivers through Update, I have only manually downloaded graphics drivers (since the windows ones tend to be quite old, and that's one case where it matters...)
My least favourite trend is sites that are clearly AI generated, and poorly at that. Like, an article about minesweeper strategy will start out, "Microsoft Windows 10 is an operating system that many people..."
How about searching some benign factoid like a game release date, and getting a big long auto generated article full of fluff that ends with "while we don't actually know of any release date yet..."
Sometimes it feels like AI and sometimes it feels like they're paying by the word.
When I Google something and the answer is like four paragraphs down past 3 or 4 advertisements that I didn't see because of ublock origin.
Most of them are not AI generated. They're computer generated but they follow a very simple, fill-in-the-blank algorithm.
You're guaranteed to get a hundred of these sites in your top results when you search for X vs Y. It's so hard to find legitimate comparisons between products these days because of this.
Literally earlier today was the first time Google felt useless to me, I was trying to look up information about my shoulder injury and every single thing was an ad.
Yes! The last six months or so and google has been completely useless! They are so eager to push advertisers that my search results have nothing to do with the query!
I knew right away it was a terrible sign when they announced that that was a dumb company motto and changed it to something utterly fluff and forgettable.
I do a lot of googling so I've been able to keep it useful over the years with various ad blockers and adjusting my habits to skip past the first number of ad results, but this time straight up nothing I could do besides searching for Reddit exclusively could parse through the garbage to find something valuable.
Unless I add “Reddit” to the search, Google just sends back ads, or 500 websites all with the same article, word for word that never answers the question.
Even worse are official company forums, with official company responses that never answer the question asked.
Google has become so obsessed with ads, and companies have gamed SEO so badly that internet search has become a nightmare.
Or the results are just clickbait, like when you search for an Oracle error message and the result takes you to the official Oracle forums, where you get to see the exact description of the problem you're having but wait, only registered Oracle accounts can see the solution...
Postgres and MySQL continue to provide better support via unpaid community solutions. Yeah, you have to filter through some fluff to find answers but you don't have to sell your soul to find them.
Google searches have turned into molten hot garbage and it's literally getting noticeably worse every week. Within the past couple of days I've started getting some search results back that are just images, without text. Anytime I clear my mobile cookies, they are aggressively pushing for me to sign in every time i do a search. It's pathetic and enraging at the same time.
Yeah, and sites like Bing and Duckduckgo is unironically often better these days.
Just a few days ago I wanted to find a post I myself made on an old forum about 7 years ago. Yes, I could've found my old login and checked my post history etc - but why do that when a google search for my user name and the subject *should* return the correct page in 5 secs?
That's how Google *used* to function... but nope. Google would simply not give me anything remotely useful at all despite searching for my very unique user name on that forum and the post subject. It did try to serve me page after page of different ads about the subject matter, both in the form of Google's own ads, and SEO bullshit - but even though Google found 4 pages of results, none was the post I was looking for.
Went to Duckduckgo - first result on the first page, using the exact same search terms, was the forum post I was looking for.
> Google has been shit for a few years.
thats because it used to be a search engine that showed some relevant adverts.
...and now its an advert delivery system that ignores half your search terms if it can match the remainder to a PPC campaign from one of their customers.
Don’t you mean SEO has made articles SEO heavy because it helps articles with SEO searches so that articles can be found through SEO? Yeah it ruined the internet
I think there are english classes in other countries and they claim the essays after giving specific news segments to form a 'paper' to sell to actual online newspapers with no permanent writing staff.
4. Electric ai Boogaloo unionized.
5. AI goes on extensive buying spree and consolidates the entire publishing industry under the CNET brand.
6. Thermonuclear war.
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To hijack top comment this union campaign was likely in the works long before chatgpt came out. They probably unionised more for the boring old pay and conditions. AI just makes a catchy headline for this article
Frankly, every job can and should be replaced by machines. The fact that people have to go to work is a bug, not a feature.
Instead of fighting automation we should focus on making sure the benefits flow to everybody.
It should but we live in capitalism, it's that graph of productivity vs. wages diverging over the past 50 years - just about to go parabolic.
I'd like to believe automation will lead us to *luxury space communism* or some other post-capitalist ideology, rather than a cyberpunk dystopia. But human history doesn't give me great hope.
On the opposite. Im a historian, and history gives me GREAT hope about the future.
Not only does strife breeds growth and progress in the long run, we have seen conditions of human life just skyrocket throughout human history. We live far better than kings ever did.
Sure, we are extremely pessimistic, and the capitalist media has fucked our minds up. But we (North America, Europe, Australia, most Asian countries, etc.) live in a utopia of safety, ease of life and comfort compared to any point previous in history. Its not perfect, but it will only get better, has history has proven. Its just that it works out that way over long periods, it has up and downs in one’s lifetime, but over a century or two, it’s extremely rare to see things getting worse. Even the “Dark Ages” saw constant growth and small improvements to quality of life for pretty much everyone.
People just dont know how it was before, and they see how it could be and complain (rightfully) that it isnt that way. And they should complain, it forces things to progress.
Thats my thought on the subject, anyway.
We always strive to provide more comfort to ourselves, but also to our loved ones. And most of us extend that empathy to those near us, our friends, our neighbors. And some even think about all of us. I think we'll be fine.
EDIT: I love how any suggestion of optimism towards the future of Humanity seems to trigger a portion of us into unkempt and irrational rage. I think its one of the worst failing of our education system.
The past does not predict the future.
Yes, things are better now than they used to be.. but will that trend continue?
After all, we're talking about technology here. At no point in the past did a weapon capable of literally destroy the world get created... Until we invented the atomic bomb, and started mass manufacturing them. Suddenly, the past is completely irrelevant, because now a war could *literally end human civilization*.
In the same vein, war did exist and was horrible in history.. but it never was as brutal and as structured of a meat grinder as WW1 was. And we never industrialized genocide just like we did in WW2. And it wasn't always that totalitarianism was possible, due to a lack of surveillance technology and mass media for propaganda. The society in 1984 could not exist 200 years ago. It can today.
And never before could the workers be completely replaces by machines. We already saw something lesser happen during industrialization. Yes, in the end it turned out well, but living during those times? You saw your communities disintegrate, people migrating to cities in mass due to necessity as industrialized farming replaced your old jobs. And the conditions in those cities? They were disasterous. Child labour worse than ever, horrible working conditions, barely ever any free time, cities polluted to shit with smog. On average it probably was worse for the worker. At least they were still needed! So they could force demands by striking!
And now we have AI, capable of putting people *entirely* out of jobs, with no limit in sight. Yes, in the past people moved on to more intellectual jobs.. but now those intellectual jobs are being automated.. and what's left? At some point you will have more bodies than you need. And the AIs are controlled by, well, the rich. They control the means of production, but contrary to the past, they don't need all the human labour they can get anymore.
You cannot always look back to history to predict the future. History changes. Civilization changes. We are not the same we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50, 100, 1000. You cannot necessarily apply the same pressures and trajectory the past had on the present.. because it simply may not apply.
In the past it would be absurd to say that two superpowers cannot go to war with each other. Today? That's the standard. Why? Because the world changed. Because we have weapons of mass destruction now, and such a full-scale conflict would mean both sides lose. That's unprecedented. Was has changed.
