AI - A force for Good or Bad?

[Squaredy]

3 hours ago, openspaceman said:

Was the Horizon Post Office system early AI, it certainly seems to have a degree of fuzzy logic built in?

But to add to my answer just now, even though it was not AI, it highlights the importance of any system, machine or indeed AI having proper oversight by actual humans with the right skills.

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, Squaredy said:

But to add to my answer just now, even though it was not AI, it highlights the importance of any system, machine or indeed AI having proper oversight by actual humans with the right skills.

Its come to light recently that the system used before Horizon was just as bad . Capture I think it was called . 

Edited January 1 by Stubby

[Steven P]

That's the thing with software, it is sent out 90% correct and working, fix it later. Imagine flying on holiday and the driver says "Brand new design of plane this one, we think 90% of it should work, and kind of hoping that last 10% isn't too critical"

[Squaredy]

27 minutes ago, Steven P said:

That's the thing with software, it is sent out 90% correct and working, fix it later. Imagine flying on holiday and the driver says "Brand new design of plane this one, we think 90% of it should work, and kind of hoping that last 10% isn't too critical"

Yes and even when they ’fix’ The problem what actually happens is someone comes up with a workaround which sometimes just kicks the problem down the road, and sometimes creates a whole series of other problems.

 

I clearly remember my reaction when I first worked in IT support that no-one tried to actually understand the cause of the bug - they just attempted to alleviate the symptom.  And that was thirty years ago; I guess it is way more complex now.

[Steven P]

30 years later, the cure is still the same. Turn off, turn on, problem gone for now.

[Rich Rule]

I used to work in the IP Telecoms industry.

 

My first job in 97 was for an ISP,  one of the first business ISP’s in the UK.

 

There was a real tech nerd vibe about the place and on the tech support website there was a full page banner saying 

 

“Before you give us a hoot, please shut down and reboot”

 

it solved probably 3 out of 4 of the problems..

[sime42]

On 31/12/2025 at 13:10, Squaredy said:

Remember that automation started around 200 years ago.  Far less time globally is taken up with providing food and shelter than it was then.  But our expectations have evolved.

 

You might think that car manufacturing (as an example) would employ less people due to robots and automation.  Wrong.  More people work in car manufacture today than in 1960.  Our needs and expectations have changed.

We don’t yet know how things will evolve due to AI; but the fact that millions of jobs will be lost does not mean there will be millions unemployed!

 

 

I do think that car manufacturing employs less people due to robots and automation. When you analyse it on a per car basis. It takes a lot less people to make a car than it used to in 1960. When AGVs, aided and abetted by AI, get fully adopted, there won't even be people driving forklifts around. If there's more people overall, it's because there are more car plants, because there are more cars being (over)consumed now.

 

I don't think that you can extrapolate car manufacturing employment prospects to the impact of AI on the wider jobs market. Creating jobs just to satisfy our expectations and desires, (but not needs), for overconsumption isn't going to be a sustainable model to follow. We're already screwed on that front. We can't just make-more-stuff our way out of the hole we're digging. As I understand it, manufacturing and practical jobs aren't the ones that are most at risk from AI anyway. Though I see they're quite high, but as a percentage of total employment, manufacturing isn't much these days.

 

 

 

You're remarkably optimistic about AI in general, are you the 3.85%?

 

I'm more concerned about the meteoric rise in dis&misinformation, rather than mass unemployment. Too many people are falling foul of it already. The fact that it's getting increasingly hard to trust information and "news" deeply unsettles me. It's a sad, bleak world that we're moving into; where so much around us is unnatural and unreal. Progress? No sir. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Squaredy]

10 hours ago, sime42 said:

 

I do think that car manufacturing employs less people due to robots and automation. When you analyse it on a per car basis. It takes a lot less people to make a car than it used to in 1960. When AGVs, aided and abetted by AI, get fully adopted, there won't even be people driving forklifts around. If there's more people overall, it's because there are more car plants, because there are more cars being (over)consumed now.

 

I don't think that you can extrapolate car manufacturing employment prospects to the impact of AI on the wider jobs market. Creating jobs just to satisfy our expectations and desires, (but not needs), for overconsumption isn't going to be a sustainable model to follow. We're already screwed on that front. We can't just make-more-stuff our way out of the hole we're digging. As I understand it, manufacturing and practical jobs aren't the ones that are most at risk from AI anyway. Though I see they're quite high, but as a percentage of total employment, manufacturing isn't much these days.

 

 

 

You're remarkably optimistic about AI in general, are you the 3.85%?

 

I'm more concerned about the meteoric rise in dis&misinformation, rather than mass unemployment. Too many people are falling foul of it already. The fact that it's getting increasingly hard to trust information and "news" deeply unsettles me. It's a sad, bleak world that we're moving into; where so much around us is unnatural and unreal. Progress? No sir. 

 

 

 

 

 

I agreee that AI is going to make some very significant changes to the labour market.  The main point I was trying to make is that machines of one sort or another have been displacing human workers for at least two hundred years now.  Before the railways came to the UK almost everyone worked in the countryside.  Within one generation this had been turned on its head - most people worked in factories and lived in towns.  It didn't mean most people were out of work.  Actually AI might be a far more positive thing than the industrial revolution.  That detroyed creative, hard but fulfilling jobs like growing food and replaced them with (mainly) soul destroying jobs in factories.  AI could end up destroying many boring jobs and replacing them with creative jobs. 

 

I don't see AI as fundamentally different from other developments.  Yes the changes will be collosal.  But no we don't yet know how it will pan out.  Instead of my local council employing hundreds of people to do soul destroying things like make figures on a spreadsheet add up and plan stuff a computer can plan much better they can actually pick litter, clean off graffiti, work with local businesses to develop and many other creative things.  Newport council manage 160 acres of woodland, with a budget and team of zero.  If they can save a fortune on routine things a clever AI computer can do maybe they can finally employ some forestry and environmental officers to look after them.

 

It seems to me it is too easy to say "jobs will be lost" and forget that this may actually be a good thing.  Of course there will be those who are unwilling or unable to re-train.  So there will be a whole load of new jobs created helping such people to adapt.  Sadly some people will simply refuse and become victims, but for many it could be the end of a dull job and the beginning of a creative job.

 

I guess I see the needs for human intervention as almost unending, and if AI gives us the ability to tackle some of this then bring it on.

[Steven P]

26 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

AI could end up destroying many boring jobs and replacing them with creative jobs. 

 

That is an interesting take on how AI will change things.

 

With all the technology over the last 200 years, we are still working till 65 (75....) and it hasn't given us significantly more time to do stuff. So perhaps yes, it will shift the workforce from what can be automated more to what can't be automated - perhaps to use machinery designed by AI, or to do creative things.

 

Or in the bright new future, it will chain the workforce to their desks even more just watching AI process stuff making sure the AI errors arn't too mental?

[Squaredy]

39 minutes ago, Steven P said:

Or in the bright new future, it will chain the workforce to their desks even more just watching AI process stuff making sure the AI errors arn't too mental?

Well yes there will certainly be lots of jobs for people managing AI.  Debugging, developing, rolling out and whatever the opposite of rolling out is.  And of course dealing with the fallout of the faults and limitations of AI.