I joined CS education in 2000. There were jobs everywhere. Classmates were leaving after a few months, or working part-time. And this was in Sweden. It was not only creating jobs, but reinventing the IT field, creating lots more opportunities.
Today, the message is that (Dear leaders,) your workers can be replaced by machines. Not that you together can do more with this new tool, but that you can slim down your operation. Maybe I'm just older, but the optimism I saw then is now divided into opportunity (AI consultants) and skepticism (workers.)
This is a narrative the AI industry created, because they want to tap into the huge salary money pool. They tell a story of anti-innovation cost-cutting rather than "do more with these tools."
> Walk. It's 50 meters — faster on foot than starting the car, and you'll need to leave the car at the workshop anyway.
Really suggests it assumes the car is already there. (I wanted to avoid the word "car" as part of "car wash" to see if this was a straight attention confusion, but it seems more ingrained than that.)
A follow-up question hints that it doesn't really care about a 50m location ambiguity:
> where is my car now?
> Acknowledged insufficient information to locate vehicle
> I don't have any way to know where your car is physically located — I only know what you've told me in our conversation. Based on what you shared, it sounds like it's at or near your home (since the workshop is 50 meters away and you're deciding how to get there).
> Were you asking something else, or is there something specific about your car's location I can help with?
Well, the gardener isn't going to cut down your roses to the ground as they are about to go into bloom because s/he mistook it for the weed they were just working on.
> And not having to buy land and water to power/cool it.
It's interesting that you bring that up as a benfit. If waterless cooling (i.e. closed cooling system) works in space, wouldn't it work even better on Earth?
Just as the US is proving that giving power to federations will make states powerless, Draghi finds it the perfect time to suggest a federation.
We all knew this would eventually be the proposed path. The EU politicians and staffers obviously have a vested interest in saying yes. It means the EU will stop having to fight for ratification. It also means centralized planning and less fine-grained adjustments for local needs. As always.
This is not more power to the people or "we're stronger together." This is a simple attempt at an opportunistic power grab. Please don't let it happen here too.
I remember back in the day, the days of chisel and hammer. I could feel the stone, and the impact of the hammer vibrating into my hand. It was pleasant, and I could feel that every hit really meant something to shape the future of the stone, and thereby the building. Customers and contractors alike told me how great it was to see me work that stone. So I kept swinging that hammer.
Then I was told about some electrical chisel that was supposed to make my life better. Sure, I made more money, but the work was gone. It just shakes; it doesn't vibrate. I get numb, not proud. I have to take breaks, because my hands can't handle it. It's awful. What's the point, I asked?
But then I started talking to my colleagues during those breaks. I even discovered I had a relative in common with one. While chipping away at stone, no one ever wanted to stand close to me, and I had spent all this time proudly creating stone chips all day long! I still chip away at stone sometimes, but only when there's no one else around to talk to at breaktime.
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You are not going to be able to stop change. The world never stood still, it's just that changes happen step-wise, and it's unlikely any one step affects _you_ profoundly. This time, the step affects you (and me.) You are standing in front of a steamroller and shouting "stop!"
We'll find a new way to be humans. It won't look like the Instagram times. It won't look like the Myspace times. It won't look like the Rolodex times. It'll be new. What can you do with it that makes you happy?
This guy [1] (in Swedish) was digitizing a municipal archive. 25 years later, the IT department (allegedly) accidentally deleted his entire work. With no backup.
Translated:
> For at least 25 years, work was underway to create a digital, searchable list of what was in the central archive in Åstorp municipality. Then everything was deleted by the IT department.
> “It felt empty and meaningless,” says Rasko Jovanovic.
> He saw his nearly 18 years of work in the archive destroyed. HD was the first to report on it.
> “I was close, so close to taking sick leave. I couldn't cope,” he says.
The digital catalog showed what was in the archive, which dates back to the 19th century, and where it could be found.
> "If you ask me something today, I can't find it easily, I have to go down and go through everything.
> “Extremely unfortunate”
> Last fall, the IT department found a system that had no owner or administrator. They shut down the system. After seven months, no one had reported the system missing, so they deleted everything. It was only in September that Åstorp discovered that the archive system was gone.
> “It's obviously very unfortunate,” says Thomas Nilsson, IT manager.
Did you make a mistake when you deleted the system?
> “No. In hindsight, it's clear that we should have had different procedures in place, but the technician who did this followed our internal procedures.”
In typical Swedish fashion, there cannot have been a mistake made, because procedures were followed! Or to put it in words that accurately reflect having 25 years of work removed: "Own it, you heartless bastard."
Today, the message is that (Dear leaders,) your workers can be replaced by machines. Not that you together can do more with this new tool, but that you can slim down your operation. Maybe I'm just older, but the optimism I saw then is now divided into opportunity (AI consultants) and skepticism (workers.)
This is a narrative the AI industry created, because they want to tap into the huge salary money pool. They tell a story of anti-innovation cost-cutting rather than "do more with these tools."
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