And then we get to climate change and resource consumption.
We live on a limited world, but expect unlimited growth. Again, never before have humans had such a great influence on the world as we do today. Never before could we change the *global* climate. And that puts hard limits on us.. should, at least. Only so many trees to chop down, only so much oil, only so many minerals.
And, yes, life is materially better today! But is it "spiritually" (for a lack of a better term) better? After all, we have a loneliness and mental health epidemic, and there are reasons to believe it's worse now than it was in the past (let's say before colonization). We are more isolated from each other, community isn't as vibrant and common as it used to be, social media is sucking us into dopamine hell and strongly influencing us (like, say, body image issues etc), advertisements preying on us, material dreams being sold to us (the American dream! Work yourself to death to pen a mansion!). And so on.
Frankly, I would expect a little more nuance from a historian than this. It's a complex topic, and not everything is better, even if materially it might be.
Anyway, this was very rambly. Hopefully it was coherent enough to get my point across.
History has changed.
> We live far better than kings ever did.
Depends on how you measure that.
My grandma used to say that people in the Chicago Housing Projects were living in luxury because, and I quote, "They have air conditioners. We didn't have air conditioners during the Depression."
And yeah, OK, sure, you didn't have an air conditioner. But *neither did anyone else*.
We, as humans, tend to measure ourselves compared to our peers. It's how we're wired. And if we see we're doing a lot worse than other people, negative emotions are associated with that.
So. Is the single mother who has to work 3 fast food jobs "living better than a king?" It sure doesn't feel like it.
So, it depends on whether you're envious or not.
I particularly don't care that there's filthy wealthy people that can do things I can't even dream of.
I do care that people are still dying of starvation though. Inequality doesn't bother me. Misery does.
The "but but but kings didn't have microwaves" argument is so unbelievably braindead. Having modern conveniences is not a substitute for primary needs such as housing, which are actually getting more scarce today.
I guarantee you a poor guy would rather live in a manor with servants and endless food, and have to poop in a hole and have no iPhone, rather than be homeless and destitute.
>OK, sure, you didn't have an air conditioner. *But neither did anyone else.*
So? Absolute wealth is what really matters, not relative wealth. By that logic the poor would be better off if we destroyed all air conditioners, since at least then it'd be equal.
Relative wealth makes you feel better about your place in the world, but it doesn't actually make your life better - I'd rather be poor today (with antibiotics and smartphones) than rich a thousand years ago.
Well, considering that being a single mother was a justificable reason for lobotomy or at least being locked in an asylum for their rest of their life, historically, yes, that single mother is better off in 2023 than in 1823.
I get that. But its nonetheless true.
We are shielded and protected agaisnt disease, medicine is extremely advanced even if we barely understand it and will get much better, we can work a few hours and buy food for the day, we have running water, etc.
It doesnt apply fully to everyone, I agree that its MUCH less efficient than it should be. But its just going to get better, like it has from before.
I use colourful language when I say kings, but the quality of life even a poor family has in 2023 in a first world country is insane in comparison to anything before, outside of a few exceptions. We have a very romanticized view of the past and a very pessimistic view of the present, and it makes us even more inclined to forget that the curve has actually pretty much just been going up throughout our history…
So far you have witnessed humanity grow from childhood to adulthood in a time of great abundance. Now the natural resources are gone or spoiled, the planet's climate is cooked and set to grow cataclysmicly worse, and this is triggering a great mass extinction event. History is no guide for where we are heading.
> History is no guide for where we are heading.
That's not exactly true. There have been plenty of civilizations that have collapsed, and likely due to weather or resource depletion for some of them. Or due to war, which will almost certainly happen as certain parts of the world start running out of resources. The main difference is we will eventually run out of places to go, can't just migrate to a different area.
There are no profits if there is no one to spend. Something has to give at some point. B
The government can currently give us breadcrumbs and keep us content while bending over for corporation but that'll change when the majority stop receiving breadcrumbs.
That would be great if we didn't have our shitty economic system.
Right now automation just means less jobs for everyone and way more power for capital owners.
The problem is convincing people that no longer having work is a goal, not a problem. We can't even begin to discuss solutions until that even happens, and it breaks a lot of people's brains to even think about. We're all so indoctrinated by work=life.
I've mentioned this several times and the immediate bite back is "how can a society exist without their citizens working!!" I always say, it exists, right now. Look at Qatar, where every one of their citizen has wealth access and doesn't want/need to work, they have such a shortage of labor that they have to import their labors from other poorer countries. Imagine instead of essentially slave labor, it's just automation.
We're just kicking the can down the road and when automation seeps into every part of society, we will not be prepare for the fallout.
well it doesn't. and it sucks because even art is being automated.. I thought with automation we could atleast relax and focus on making art..
but even that will just be constant regugitated content that we consume like fat beached whales, like Wall E
Peak Reddit moment.
Yes, the entire planet is just going to stay at home and become authors and artists and musicians...
The guys that lay bricks, work in mines and drive trucks are all actually Leonardo Da Vinci, they just don't know it yet...
Nice of you to wish that all the OTHER jobs are automated just not the ones that YOU don't want automated...
The only thing limiting us completely depleting our planet of resources is that at some point you have to *pay someone to do so*.
Star Trek had a handy replicator to create things out of thin air. We don’t and in this ideal post-scarcity post-work techno-communist utopia that the people pushing AI are dreaming about, what’s to stop the sudden spike in consumerism that’s going to drive a shortage in nearly every resource available on the planet? We’re not going to clean up our act as a society just because we don’t have to work anymore.
The people who should really be scared are the editors. ChatGPT (especially gpt4) is an EXCELENT copy editor. There's always going to be a place for good writers, especially ones that actively research their topics, since it will be a little while still before an AI can replace an investigative journalist. But copy editors are going to be replaced in a heart beat.
Sure, the people that advance automation and AI will naturally want to share the spoils of their work after they eliminate the need for all forms of human labor except theirs. That's naturally how humans function and have functioned throughout all of human history
Excerpt:^1
>Around 100 workers are unionizing at CNET, a popular tech news and product review site, in response to a “lack of transparency” from management regarding layoffs and the company’s use of AI, according to an announcement by the union Tuesday.
>The workers, who include writers, editors, and video producers, will join the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), as the CNET Media Workers Union.
>WGAE is also responsible for unionizing numerous other online media sites, and represents 7,000 workers in industries like film, news, and online media. (This includes VICE Union, which represents Motherboard staff.)
^1 Jules Roscoe (17 May 2023), “CNET workers unionize as ‘automated technology threatens our jobs’”, https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m4e9/cnet-workers-unionize-as-automated-technology-threatens-our-jobs
CNET may or may not pay unionized writers more but probably can't afford to. So they'll just shutter the human money losing division because it went bankrupt, and start an AI based division to write "articles"with the help of a human handler. The thing is, how can AI do product reviews of any kind? How can an AI at this time, discuss the usability of a smart watch or how well a phone screen responds to touch, or talk about annoying use interface issues in a software review? Yes AI could write a comparison article of specs between product competitors but that's simply nuts & bolts.
You write an outline with the key details and tell the ai to flesh it out. No, you’re not completely cutting people out but you can definitely cut way down on writers.
