I'm not really scared so much as I'm excited. That might be a privileged POV but I tend to think it'll merely change the type of work needed, rather than obsolesce it, which will be painful but not permanent. I also think it will happen gradually enough that people living with their eyes open will see it coming and adjust (e.g. radiology).
It will make capital/credit more efficient, which will increase the leverage of people with means. But when I think about my own meager ascent via CS, this leverage bleeds over/is accessible to people with fewer means too. I have an optimistic suspicion too that more powerful technologies bleed the leverage to lower and lower classes.
I do worry about people who either lack a temperament for or are too old to change though.
I do believe it will give leverage to many and elevate a few without means to create some really freaking awesome things. It will certainly democratize access to things like movie creation etc.
I guess I'm skeptical when I hear thought leaders say it will change up the nature of work, or free people to do "more interesting" work when there are literally billions of unemployed/underemployed people who are already free to dream up higher level types of ideas but still lack any meaningful opportunity.
I worry it will just further enrich a few monopoly corporations and upper class best able to take advantage of this, and further eliminate the middle class and commoditize everyone else to gig workers.
Maybe most of us will go back to doing manual labor work and that will at least bring plumbing and electrician prices down to sane levels. Will be interesting to watch, that's for sure. The stablediffusion and dalle2 sub-reddits are mind-blowing.
"A victorian whale smoking a cigarette, in the style of Rembrandt van Rijn" - If someone gave me this prompt I would not have imagined smoke to come out of a blowhole... it's brilliant.
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