According to a new poll, fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) among the younger workforce participants is a real issue as AI is predicted to replace large portions of the workforce. The question is, how much of the NNSA workforce can be replaced by AI or automation? If one could automate pit production, that could reduce the number of workers, but this will likely happen soon.
On the other hand, many Admin, HR, and bureaucratic jobs seem like good candidates to be replaced by AI, which could be 10-30% of the workforce. Of course, a more cynical is that these jobs are already early versions of Universal Basic Income, so simply replacing them with AI will not help because then you would have to give these people money once they are out of a job. Of course, AI could replace scientists or at least replace what we do at the labs. Highly automated simulations and analysis could be done better than we have with humans doing it.
6 comments:
Isn't it a bad idea to put AI in charge of our WMD programs? That was in the Terminator movies I believe, there was some great acting by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton. Part of what happened in the movies I believe, was that the AI nuked everyone, before building a machine army and enslaving many of the remaining humans.
Humans will become obsolete but many obsolete things still exist -- wood-fired stoves and vacuum tubes, for example, which make great audio amplifiers, and have uses in radar and communications. Someday, the labs can convert to historical museums, for example, showcasing 20th century and early 21st century technology, prior to the rise of AI and the advent of World Peace. Human tour guides will provide authenticity, and there will be a lot of employment provided by preservation and restoration activities, using authentic "handcrafted" human labor.
9/16/2023 11:33 PM
I doubt the plan will be to put AI "in charge" but use it as a tool to do specific repetitive tasks. For example, automation or robots could replace paperwork, forms, memos, training, and even guards. Some group administrators and managers use AI for group emails, instructions, and documents. There is nothing formal about just individuals using it to make their lives easier; at some, we might make it more formal and use AI as a standard tool that all managers and admins must use.
Sure, there is some "far off" danger, but it is not apparent now. Sending out directorate-wide updates written by AI is not a threat.
By the way being "obsolete" might mean just retirement, so you'd be earning money by doing something like flipping houses, owning a bar or micro-brewery, or you could always try management. And I'm sure AI will make so many mistakes, and create so many problems, that it will be a net job creator trying to fix all that.
In any case we will all be "managers" soon, providing incompetent and rudderless leadership to an uncountable and unaccountable legion of overqualified, unethical, and underemployed genius-level AI chatbots. In a capitalist system, of course, "greed is good" so hopefully if we just focus on capitalist outcomes that empower the chatbots and align their incentives properly, there will be a huge payoff for the entire world!
Your sarcasm doesn't add value.
Perhaps sarcasm doesn't add value -- I agree -- it is a critique of the postmodern world of course, that our lives lack meaning. I am sure the chatbots will feel that way too, at some level.
The sarcasm is of course, directed at that overall theme. There are many things that do give life meaning, and many positive goals, for someone to have.
Sometimes work is a way to find meaning, or an escape at some level from other things which cannot be addressed, for example through sublimation, etc.
We can expect of course, that with a reduction of meaningful work, many people will become unhappy and there could be social unrest.
Perhaps the key is to have fun doing things, whatever they are, even if they do not have some cosmic meaning. In that sense, it could be amusing that many meaningful things come to a logical endpoint, of no longer being serious.
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