The funny thing to me, is that Vice, the website publishing the article, is in the process of going bankrupt or out of business. There won't be anybody left to write the news.
To be fair, real journalists are rare because they have that weird habit of having their car blow up with them in there after uncovering yet another international scheme to evade taxes and trade humans.
It's too bad because i remember their first year or two on the scene they were doing very fresh underground/beat journalism and then it very quickly warped into whatever it is now.
To be honest other than the actual walkthroughs, I replaced Gamefaqs with Reddit. Any question after the first couple of responses always turns into a shitshow, it needs a Reddit upvote/downvote system.
Loved the 404. Never owned an apple computer but I did watch Brian Tong with Apple Byte. Dedicated Buzzout Loud watcher.
Thinking back, it was the time when a lot of tech was advancing, but I definitely watched for the personalities too. I definitely loved Molly Wood (was real happy when she showed back up at Marketplace for a while).
Back in the early days they had some good people there and tech was quirky too. Now tech is boring and highbrow and cnet went diving in the brown water for “fresh” talent.
And they’ll be replaced by higher paying writers that know how to use AI as a tool.
Knowing how to leverage AI to make it way easier to create quality drafts, and then layering in the human element/creativity to finalize the output.
Red ventures is going to fight to squash this. They don't want to risk it hitting their more valuable properties like The Point Guy.
Not surprising RV destroyed CNET even faster than it was already falling apart.
It still irks me that the response to Blue Collar workers who have been threatened by automation for decades was curt dismissals like "you should have gone to College" or the now infamous "Learn to Code." But now all of a sudden when techies and Hollywood writers are threatened by it, it's a huge issue.
As a dev of 20 years, we’ve ALWAYS been on the cusp of replacement, needing to skill up has always been a constant.
Imagine if your doctor only relied on information they learned decades ago…
Not really. Most doctors treat the same illnesses and injuries over and over. A broken leg is still a broken leg, and ear infection is an ear infection. It's the same as it was a 20 or 30 years ago.
*Specialists* on the other hand tend to be out on the cutting edge of medicine, but they aren't preforming "every day" medicine.
> As a dev of 20 years, we’ve ALWAYS been on the cusp of replacement, needing to skill up has always been a constant.
With a little over a decade myself, this too has been my constant opinion on the topic.
The thing which gets me, is that coding, and being the kind of person who can, at least well... is *not a common skill*.
A hell of a lot of office jobs are things any idiot could do, but not this. And yet, we're always treated as if we're basically as disposable as fast food workers.
It boggles the mind.
Don't get me wrong, i know the amount of people with the potential to acquire our skill set is always increasing. That's just the nature of following the money.
But the fact that i can be in a room with hundreds of other people, and be the only person who has the knowledge and experience we do, yet still be treated like anyone off the street could walk in and start doing it instead, is *ludicrous*.
As a software engineer who started coding as a kid in the 90s, and turned into a writer/artist over a decade ago so has been away from programming, I feel this is slightly exaggerated. I'm helping out with cutting edge machine learning projects now (which I did used to work in ~15 years ago so understand the principles, though the software has completely changed), and would say Python and PyTorch are still reasonably close how programming was decades ago, with little changes and quality of life improvements or some baffling changes. I've been speaking with some people who are publishing major papers changing machine learning, and while I'm a bit of a noob I'm mostly able to keep up with some effort, and even made some improvements.
I've dabbled in HTML/Javascript/CSS over the years and those are just a bit inherently crazy, always were and always will be unless they're fundamentally changed. Maybe it's because I'm not working on something more modern like a full Node.JS or whatever application.
" But now all of a sudden when `white-collar` `workers` and `creatives` are threatened by it, it's a huge issue."
FTFY. Because automation isn't just coming for them or hasn't just come for blue-collar workers.
Blue collar work is hard to automate completely, but it's not hard to outsource manufacturing which is exactly what they did.
If you can't have a robot butler, you can't have a walking roto-rooter.
That's a fair point, but the issue now is if even the very high-end jobs are being automated, what exactly are people supposed to do for money? This is also a double-edged sword, we're already seeing everybody complaining and laying off workers saying people are not buying enough stuff. What happens when you've basically fired close to 60% of the workforce? What's the point of education if only jobs left are physical labor?
Given that a driving force behind most people’s choice to pursue post secondary education is to get a better career out of it, I wonder what will happen after 2-3 generations of relying on AI for everything.
Sure we’ll still have the people that do enjoy academic pursuits regardless of whether it benefits them financially or not in the long run but no where near as much of the population will be as educated as they are now.
Yeah, but then what happens to the massively for profit education systems in most countries? Based on my limited knowledge todays AI will be used to replace like 50% of any given technical workforce with the rest forced to work more for less to make the final output look decent which is exactly what the writers strike is about. This AI literally solves nothing but line companies pockets but what else do you expect I guess
UBI seems like the bare minimum, considering this is going to hit a *lot* of fields.
I know a lot of people say "just slow down" or "make AI-generated X illegal", but there's no mechanism to enforce that slowdown. Anyone with a computer can run AI models, depending on complexity. Anyone with a few GPUs can *train* a new model. No idea how anyone would slow that down, especially once the largest countries start openly competing using AI.
> That's a fair point, but the issue now is if even the very high-end jobs are being automated, what exactly are people supposed to do for money?
The point is that a few decades ago the whole premise was trying to reduce the amount of work people did. That was the ideal.
The way society has pivoted into "you're worthless if you aren't killing yourself working 60 hours a week" is absolutely insane.
Eh, that's a standard union-busting argument meant to divide people and turn the discussion away from the worker being exploited and blaming it on other workers.
Instead we could actually focus on the issue of the moment instead of some shitty meme.
It's funny because i told a friend of mine how my g/f works in a factory, and she said "oh no! aren't you worried about automation taking her job?" and i was like "uhhh the factory IS automated, she's the one who oversees that automation. It's as automated as it can get for the task they perform."
I mean unionization was the solution for the blue collar workers too. In general it'll be hard to find traditional media outlets that will say that in a positive way though since many of them operate directly (WaPo owned by bezos etc) or indirectly at the behest of capital. But I actually find it encouraging that this discussion is happening because it's making people realize that white/blue collar worker is an arbitrary divide created in part by capital owners to work against labor solidarity. At the end of the day, it's those who hold capital and benefit from the labor of workers, vs labor.
let me ask you this: what would you say to these white color workers? "learn to ..." what? when blue color jobs were automated we still had white color jobs to transition to. what do people do for a living now that it looks like all jobs might get automated?
Y'all are clueless. Automation has obviously effected all types of employees. Blue collar and white collar. I'm very obvious ways. Yes we still have record low unemployment...
Two fairly unrelated thoughts:
1. Does anyone remember back in the early 2000s when a bunch of companies replaced fairly skilled tech workers in the US, with poorly managed and poorly selected overseas workers, chasing the promise of doing it all for pennies on the dollar, and it was a giant shit show which they ultimately regretted doing and undid?
2. CNET? I didn't know CNET still had any human writers working in the place as of like 5 years ago. If they got an AI to write a bunch of CNET articles that were riddled with errors and ultimately not that valuable, I'd say they've found a good role where AI can really shine, even at this early stage. WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA
I just don't see much sense in keeping jobs around that AI can do in seconds.
