The robot will see you now
Can AI replace doctors? Will it steal your high-paying job? Most importantly, will it give you all the time in the world to watch stupid movies?
For the past few weeks I have been writing about deep learning and AI. My last newsletter was a bit provocatively titled, I’ll admit but it generated a bit of buzz (and discussions on mastodon with friends and strangers alike).
My main point is that your job may not completely disappear, but your job as you know it is gone. We are not only finding out what large language models like ChatGPT can do, but also what humans can do using it.
ChatGPT is being used to write and authors have listed it as an author on scientific papers
Yesterday, a Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania professor found that ChatGPT would’ve “received a B to B-grade” on an Operations Management final exam which is a requirement for their prestigious MBA.
And AXIOS reported with a bit of fanfare that ChatGPT can pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination for doctors in the US.
So does that mean that robot doctors will replace actual doctors? In a new piece entitled, Would you let a robot doctor treat you? I make the case that certain professions are more than the sum of their technical parts.
There’s an argument to be made that those in highly-specialized people-facing roles might not lose their jobs even if robots can do some aspects of them.
AI cannot report from the field, schmooze potential clients, or replace doctors.
The heated debate around AI right now centres on whether AI will serve as a helpful tool for many specialized occupations or whether it will actually replace people employed in these roles. Nearly all of the discourse has been on the quality of the output of AI, and not nearly enough on the psychology of interacting with machines in specialized roles.
Do read the piece and let me know if you agree in the comments below.
More musings on AI and how jobs will change
It’s a brand new AI generated day (with me and DALL-E 2)
There’s an idea that doing rounds that AI will do so much work for us and herald in progress in a manner that people will have a lot more leisure time. Now, I have no idea whether this is true. But I will say that similar predictions in the past have not come true.
We were promised the gadgets of the Jetsons and all the leisure time in the world. Instead, we got people in the gig economy driving Ubers and teaching courses while holding on to fulltime jobs just to pay the rent.
Back in 1930, the noted economist John Maynard Keynes predicted the working week would be cut to about 15 hours. That’s 15 hours a week (not 15 hours a day).
Now, I don’t know about you, but I certainly work more than 15 hours a week.
One can argue that the type of work has changed. This is true. But the actual time many of us work has not.
So, then there’s the other techbro argument that with AI productivity will increase to such an extent that we will all be paid more. Certainly, some who will manage the input and output of AI systems, train them, and use them in specialized professions might be paid more.
But researchers have found that for those impacted by the first wave of machines, jobs didn’t go away. But it certainly reduced the pay of those left behind.
“This discussion gets framed around ‘Will robots and AI destroy jobs, and lead to a jobless future,’ and I think that's the wrong framing,” MIT economist Daron Acemoglu said. “Industrial robots may have reduced U.S. employment by half a percent, which is not trivial, but nothing on that scale of a “jobless future” has happened — but if you look at the inequality implications, it's been massive.”
Acemoglu’s own extensive research on inequality and automation shows that more than half of the increase in inequality in the U.S. since 1980 is at least related to automation, largely stemming from downward wage pressure on jobs that might just as easily be done by a robot.
We also have an impending recession and mass layoffs in tech. Yeah…
Switching gears from artificial intelligence to natural stupidity.
I saw Ram Setu. I mean I saw parts of it. Man, that is such an awful movie.
The science is bad, but the science is bad in a lot of movies. I can let go of that if there’s an entertaining monster, space rock, volcano, or villain. This is not so bad that it’s good. This is just really bad— patronizing, propagandist, and plodding. Avoid.
If you want to see a bad movie that is wildly entertaining, watch Moonfall instead.
Speaking of bad science movies, wasn’t this part of the plot of The Core?
A psychologists guide to overcoming burnout.
This is a wonderful podcast episode.
Know the signs. Take care of yourself.
My best wishes,
Anirban
(I’m going to be off the internet until mid-February but I am on mastodon and on Linkedin).
A capitalistic economic system that dispassionately seeks to maximize profit is the WORST possible matrix for the advent of even partial AI and the industrial revolution it represents. Absolutely the worst for the non-managerial caste that most of us are born into. Social mobility will decline, wages decline employment decline...there won't even be work for security guards and burger flippers... A bleak future. Sure wish Andrew Yang had been elected President!