A question that everyone should now ask themselves ..

[Vortex2]

How & when could my job be done by a minimum wage zero-hours-contract employee using an AI?

[BritDownUnder]

It'll be a way off for me and by then I would like to be retired and to own shares in the AI company that does it.

Connecting up voltage and current injection testing equipment weighing 30 to 40 kg to locations in a switchyard reached over gravel surface and over transformer bunds might be a bit beyond AI just for now. Then deciding where to connect the wires from incorrect drawings and which wires to temporarily remove for the testing.

AI and control systems have been displacing 'blue-collar workers' for nearly 100 years. Only when the threat reaches computer programmers and journalists do the chattering classes get all worried. How tragic.

[Catweazle]

PWC forecast that AI will add 10% to UK GDP over the next few years, it's possible. Some say that Henry Ford's secret was that he enabled his employees to own cars, you could argue that many industries have done something similar, but AI won't be spending wages.

[johnny]

How & when could my job be done by a minimum wage zero-hours-contract employee using an AI?

It can't.

[UndercoverElephant]

How & when could my job be done by a minimum wage zero-hours-contract employee using an AI?

It can't, so never.

[PS_RalphW]

My most recent job was as a handyman. Not zero hours and a bit more than minimum wage. Well beyond the ability of ai. My main occupation is caring for my autistic daughter. That will never be the job for ai, it takes more than simple emotional intelligence.

[Vortex2]

During COVID I think that about 40% of the population could/did work from home.

That suggests that around 50% of people actually do real work.

[UndercoverElephant]

During COVID I think that about 40% of the population could/did work from home.

That suggests that around 50% of people actually do real work.

I have no idea what you mean by "real work", or how you arrived at a figure, or why it matters.

Creating text capable of passing the Turing Test is not a substitute for more than an irrelevant fraction of current paid work.

[kenneal - lagger]

I would like to see the machine which can find its way around a house, inside and out, measure it before talking to the client to tease out what the actually want rather than what they tell you they want, drawing it out and adding the extension that fits both their wants and their budget.

I do appreciate that a laser machine can do the measuring far quicker and more accurately than I ever could but I haven't seen the one yet which can reach behind a wardrobe or into the eaves of a loft space.

[BritDownUnder]

Seems like you need a job with a mixture of human interaction, theoretical knowledge and past experience/recollection and physical mobility/dexterity to beat AI.
Now I know why I gave up that Insurance/Actuarial gig.

Henry Ford seemed to know not to cannibalise his own workforce as they were also his Customers. Modern companies seem to have a strip mining mentality towards their workforces. AI profits will probably head to California, or the Caymans or somewhere.

[johnny]

How & when could my job be done by a minimum wage zero-hours-contract employee using an AI?

It can't, so never.

Well, sure. Is there an assumption that AI will be capable of looking at data, and then realizing there is a problem in it somewhere, and of finding the issue? Machine learning, is that the same thing as AI?

[mr brightside]

Mine couldn't be done by unskilled labour, we all have to have CompEx certificates and you need to be very thorough to pass that. Though, the cable tray is now being done by semi skilled fabricators, but the attention to detail is not there. That's what you don't get with unskilled labour, details and finish.

[Vortex2]

During COVID I think that about 40% of the population could/did work from home.

That suggests that around 50% of people actually do real work.

I have no idea what you mean by "real work", or how you arrived at a figure, or why it matters.

Creating text capable of passing the Turing Test is not a substitute for more than an irrelevant fraction of current paid work.

The numbers are important : technology which can drastically change the lives of at least 50% of the population matters.

Real work : old-fashioned physical work.

Creating text capable of passing the Turing Test is not a substitute for more than an irrelevant fraction of current paid work.
That's just plain wrong - even this beta test version of the AI can do MUCH more than create boring text.
Over Christmas, I demoed it for an hour or so to a relative who is a director of one of the UK's biggest firms.
He used it to write press releases, work schedules, HR letters etc .. and clearly stated that it could replace several of his team today. Instead of delegating tasks he could simply use the AI. He went away VERY thoughtful.

Over the past few days I have been writing code using the AI. It's pretty amazing .. not perfect, but way more productive than almost any programmer, even allowing for the time needed to correct its silly errors.

The artistic AI tools such as DallE2 have already showed signs of disrupting the art world.
Why pay an artist or photographer to create the front cover of your next brochure when you can simply type "Create a photo of a helicopter landing at a hospital on a Swiss mountainside"
In fact, some artists are so worried about their future that they are funding attempts to make computer art illegal.

Currently, most people are in denial about the potential of this technology.
I think that they are gravely in error : within a year or so this will be a more important topic than Climate Change or poxy little European wars.

If the current beta version is so capable, just imagine what say V5 will be capable of.

Personally, I would pay a decent amount of monthly fee to have access to a slightly improved version of chatGPT.
I certainly wouldn't pay anything for Google.
In fact, Google senior staff are having emergency meetings to decide their next moves .. they can see the writing on the wall. Perhaps they will offer say 100 billion USD for OpenAI .. but whether that would be accepted is another question.

You may not realize it, but I think that we are at a turning point in history.

[UndercoverElephant]

We will see. I remain unconvinced this technology will do anything more than make the internet even more murky.

[Catweazle]

It's nice to think you have an interesting job unaffected by AI, a "real" job. Of course, all those people who have been replaced by machines will be showing interest in your job too, they might even decide to do it cheaper. If they don't know how, they can ask someone, or something.