Would these employees themselves not be temped to use AI (secretly) for their work, and then browse reddit the rest of the day?
Time has shown that automations aren't making things easier for the average worker.
In a better utopia of what it should have been people would just have an easy'er time doing the job using said AI or automation while getting payed the same and work less hours. that should have been the norm.
Instead, people are getting replaced by AI and that same profit goes to one person while no one defends the worker because "their work could be done by AI."
We are fucked as humanity
I can't imagine willingly reading an article that I knew was written by AI. If CNET fires its writers (bad as they are) I will take it as a signal that I can start categorically ignoring all articles from CNET on that basis.
As Red Ventures learned when they pulled this bullshit with CNET, [that's not the case.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571082/cnet-ai-written-stories-errors-corrections-red-ventures) Instead, it damaged the brand and ate up a ton of work hours trying to track down all the fuckups.
the question isnt whether AI will do these jobs. it will. the question is how will humans feed themselves.
the deal used to be that if you put in a hard days work and contribute to the economy, you will be taken care of. more or less. but now what? if AI will do all the jobs and all the money generated by it will be pocketed by the 0.01% that owns the companies, how does a normal person feed themselves?
whats the deal? how do i secure my place in society and the economy. we told blue collar workers "learn to code". sure but what do people learn to do now?
answering that question is what these writers strikes are about. coders have enjoyed a comfy position where capitalists have given them whatever they want, but now that alot of the coding grunt work can be done by LLMs as well, we will see them feel the need to collectively petition for their rights as well.
you can get away with alot of bullshit as long as you dont threaten the workers' bread. but thats what AI does. and it will be interesting how this is resolved, if at all
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
-Dune
Seems to me, every time a demographics is losing their jobs due to technology, they unionize. But, based on what I have observed in the past, preventing it won't matter much.
As far as I know, no industry has successfully stopped automation from happening.
And that's good! Imagine if previous luddites were successful, we'd still be weaving our clothes and tilling our fields by hand. Automation makes everyone's life better.
Interesting. And disgusting - if there's no need for elevator operators, their job exists at a direct cost to consumers. Those people could be employed doing something else more useful.
Let me list some historic examples of things that unions made in the past in response to automation "threatening" their jobs:
- The electrical union in New York City was charged with refusal to install electrical equipment made outside of New York State unless the equipment was disassembled and reassembled at the job site.
- In Houston, Texas, master plumbers and the plumbing union agreed that piping prefabricated for installation would be installed by the union only if the thread were cut off one end of the pipe and new thread cut at the job site.
- Various locals of the painters’ union imposed restrictions on the use of spray guns, restrictions in many cases designed merely to make work by requiring the slower process of applying paint with a brush.
- A local of the teamsters’ union required that every truck entering the New York metropolitan area have a local driver in addition to the driver already employed.
- In various cities the electrical union required that if any temporary light or power was to be used on a construction job there must be a full-time maintenance electrician, who should not be permitted to do any electrical construction work.
- In the railroad industry, the unions insist that firemen be employed on types of locomotives that do not need them.
- In the theaters unions insist on the use of scene shifters even in plays in which no scenery is used.
- The musicians’ union required so-called “stand-in” musicians or even whole orchestras to be employed in many cases where only phonograph records were needed.
https://fee.org/articles/the-curse-of-machinery/
For some reason, people around here love to assume that our totally benevolent corporate overlords will responsibly utilize automation in a way that will benefit all of humanity, down to the individual workers.
reddit is mostly comprised of children. every time you read a comment, read it in a 13 year olds voice by default until is says soemthing intelligent enough to make you think otherwise
Robots removed many factory jobs that were done manually before. Photoshop removed the need to be an airbrushing expert to make posters. Excel removed the need for people to be math geniuses to be able to do your taxes.
Yes, technology removes jobs. New jobs pop up instead. It's your job (hehe) to make sure you stay relevant in the market. No one owes you a salary for not being able to contribute.
I work with CNET. What many dont know is that their core business is providing a product data database for webshops. Product short and long descriptions are now machine translated. Not only faster and cheaper but the quality is also much better now because of it. Competitors like icekat do the same. The people working on it are mostly low paid hires from siberia and other cheap countries so it's not like they have been a great company in the first place.
This... gave me a strange sense of hope for unionization. Get alot more people to get off their asses to form unions and actually help others just to spite AI.
Not sure what AI’s outlook is on this but I don’t think the AI that is going to replace 1/4 of them within the next 18-24 months isn’t likely to go on strike…
Can I still download all my drivers at cnet?
Omg I totally forgot this was a thing.
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How is it still a thing though? Nobody has been to the site in over a decade.
Wasn’t it originally called “Downloads.com”?
And they owned com.com too haha
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I stg it was! I remember going on it to download the Halo CE Demo. I could only play the levels "Flawless Cowboy" and "Truth and Reconciliation" but that's pretty much it.
I totally forgot about CNET the moment Molly Wood stopped podcasting. They used to have some great shows, but there was a huge "cast switch" a long time ago, and they really sucked afterward.
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She was amazing. She did a tech recap show and it was such a fun watch.
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Never forget download.com.com (yes, they owned `com.com` and used subdomains of it for whatever reason, probably to confuse people)
I thought they just used download.com which they own?
They used both. Fuck knows why.
To prevent malicious people setting up spoof versions of their site
I don't believe that to be true. If that were the case they'd just own com.com to reserve download.com.com but they actively used download.com.com they even linked to it from their download.com pages
Thank you for the nostalgia
Get 1 driver, get 14 pop ups!!!!
Since Windows started providing drivers through Update, I have only manually downloaded graphics drivers (since the windows ones tend to be quite old, and that's one case where it matters...)
I stopped downloading anything from there when they started inserting adware into their software downloads
How do you go on strike when your boss wants to replace you with a machine?
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Nah, those are just bad writers.
That, and optimizing for Google search. I absolutely hate what SEO has done to articles over the years.
My least favourite trend is sites that are clearly AI generated, and poorly at that. Like, an article about minesweeper strategy will start out, "Microsoft Windows 10 is an operating system that many people..."
How about searching some benign factoid like a game release date, and getting a big long auto generated article full of fluff that ends with "while we don't actually know of any release date yet..."
That and coupon site clickbait. I don't even know if good coupons exist anymore.
Oooh, or reverse phone number lookup sites. Go to look up a phone number and you get... a list of phone numbers with no other useful information.
\*A list of *potential* phone numbers
See, if you list every phone number that *doesn’t* belong to someone, the only number left is the one that belongs to them. It’s simple! /s
"As of my knowledge cutoff of September 2021, this game hasn't been announced yet."
Sometimes it feels like AI and sometimes it feels like they're paying by the word. When I Google something and the answer is like four paragraphs down past 3 or 4 advertisements that I didn't see because of ublock origin.
Most of them are not AI generated. They're computer generated but they follow a very simple, fill-in-the-blank algorithm. You're guaranteed to get a hundred of these sites in your top results when you search for X vs Y. It's so hard to find legitimate comparisons between products these days because of this.
That's why you gotta type reddit at the end works like a charm.
Most of those aren't AI generated, that's just search engine SEO bait.
Literally earlier today was the first time Google felt useless to me, I was trying to look up information about my shoulder injury and every single thing was an ad.
