They do create bullshit jobs in finance by propping up the system when it's about to collapse from the consequences of their own actions though.

Not that I believe they should allow the financial system to collapse without intervention but the interventions during recent crises have been done to save corporations that should have been extinguished instead of the common people who were affected by their consequences.

Which I believe is what's lacking in the whole discussion, politicians shouldn't be trying to maintain the labour status quo if/when AI change the landscape because that would be a distortion of reality but there needs to be some off-ramp, and direct help for people who will suffer from the change in landscape without going through the bullshit of helping companies in the hopes they eventually help people. As many in HN say, companies are not charities, if they can make an extra buck by fucking someone they will do it, the government is supposed to be helping people as a collective.

At this point if an LLM can do your job, it was already bullshit. But in the future when they can do non bullshit jobs, then you can go get another one just like every other person out of the billions who has had their job made obsolete by technology. It's not that hard.

If large swaths of people lose their jobs to AI, have no job prospects due to the presence of AI, and can't afford their next meal in the here and now, that is a recipe for civil unrest.

If... But most likely it will be like technology replacing all the many jobs it has replaced over the last 100 years and those people will move into other jobs. If it is different this time then it requires a different response, but that isn't needed until we know it actually is different.

In those past times of technological change, it was reasonably obvious where the puck was headed.

However, I feel like that has been changing over the past decade or two. I have met countless young people who have been willing and able to pick up a new skill to make a living. By and large, that has either turned out to be going into tech or going into gig work

AI is threatening both of those. It is not obvious to me what comes after. Frankly, these days if someone younger comes to me asking for career advice, I honestly wouldn't know what to tell them.

You give way too much credit to the US electorate. Right now vast swaths of the country are worshipping a billionaire and support policies that are actively harming them because the politicians claim to hate the same people they hate and/or quote scripture.

Hunger knows no political party.

Seeing the life if people in red states that continue to struggle and still vote for politicians that pass policies that hurt them, I disagree.

How many farmers right now are suffering between the current tariff policies and immigration policies are still professing support for Trump? The very people that unions and higher minimum wages would help the most are opposed to because they support the very people who favoring their employers getting rich over them.

If you take solace in “god will provide” as long as you give the church 10% of your income, you aren’t looking at things logically as long as the politicians can quote scripture.

> But in the future when they can do non bullshit jobs, then you can go get another one just like every other person out of the billions who has had their job made obsolete by technology. It's not that hard.

This was the argument made by the capitalists after they had jailed and murdered most of the people in the Luddite movement before there was employment regulation.

They ignored what the Luddites were protesting for and suggested it was about people who just didn't understand how the new industrial economy worked. Don't they know that they can get jobs elsewhere and we, as a society, can be more productive for it?

The problem is that this was tone deaf. There were no labor regulations yet and the Luddites were smashing looms as that form of violence was the only leverage they had to ask for: elimination of child labor, social support that wasn't just government workhouses (ie: indentured servitude), and labor laws that protected workers. These people weren't asking everyone to make cloth by hand forever because they liked making cloth by hand and thought it should stay that way.

In modern times I think what many people are concerned about with companies getting hot for throwing labor out into the streets when it's not profitable for them anymore is that there are once more a lack of social supports in place to make sure those people's basic needs are met.

... and that's just one of the economic and social impacts of this technology.

It's even simple than that, IMHO. Yes, there are always new jobs to replace one you've lost to automation. But no, those new jobs are not for you, and not for your children. Someone else will be doing them - you will be dealing with the fallout of having your life upended, suddenly facing deep poverty.

You can re-skill - but you'll be competing for starter positions and starter salary with people who're just entering the workforce, much younger than you, with no dependents or health issues.

The technology may have benefited everyone in the long run, but in immediate terms, sudden shifts like these ruin lives of people, and destroy futures of their descendants.