Same here. Then let's automate building vast O'Neill cylinders and habitats we can live in.

I'd like to not die of Baumol's Cost Disease along the way, though.

Labor-saving devices don't save labor at work. They increase productivity rather than reducing hours, and the extra value is captured by the employer.

That's the difference between your home dishwasher and the means of production.

It's also probably a big part of what worries Gen Z about when it comes to AI. They're thinking about their own employment and employment prospects, where most people probably understand they have little to gain from it long-term.

Drudgery is not as much drudgery when there is variety. I think a lot of people who see their work as "drudgery" actually just are forced to do one thing and never even think about doing a second thing during their day.

Then use AI to make a dishwasher. Why aim for accounting first?

It's easy to get users. Speaking of accounting we should probably just measure profits.

Majority of AI use people encounter has zero to do with "automating drudgery" and a lot to do with "producing slop fast and cheap".

> But what remains when everything is automated?

The answer has been perfectly captured in this czechoslovakian cartoon made in 1984. https://youtu.be/6Mo8gQ89aEA?feature=shared

Working in IT and AI related fields I made the opposite observation. Taking as HR an example, professionals there wanted to keep the boring reporting tasks and automate the human part, e.g. career guidance, mediation etc.. At the time I could not understand the reason why. In hindsight it was a reward driven decision. Human to human interaction is rarely instantly rewarded. Producing reports on the other hand is measurable and mostly rewarded right away.

I've been listening to the Verge podcast and I've listened to Nillay refine this article piece by piece for weeks. He had the headline in mind for a long time and I've heard most of the points addressed in this article. It's now interesting to see all that distilled into this single article.

It's definitely not poorly thought out article. People want to automate away the boring parts of their work and life but, as the meme says, people want AI to do their dishes and laundry so they can do writing and art but instead AI does their writing and art so they can do the laundry.

I'm not sure what you think the straw man is here. I think he already addresses this in the article: "I’m not saying regular people don’t use Excel or Airtable to plan their weddings or have fun throwing PowerPoint parties, or even that AI won’t be useful to regular people over time [...] Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and shouldn’t be."

> A poorly thought, as a result, a poorly-written article. Almost everyone wants to automate away the boring parts of their work and life.

mm, the fact that you disagree with the article doesn't make it poorly written.

In my experience no, there are significant limits to how much automation the average person wants in their life. Even if automating something would save time, doing so could be undesirable due to other metrics such as correctness, cost, latency, flexibility, or cognitive load.

> The author created a strawman, but that is not what AI is ("Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and it shouldn’t be.")

In context, what you've quoted there is not the creation of a strawman. In fact you yourself seem to have constructed a strawman out of the article.

thank you, I was hoping to write this but your comment saved me from typing it :)

Agreed for cheaper prices and more flexibility. At least this is what we think we want. But do we actually want it ? A computer 40 years ago was way more expensive than now. How did people do it ? They managed. How do we do it now ? We manage, similarly.

Was there an improvement in things ? Obviously, computers are more powerful for example. But with less powerful computers, people could also be happy I believe.

I remember 15 years ago, tech has obviously evolved a lot since then, and I have learned to use more and more tech tools. But am I more efficient than then ? Happier than back then ? More skilled than back then ?

- More efficient for some things, less efficient for others. - Happier ? no. Not sadder either, similar. If anything, it's not related. - More Skilled ? No. Skilled at other things. For example my handwriting is still ok but I believe I won't be able to write so much or so quickly or so well as I used to (I should try though).

Am I saying that progress is not real ? No, of course not. Progress happens. But is it what "people" want or need ? Taking my own perspective : if it happens (and it does), I adapt - no problem. If it does not happen somehow - then I would adapt too. That's what we do.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if journalist are getting high on their own supply of resentment and fear mongering

The article literally draws that distinction in the first paragraph.

I mean, even going back, people had all kinds of problems with all kinds of automations, e.g. Luddites and the subsequent starving in the streets.

I mean, I would think the opposite it the truth.

Other than a few masochist CEOs, most people don't like having to work for a living to ensure they don't starve and are homeless. It's just in the current paradigm it's what we have do to. And because we have to do it, people get really nervous when rich people attempt to replace human work with automation. Not because we won't have to work, but because we will have to starve.

And our automations dream of electric sheep :).

I think there's a more general negative sentiment against AI (a specific type of automation) in recent months. I mean, people are trying to burn down Altman's house. The average person who follows tech news might be more reluctant about automation than before. But there'll always be technologists who push for automation at any cost.