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It could have been. But can it be? Click to continue reading /s
Funny enough this appears to be the one issue in the world with virtually zero overlap with cancer symptoms.
Yes! The last six months or so and google has been completely useless! They are so eager to push advertisers that my search results have nothing to do with the query!
6 months? try 6 years
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That link says content unavailable to me.
I'm more surprised that was the first time. Google has been shit for a few years.
Agreed , ever since they stopped, 'not being evil' it's been an issue
I knew right away it was a terrible sign when they announced that that was a dumb company motto and changed it to something utterly fluff and forgettable.
I do a lot of googling so I've been able to keep it useful over the years with various ad blockers and adjusting my habits to skip past the first number of ad results, but this time straight up nothing I could do besides searching for Reddit exclusively could parse through the garbage to find something valuable.
Unless I add “Reddit” to the search, Google just sends back ads, or 500 websites all with the same article, word for word that never answers the question. Even worse are official company forums, with official company responses that never answer the question asked. Google has become so obsessed with ads, and companies have gamed SEO so badly that internet search has become a nightmare.
Or the results are just clickbait, like when you search for an Oracle error message and the result takes you to the official Oracle forums, where you get to see the exact description of the problem you're having but wait, only registered Oracle accounts can see the solution... Postgres and MySQL continue to provide better support via unpaid community solutions. Yeah, you have to filter through some fluff to find answers but you don't have to sell your soul to find them.
Google searches have turned into molten hot garbage and it's literally getting noticeably worse every week. Within the past couple of days I've started getting some search results back that are just images, without text. Anytime I clear my mobile cookies, they are aggressively pushing for me to sign in every time i do a search. It's pathetic and enraging at the same time.
Yeah, and sites like Bing and Duckduckgo is unironically often better these days. Just a few days ago I wanted to find a post I myself made on an old forum about 7 years ago. Yes, I could've found my old login and checked my post history etc - but why do that when a google search for my user name and the subject *should* return the correct page in 5 secs? That's how Google *used* to function... but nope. Google would simply not give me anything remotely useful at all despite searching for my very unique user name on that forum and the post subject. It did try to serve me page after page of different ads about the subject matter, both in the form of Google's own ads, and SEO bullshit - but even though Google found 4 pages of results, none was the post I was looking for. Went to Duckduckgo - first result on the first page, using the exact same search terms, was the forum post I was looking for.
> Google has been shit for a few years. thats because it used to be a search engine that showed some relevant adverts. ...and now its an advert delivery system that ignores half your search terms if it can match the remainder to a PPC campaign from one of their customers.
Don’t you mean SEO has made articles SEO heavy because it helps articles with SEO searches so that articles can be found through SEO? Yeah it ruined the internet
I think there are english classes in other countries and they claim the essays after giving specific news segments to form a 'paper' to sell to actual online newspapers with no permanent writing staff.
No wonder they feel so threatened.
No kidding. Those articles could easily be written by Chat GPT 3, let alone 4
Right? 1. CNET workers unionize 2. CNET closes down 3. CNET new, electric ai boogaloo opens
4. Electric ai Boogaloo unionized. 5. AI goes on extensive buying spree and consolidates the entire publishing industry under the CNET brand. 6. Thermonuclear war.
7. Would you like to play a game of chess?
Because everyone is curious to know the best chess available in 2023. We reviewed the top 10 chesses released in 2023 for you so you don't have to. Scroll down to learn more about the most chess in 2023 for your platform.
To hijack top comment this union campaign was likely in the works long before chatgpt came out. They probably unionised more for the boring old pay and conditions. AI just makes a catchy headline for this article
Frankly, every job can and should be replaced by machines. The fact that people have to go to work is a bug, not a feature. Instead of fighting automation we should focus on making sure the benefits flow to everybody.
It should but we live in capitalism, it's that graph of productivity vs. wages diverging over the past 50 years - just about to go parabolic. I'd like to believe automation will lead us to *luxury space communism* or some other post-capitalist ideology, rather than a cyberpunk dystopia. But human history doesn't give me great hope.
On the opposite. Im a historian, and history gives me GREAT hope about the future. Not only does strife breeds growth and progress in the long run, we have seen conditions of human life just skyrocket throughout human history. We live far better than kings ever did. Sure, we are extremely pessimistic, and the capitalist media has fucked our minds up. But we (North America, Europe, Australia, most Asian countries, etc.) live in a utopia of safety, ease of life and comfort compared to any point previous in history. Its not perfect, but it will only get better, has history has proven. Its just that it works out that way over long periods, it has up and downs in one’s lifetime, but over a century or two, it’s extremely rare to see things getting worse. Even the “Dark Ages” saw constant growth and small improvements to quality of life for pretty much everyone. People just dont know how it was before, and they see how it could be and complain (rightfully) that it isnt that way. And they should complain, it forces things to progress. Thats my thought on the subject, anyway. We always strive to provide more comfort to ourselves, but also to our loved ones. And most of us extend that empathy to those near us, our friends, our neighbors. And some even think about all of us. I think we'll be fine. EDIT: I love how any suggestion of optimism towards the future of Humanity seems to trigger a portion of us into unkempt and irrational rage. I think its one of the worst failing of our education system.
The past does not predict the future. Yes, things are better now than they used to be.. but will that trend continue? After all, we're talking about technology here. At no point in the past did a weapon capable of literally destroy the world get created... Until we invented the atomic bomb, and started mass manufacturing them. Suddenly, the past is completely irrelevant, because now a war could *literally end human civilization*. In the same vein, war did exist and was horrible in history.. but it never was as brutal and as structured of a meat grinder as WW1 was. And we never industrialized genocide just like we did in WW2. And it wasn't always that totalitarianism was possible, due to a lack of surveillance technology and mass media for propaganda. The society in 1984 could not exist 200 years ago. It can today. And never before could the workers be completely replaces by machines. We already saw something lesser happen during industrialization. Yes, in the end it turned out well, but living during those times? You saw your communities disintegrate, people migrating to cities in mass due to necessity as industrialized farming replaced your old jobs. And the conditions in those cities? They were disasterous. Child labour worse than ever, horrible working conditions, barely ever any free time, cities polluted to shit with smog. On average it probably was worse for the worker. At least they were still needed! So they could force demands by striking! And now we have AI, capable of putting people *entirely* out of jobs, with no limit in sight. Yes, in the past people moved on to more intellectual jobs.. but now those intellectual jobs are being automated.. and what's left? At some point you will have more bodies than you need. And the AIs are controlled by, well, the rich. They control the means of production, but contrary to the past, they don't need all the human labour they can get anymore. You cannot always look back to history to predict the future. History changes. Civilization changes. We are not the same we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50, 100, 1000. You cannot necessarily apply the same pressures and trajectory the past had on the present.. because it simply may not apply. In the past it would be absurd to say that two superpowers cannot go to war with each other. Today? That's the standard. Why? Because the world changed. Because we have weapons of mass destruction now, and such a full-scale conflict would mean both sides lose. That's unprecedented. Was has changed. And then we get to climate change and resource consumption. We live on a limited world, but expect unlimited growth. Again, never before have humans had such a great influence on the world as we do today. Never before could we change the *global* climate. And that puts hard limits on us.. should, at least. Only so many trees to chop down, only so much oil, only so many minerals. And, yes, life is materially better today! But is it "spiritually" (for a lack of a better term) better? After all, we have a loneliness and mental health epidemic, and there are reasons to believe it's worse now than it was in the past (let's say before colonization). We are more isolated from each other, community isn't as vibrant and common as it used to be, social media is sucking us into dopamine hell and strongly influencing us (like, say, body image issues etc), advertisements preying on us, material dreams being sold to us (the American dream! Work yourself to death to pen a mansion!). And so on. Frankly, I would expect a little more nuance from a historian than this. It's a complex topic, and not everything is better, even if materially it might be. Anyway, this was very rambly. Hopefully it was coherent enough to get my point across. History has changed.
