I think they can both be true. Perhaps the innovation of AI is not that it automates important work, but because it forces people to question if the work has already been automated or is even necessary.
Well, if a lot of it is bullshit that can also be done more efficiently with AI, then 99% of white collar roles could be eliminated by the 1% using AI, and essentially both were very close to true.
Jobs you don’t notice or understand often look pointless. HR on the surface seems unimportant, but you’d notice if the company stopped having health insurance or sending your taxes to the IRS etc etc.
In the end when jobs are done right they seem to disappear. We notice crappy software or a poorly done HVAC system not clean carpets.
Moving some function to the government doesn’t eliminate the need for it. Something would still need to tell the government what you’re paid unless you’re advocating for anarchy or communism.
Also, part of that etc is doing payroll so there’s some reason for you to show up at work every day.
I emailed HR and asked what to do to best ask for leave in case of a future event (serious illness with a family member, I just wanted to be one step ahead and make sure I did everything right even in the state of grief).
HR wouldn't tell me what would be the best and most correct course of action, the only thing that they said was that it was my responsibility as an employee to find out. Well, what did they think I was doing.
Side effect seems like an odd way to describe what’s going on when these functions are required for a company to operate.
Companies don’t survive if nobody is paid to show up every day or if they keep paying every single ex employee that ever worked for the company. It’s harder to attract new employees if you don’t offer competitive salaries or benefits. HR is a tiny part of most companies, but without that work being done the company would absolutely fail.
Similarly a specific ratio of flight attendants to passengers are required by the FAA in case of an emergency. Airlines use them for other stuff but they wouldn’t have nearly as many if the job was just passing out food.
> HR on the surface seems unimportant, but you’d notice if the company stopped having health insurance or sending your taxes to the IRS etc etc.
Interesting on how the very example you give for "oh this job isn't really bullshit" ultimately ends up being useless for the business itself, and exists only as a result of regulation.
No, health insurance being provided by employers, or tax withholding aren't useful things for anyone, except for the state who now offloads its costs onto private businesses.
My observation is about what your assumptions say about you, and that's not a miss.
Nobody really understands a job they haven't done themselves, and "arguing" that 90% of them are "bullshit" has no other possible explanation than a combination of ignorance (you don't understand the jobs well enough to judge whether they are useful) and arrogance (you think you can make that judgement better than the 90% of people doing those jobs).
> Nobody really understands a job they haven't done themselves, and "arguing" that 90% of them are "bullshit" has no other possible explanation than a combination of ignorance (you don't understand the jobs well enough to judge whether they are useful) and arrogance (you think you can make that judgement better than the 90% of people doing those jobs).
That's fine if you disagree, I'm not aiming to be the authority on bullshit jobs.
This doesn't change the fact that you and I are cattle for corpo/neo-feudals.
> Hard miss. GP is right, and your assumptions say more about you than about me. :^)
No. If that's the case, your statement was unclear: since you didn't specify who else thinks those people were cattle, the implication is that you think it. Especially since you prefaced your statement with "I’d argue."
And the interpretation...
> It seems more like they're implying it's those at the top think that about other people.
...beggars belief. What indication has "the top" given to show they have that kind of foresight and control? The closest is the AI-bros advocacy of UBI, which (for the record) has gone nowhere.
I was half a mind to point that out in my original comment, but didn't get around to it.
> No. If that's the case, your statement was unclear: since you didn't specify who else thinks those people were cattle, the implication is that you think it. Especially since you prefaced your statement with "I’d argue."
I never said it was clear? Two commenters got it right, two wrong, so it wasn’t THAT unobvious.
> What indication has "the top" given to show they have that kind of foresight and control? The closest is the AI-bros advocacy of UBI, which (for the record) has gone nowhere.
Tech bros selling “no more software engineers” to cost optimizers, dictatorships in US, Russia, China pressing with their heels on our freedoms, Europe cracking down on encryption, Dutch trying to tax unrealized (!) gains, do I really need to continue?
>> What indication has "the top" given to show they have that kind of foresight and control? The closest is the AI-bros advocacy of UBI, which (for the record) has gone nowhere.
> Tech bros selling “no more software engineers” to cost optimizers, dictatorships in US, Russia, China pressing with their heels on our freedoms, Europe cracking down on encryption, Dutch trying to tax unrealized (!) gains, do I really need to continue?
All those things are non sequiturs, though, some directly contradicting the statement I was responding to, as you claim it should be interpreted. If "90% of modern jobs are bullshit to keep cattle occupied" that implies "the top" deliberately engineered (or at least maintains) an economy where 90% jobs are bullshit (unnecessary). But that's obviously not the case, as the priority of "the top" is to gather more money to themselves in the short to medium term, and they very frequently cut jobs to accomplish that. "Tech bros selling “no more software engineers” to cost optimizers," is a new iteration of that. If "the top" was really trying "to keep cattle occupied" they wouldn't be cutting jobs left and right.
We don't live in a command economy, there's no group of people with an incentive to create "bullshit" jobs "to keep cattle occupied."
I think what he meant was that the top 1% ruling class is keeping those bullshit jobs around to keep the poor people (their cattle) occupied so they won't have time and energy to think and revolt.
Or for everyone in chain of command to have people to rule over. A common want for many in leadership positions. At least two ways, you want to control people. And your value to your peers is the amount of people or resources you control.
