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Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

(www.nytimes.com)
388 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 25 Mar 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bryanlarsen ◴[26 Mar 25 18:14 UTC] No.43485099[source]▶
At least for the moment, AI still needs knowledge workers to spec and prompt and check. AI makes knowledge workers more productive, but it doesn't eliminate the need for them.

And if knowledge workers are more productive, then knowledge work is cheaper. Cheaper knowledge work increases demand for knowledge work. So the number of workers required might actually increase. It also might not, but first order analysis that assumes decreased knowledge workers is not sufficient.

C.f. garment makers. Partial automation of clothes making made clothes cheaper, so now people have closets full of hundreds of garments rather than the 2 sets our great-grandparents likely had. There are now more people making garments now than there was 100 years ago.

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MoonGhost ◴[26 Mar 25 20:37 UTC] No.43487017[source]▶
According to this cheap food is good because people just start eating more. Actually cheap imports can be really bad for local businesses.

Now imagine dystopian world where AI can solve most data / engineering / science problems for cheap. Or even for free, just ask.

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delusional ◴[26 Mar 25 22:20 UTC] No.43488118[source]▶
AI working isn't the dystopian option. Imagine AI can do none of those things, but the people who control the capital believe they can.

That's the dystopia.

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1. Enginerrrd ◴[26 Mar 25 23:46 UTC] No.43488850[source]▶
Yeah and not unlikely.

There are trends in both directions in manufacturing. On the one hand, we had amazing fountain pens with forged gold nibs hand-tuned by a nibmeister that can do things you can't replicate now. The trend was toward really crappy pens that could be mass-manufactured and required less skill by the consumer to operate, but are demonstrably inferior. People chose to buy the cheaper, barely passable option more often by orders of magnitude.

On the other hand, we have automotive manufacturing. Modern cars are more reliable, safer, more comfortable, more performant, more featured, capable, (and expensive?) than ever.

With knowledge work, it's clear that certain things will get "optimized" into disfunction. (Look at the complete lack of agency corporations have taken away from the people operating the public interfaces to the company.) Be it help/support centers, resolving unusual issues, or dealing with automated bans/account deactivations.

It's hard to say what direction it will go...