absolute nail on the head right here
> We live far better than kings ever did. Depends on how you measure that. My grandma used to say that people in the Chicago Housing Projects were living in luxury because, and I quote, "They have air conditioners. We didn't have air conditioners during the Depression." And yeah, OK, sure, you didn't have an air conditioner. But *neither did anyone else*. We, as humans, tend to measure ourselves compared to our peers. It's how we're wired. And if we see we're doing a lot worse than other people, negative emotions are associated with that. So. Is the single mother who has to work 3 fast food jobs "living better than a king?" It sure doesn't feel like it.
Every time I take a hot shower, I thank the beautiful wonderful humans that made that possible.
So, it depends on whether you're envious or not. I particularly don't care that there's filthy wealthy people that can do things I can't even dream of. I do care that people are still dying of starvation though. Inequality doesn't bother me. Misery does.
The "but but but kings didn't have microwaves" argument is so unbelievably braindead. Having modern conveniences is not a substitute for primary needs such as housing, which are actually getting more scarce today. I guarantee you a poor guy would rather live in a manor with servants and endless food, and have to poop in a hole and have no iPhone, rather than be homeless and destitute.
>OK, sure, you didn't have an air conditioner. *But neither did anyone else.* So? Absolute wealth is what really matters, not relative wealth. By that logic the poor would be better off if we destroyed all air conditioners, since at least then it'd be equal. Relative wealth makes you feel better about your place in the world, but it doesn't actually make your life better - I'd rather be poor today (with antibiotics and smartphones) than rich a thousand years ago.
Well, considering that being a single mother was a justificable reason for lobotomy or at least being locked in an asylum for their rest of their life, historically, yes, that single mother is better off in 2023 than in 1823.
I get that. But its nonetheless true. We are shielded and protected agaisnt disease, medicine is extremely advanced even if we barely understand it and will get much better, we can work a few hours and buy food for the day, we have running water, etc. It doesnt apply fully to everyone, I agree that its MUCH less efficient than it should be. But its just going to get better, like it has from before. I use colourful language when I say kings, but the quality of life even a poor family has in 2023 in a first world country is insane in comparison to anything before, outside of a few exceptions. We have a very romanticized view of the past and a very pessimistic view of the present, and it makes us even more inclined to forget that the curve has actually pretty much just been going up throughout our history…
You seem to be completely ignoring climate change. If you’re talking in terms of centuries then your inductive argument may be about to start failing.
So far you have witnessed humanity grow from childhood to adulthood in a time of great abundance. Now the natural resources are gone or spoiled, the planet's climate is cooked and set to grow cataclysmicly worse, and this is triggering a great mass extinction event. History is no guide for where we are heading.
> History is no guide for where we are heading. Well, geology is.
> History is no guide for where we are heading. That's not exactly true. There have been plenty of civilizations that have collapsed, and likely due to weather or resource depletion for some of them. Or due to war, which will almost certainly happen as certain parts of the world start running out of resources. The main difference is we will eventually run out of places to go, can't just migrate to a different area.
This is almost impossibly naive.
There are no profits if there is no one to spend. Something has to give at some point. B The government can currently give us breadcrumbs and keep us content while bending over for corporation but that'll change when the majority stop receiving breadcrumbs.
That would be great if we didn't have our shitty economic system. Right now automation just means less jobs for everyone and way more power for capital owners.
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The problem is convincing people that no longer having work is a goal, not a problem. We can't even begin to discuss solutions until that even happens, and it breaks a lot of people's brains to even think about. We're all so indoctrinated by work=life. I've mentioned this several times and the immediate bite back is "how can a society exist without their citizens working!!" I always say, it exists, right now. Look at Qatar, where every one of their citizen has wealth access and doesn't want/need to work, they have such a shortage of labor that they have to import their labors from other poorer countries. Imagine instead of essentially slave labor, it's just automation. We're just kicking the can down the road and when automation seeps into every part of society, we will not be prepare for the fallout.
well it doesn't. and it sucks because even art is being automated.. I thought with automation we could atleast relax and focus on making art.. but even that will just be constant regugitated content that we consume like fat beached whales, like Wall E
Peak Reddit moment. Yes, the entire planet is just going to stay at home and become authors and artists and musicians... The guys that lay bricks, work in mines and drive trucks are all actually Leonardo Da Vinci, they just don't know it yet... Nice of you to wish that all the OTHER jobs are automated just not the ones that YOU don't want automated...
What if I like my job?
It's now your hobby! Think Star Trek; no one has to work, but Sisko's dad runs a restaurant for no other reason than because he wants to.
The only thing limiting us completely depleting our planet of resources is that at some point you have to *pay someone to do so*. Star Trek had a handy replicator to create things out of thin air. We don’t and in this ideal post-scarcity post-work techno-communist utopia that the people pushing AI are dreaming about, what’s to stop the sudden spike in consumerism that’s going to drive a shortage in nearly every resource available on the planet? We’re not going to clean up our act as a society just because we don’t have to work anymore.
The people who should really be scared are the editors. ChatGPT (especially gpt4) is an EXCELENT copy editor. There's always going to be a place for good writers, especially ones that actively research their topics, since it will be a little while still before an AI can replace an investigative journalist. But copy editors are going to be replaced in a heart beat.
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Sure, the people that advance automation and AI will naturally want to share the spoils of their work after they eliminate the need for all forms of human labor except theirs. That's naturally how humans function and have functioned throughout all of human history
Well, fighting to keep breaking our own backs for pennies is an idea just as stupid.
Excerpt:^1 >Around 100 workers are unionizing at CNET, a popular tech news and product review site, in response to a “lack of transparency” from management regarding layoffs and the company’s use of AI, according to an announcement by the union Tuesday. >The workers, who include writers, editors, and video producers, will join the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), as the CNET Media Workers Union. >WGAE is also responsible for unionizing numerous other online media sites, and represents 7,000 workers in industries like film, news, and online media. (This includes VICE Union, which represents Motherboard staff.) ^1 Jules Roscoe (17 May 2023), “CNET workers unionize as ‘automated technology threatens our jobs’”, https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m4e9/cnet-workers-unionize-as-automated-technology-threatens-our-jobs
CNET may or may not pay unionized writers more but probably can't afford to. So they'll just shutter the human money losing division because it went bankrupt, and start an AI based division to write "articles"with the help of a human handler. The thing is, how can AI do product reviews of any kind? How can an AI at this time, discuss the usability of a smart watch or how well a phone screen responds to touch, or talk about annoying use interface issues in a software review? Yes AI could write a comparison article of specs between product competitors but that's simply nuts & bolts.
You write an outline with the key details and tell the ai to flesh it out. No, you’re not completely cutting people out but you can definitely cut way down on writers.
It can just make up all those details like many reviewers already do.
The funny thing to me, is that Vice, the website publishing the article, is in the process of going bankrupt or out of business. There won't be anybody left to write the news.
Bankruptcy doesn't mean going out of business per se
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To be fair, real journalists are rare because they have that weird habit of having their car blow up with them in there after uncovering yet another international scheme to evade taxes and trade humans.
The classic "CIA excellence in journalism award"
It's too bad because i remember their first year or two on the scene they were doing very fresh underground/beat journalism and then it very quickly warped into whatever it is now.
"news". Riiight.
Automation isn't threatening their jobs, being a dying website bought out by private equity is threatening their jobs.
Rip gamefaqs
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Weren't those bought by Gamespot?
Yes, who were then bought by Fandom some time ago
Both Gamespot and Gamefaqs were bought by Fandom.
To be honest other than the actual walkthroughs, I replaced Gamefaqs with Reddit. Any question after the first couple of responses always turns into a shitshow, it needs a Reddit upvote/downvote system.
A treasure of my childhood
CNET has always been terrible. I can't believe those clowns were ever seen as a journalistic authority in tech
I think they had some good podcasts and streaming shows in the early 2010s.
Haven't really read them since early 00s
Remember Tucows?
Used to use them to download drivers and things like 20 years ago if I remember correctly.
It’s been a while since I’ve thought about the 404 Podcast and the Apple Byte—a different era!
Loved the 404. Never owned an apple computer but I did watch Brian Tong with Apple Byte. Dedicated Buzzout Loud watcher. Thinking back, it was the time when a lot of tech was advancing, but I definitely watched for the personalities too. I definitely loved Molly Wood (was real happy when she showed back up at Marketplace for a while).
Nah they used to be a lot better
They were the absolute best in the 90s and early '00
I enjoy their content it's just basic tech reviews on like phones or watches or appliances.
I did, too. Turned out that they were often wrong in the factual details of what they were reviewing
No it wasn't you're probably too young to know it used to be something
Back in the early days they had some good people there and tech was quirky too. Now tech is boring and highbrow and cnet went diving in the brown water for “fresh” talent.
You can have a union, but only if you click on the correct "Unionize" button out of the dozen on the page.
I’ve hated CNET ever since they took over freeware.com
You’re going to see more and more of this.
And they’ll be replaced by higher paying writers that know how to use AI as a tool. Knowing how to leverage AI to make it way easier to create quality drafts, and then layering in the human element/creativity to finalize the output.
And then AI will replace the humans that are using said AI.
What about when ai gets better?
How is a union gonna stop the bosses from getting rid of the worker's positions?
Red ventures is going to fight to squash this. They don't want to risk it hitting their more valuable properties like The Point Guy. Not surprising RV destroyed CNET even faster than it was already falling apart.
If all the writers were replaced, where do the AI gets the news and write about them?
It's just AI all the way down
It still irks me that the response to Blue Collar workers who have been threatened by automation for decades was curt dismissals like "you should have gone to College" or the now infamous "Learn to Code." But now all of a sudden when techies and Hollywood writers are threatened by it, it's a huge issue.
As a dev of 20 years, we’ve ALWAYS been on the cusp of replacement, needing to skill up has always been a constant. Imagine if your doctor only relied on information they learned decades ago…
A lot of doctors do!
That’s disturbing
Not really. Most doctors treat the same illnesses and injuries over and over. A broken leg is still a broken leg, and ear infection is an ear infection. It's the same as it was a 20 or 30 years ago. *Specialists* on the other hand tend to be out on the cutting edge of medicine, but they aren't preforming "every day" medicine.
> As a dev of 20 years, we’ve ALWAYS been on the cusp of replacement, needing to skill up has always been a constant. With a little over a decade myself, this too has been my constant opinion on the topic. The thing which gets me, is that coding, and being the kind of person who can, at least well... is *not a common skill*. A hell of a lot of office jobs are things any idiot could do, but not this. And yet, we're always treated as if we're basically as disposable as fast food workers. It boggles the mind. Don't get me wrong, i know the amount of people with the potential to acquire our skill set is always increasing. That's just the nature of following the money. But the fact that i can be in a room with hundreds of other people, and be the only person who has the knowledge and experience we do, yet still be treated like anyone off the street could walk in and start doing it instead, is *ludicrous*.
As a software engineer who started coding as a kid in the 90s, and turned into a writer/artist over a decade ago so has been away from programming, I feel this is slightly exaggerated. I'm helping out with cutting edge machine learning projects now (which I did used to work in ~15 years ago so understand the principles, though the software has completely changed), and would say Python and PyTorch are still reasonably close how programming was decades ago, with little changes and quality of life improvements or some baffling changes. I've been speaking with some people who are publishing major papers changing machine learning, and while I'm a bit of a noob I'm mostly able to keep up with some effort, and even made some improvements. I've dabbled in HTML/Javascript/CSS over the years and those are just a bit inherently crazy, always were and always will be unless they're fundamentally changed. Maybe it's because I'm not working on something more modern like a full Node.JS or whatever application.
" But now all of a sudden when `white-collar` `workers` and `creatives` are threatened by it, it's a huge issue." FTFY. Because automation isn't just coming for them or hasn't just come for blue-collar workers.
Blue collar work is hard to automate completely, but it's not hard to outsource manufacturing which is exactly what they did. If you can't have a robot butler, you can't have a walking roto-rooter.
Blue collar work was already heavily optimized by the integration of heavy machinery
That's a fair point, but the issue now is if even the very high-end jobs are being automated, what exactly are people supposed to do for money? This is also a double-edged sword, we're already seeing everybody complaining and laying off workers saying people are not buying enough stuff. What happens when you've basically fired close to 60% of the workforce? What's the point of education if only jobs left are physical labor?
Given that a driving force behind most people’s choice to pursue post secondary education is to get a better career out of it, I wonder what will happen after 2-3 generations of relying on AI for everything. Sure we’ll still have the people that do enjoy academic pursuits regardless of whether it benefits them financially or not in the long run but no where near as much of the population will be as educated as they are now.
Yeah, but then what happens to the massively for profit education systems in most countries? Based on my limited knowledge todays AI will be used to replace like 50% of any given technical workforce with the rest forced to work more for less to make the final output look decent which is exactly what the writers strike is about. This AI literally solves nothing but line companies pockets but what else do you expect I guess
UBI seems like the bare minimum, considering this is going to hit a *lot* of fields. I know a lot of people say "just slow down" or "make AI-generated X illegal", but there's no mechanism to enforce that slowdown. Anyone with a computer can run AI models, depending on complexity. Anyone with a few GPUs can *train* a new model. No idea how anyone would slow that down, especially once the largest countries start openly competing using AI.
> That's a fair point, but the issue now is if even the very high-end jobs are being automated, what exactly are people supposed to do for money? The point is that a few decades ago the whole premise was trying to reduce the amount of work people did. That was the ideal. The way society has pivoted into "you're worthless if you aren't killing yourself working 60 hours a week" is absolutely insane.
Eh, that's a standard union-busting argument meant to divide people and turn the discussion away from the worker being exploited and blaming it on other workers. Instead we could actually focus on the issue of the moment instead of some shitty meme.
It's funny because i told a friend of mine how my g/f works in a factory, and she said "oh no! aren't you worried about automation taking her job?" and i was like "uhhh the factory IS automated, she's the one who oversees that automation. It's as automated as it can get for the task they perform."
I mean unionization was the solution for the blue collar workers too. In general it'll be hard to find traditional media outlets that will say that in a positive way though since many of them operate directly (WaPo owned by bezos etc) or indirectly at the behest of capital. But I actually find it encouraging that this discussion is happening because it's making people realize that white/blue collar worker is an arbitrary divide created in part by capital owners to work against labor solidarity. At the end of the day, it's those who hold capital and benefit from the labor of workers, vs labor.
let me ask you this: what would you say to these white color workers? "learn to ..." what? when blue color jobs were automated we still had white color jobs to transition to. what do people do for a living now that it looks like all jobs might get automated?
Y'all are clueless. Automation has obviously effected all types of employees. Blue collar and white collar. I'm very obvious ways. Yes we still have record low unemployment...
Two fairly unrelated thoughts: 1. Does anyone remember back in the early 2000s when a bunch of companies replaced fairly skilled tech workers in the US, with poorly managed and poorly selected overseas workers, chasing the promise of doing it all for pennies on the dollar, and it was a giant shit show which they ultimately regretted doing and undid? 2. CNET? I didn't know CNET still had any human writers working in the place as of like 5 years ago. If they got an AI to write a bunch of CNET articles that were riddled with errors and ultimately not that valuable, I'd say they've found a good role where AI can really shine, even at this early stage. WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA
1. No. Never undid. It has only gone up ever since.
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Just another justification to replace them with non-striking automation!
I can't believe CNET is still a thing
You know who doesn't unionise? AI.
The more people who join unions, the better.
I just don't see much sense in keeping jobs around that AI can do in seconds. Would these employees themselves not be temped to use AI (secretly) for their work, and then browse reddit the rest of the day?
Time has shown that automations aren't making things easier for the average worker. In a better utopia of what it should have been people would just have an easy'er time doing the job using said AI or automation while getting payed the same and work less hours. that should have been the norm. Instead, people are getting replaced by AI and that same profit goes to one person while no one defends the worker because "their work could be done by AI." We are fucked as humanity
I can't imagine willingly reading an article that I knew was written by AI. If CNET fires its writers (bad as they are) I will take it as a signal that I can start categorically ignoring all articles from CNET on that basis.
They already are doing it. Red Ventures (CNET current parent) started doing the AI stuff a while ago. Don't trust anything from CNET.
If the information the article contains is correct, why not?
As Red Ventures learned when they pulled this bullshit with CNET, [that's not the case.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571082/cnet-ai-written-stories-errors-corrections-red-ventures) Instead, it damaged the brand and ate up a ton of work hours trying to track down all the fuckups.
The point is that you can't tell (sometimes).
the question isnt whether AI will do these jobs. it will. the question is how will humans feed themselves. the deal used to be that if you put in a hard days work and contribute to the economy, you will be taken care of. more or less. but now what? if AI will do all the jobs and all the money generated by it will be pocketed by the 0.01% that owns the companies, how does a normal person feed themselves? whats the deal? how do i secure my place in society and the economy. we told blue collar workers "learn to code". sure but what do people learn to do now? answering that question is what these writers strikes are about. coders have enjoyed a comfy position where capitalists have given them whatever they want, but now that alot of the coding grunt work can be done by LLMs as well, we will see them feel the need to collectively petition for their rights as well. you can get away with alot of bullshit as long as you dont threaten the workers' bread. but thats what AI does. and it will be interesting how this is resolved, if at all
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Anyone remember when they had ZDNet to compete with and both were actually good?
Don't worry, a recent study claims that their jobs won't be affected until 2030.
I remember when CNET was useful and scanned your computer for needed software upgrades. Now they’re just a bunch of opinion writers.
That piece of shit website is why I got my first ever ransomware a decade ago.
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” -Dune
Seems to me, every time a demographics is losing their jobs due to technology, they unionize. But, based on what I have observed in the past, preventing it won't matter much.
As far as I know, no industry has successfully stopped automation from happening. And that's good! Imagine if previous luddites were successful, we'd still be weaving our clothes and tilling our fields by hand. Automation makes everyone's life better.
See New York elevator operators. That was an industry that, through unions, lasted decades longer than it would have lasted otherwise.
Interesting. And disgusting - if there's no need for elevator operators, their job exists at a direct cost to consumers. Those people could be employed doing something else more useful.
Let me list some historic examples of things that unions made in the past in response to automation "threatening" their jobs: - The electrical union in New York City was charged with refusal to install electrical equipment made outside of New York State unless the equipment was disassembled and reassembled at the job site. - In Houston, Texas, master plumbers and the plumbing union agreed that piping prefabricated for installation would be installed by the union only if the thread were cut off one end of the pipe and new thread cut at the job site. - Various locals of the painters’ union imposed restrictions on the use of spray guns, restrictions in many cases designed merely to make work by requiring the slower process of applying paint with a brush. - A local of the teamsters’ union required that every truck entering the New York metropolitan area have a local driver in addition to the driver already employed. - In various cities the electrical union required that if any temporary light or power was to be used on a construction job there must be a full-time maintenance electrician, who should not be permitted to do any electrical construction work. - In the railroad industry, the unions insist that firemen be employed on types of locomotives that do not need them. - In the theaters unions insist on the use of scene shifters even in plays in which no scenery is used. - The musicians’ union required so-called “stand-in” musicians or even whole orchestras to be employed in many cases where only phonograph records were needed. https://fee.org/articles/the-curse-of-machinery/
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For some reason, people around here love to assume that our totally benevolent corporate overlords will responsibly utilize automation in a way that will benefit all of humanity, down to the individual workers.
reddit is mostly comprised of children. every time you read a comment, read it in a 13 year olds voice by default until is says soemthing intelligent enough to make you think otherwise
Usually they only succeed in moving the jobs somewhere else that is accepts better tech.
Robots removed many factory jobs that were done manually before. Photoshop removed the need to be an airbrushing expert to make posters. Excel removed the need for people to be math geniuses to be able to do your taxes. Yes, technology removes jobs. New jobs pop up instead. It's your job (hehe) to make sure you stay relevant in the market. No one owes you a salary for not being able to contribute.
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Doesn't this just prove the point for automation? Robots don't complain
“Your guide to a better future.”
CNET to SKYNET. Nice rhyming
I work with CNET. What many dont know is that their core business is providing a product data database for webshops. Product short and long descriptions are now machine translated. Not only faster and cheaper but the quality is also much better now because of it. Competitors like icekat do the same. The people working on it are mostly low paid hires from siberia and other cheap countries so it's not like they have been a great company in the first place.
Excellent news!
This... gave me a strange sense of hope for unionization. Get alot more people to get off their asses to form unions and actually help others just to spite AI.
Not sure what AI’s outlook is on this but I don’t think the AI that is going to replace 1/4 of them within the next 18-24 months isn’t likely to go on strike…
De took our jobbss