The Dollar was completely debased to it's current fiat status in 1971, and now buys about 2% of what it used to. Real wages have fallen as labor supply was almost doubled thanks to the influx of women into the work force, and reduction of demand due to automation starting in the 1960s.
However, this is the best time to be alive, on average. If you can get it, modern medicine performs at levels that would have seemed miraculous a century ago. Even if you're broke, antibiotics and other over-the counter drugs can save you from things that would have killed our ancestors. They routinely died from scratches that got infected, parasites in the water, and malnutrition.
If you live below your means, and associate with others who share that goal, you can have a quite happy life.
As far as college, it's not worth it unless you're going to be a Nurse or an Engineer. (Not a programmer with stolen valor, that's a different job, and you don't need a degree)
However, I think we may live in the worst time in terms of predicting one's own future, as well as the future of our children. I haven't managed to have kids, but if I had any right now, I'd have no idea on how to guide them into adulthood without effectively bullshitting them in some way. My advice would probably end up being 10x worse than Boomer advice, even if I tried my very best to be in touch with the times. For instance, if my hypothetical son told me that some day he wanted to be a programmer like I am, how am I supposed to encourage him without straight up lying? My role already is very different than it was a couple years ago, and it may have little resemblance (or not even exist at all) in another decade. The same goes for my first career as an animator; the need for those skills is rapidly going extinct. Animated 99.999% of animated content will undoubtedly be created by people who know absolutely nothing about what we understood to be animation fundamentals up to now. I really have to wonder how any young people today can be motivated knowing that their career might as well be over before they even attend their first university class.
It's the best time.
Dont use hedonistic treadmill theory to devalue what people actually say. Having crap we dont care loosing available does not mean everything is consistently better.
This is a revisiting of a question that has been asked many times.
I think the world is what you make it, in Western countries (standard caveats like disabilities). I empathize with misery experienced in other places, but it has nothing to do with AI. It has to do with humans, bad decisions, power monopolies.
Anyone miserable in America is choosing it, or very unlucky.
We have the ability not to die of previously common disease.
We are the most educated and wealthy population ever.
We have arguably one of the longest collective lifespans.
We don’t necessarily have to commit labor for the wealthy without any pay at all.
But we have the threat of climate change; something no generation before 100y ago considered at all.
We have the supposed, but possible, threat of AI changing things for us, something no one could have possibly concerned themselves with previously.
We have instant access to all of the worlds knowledge in the palms of our hands and we can travel to any point on Earth within 24h or less for relatively little money.
Most of us have access to shelter, power, food and water.
Yeah; it’s definitely not the worst time to be alive. But we have to worry about things that might not come to pass instead of worrying about what definitely will come to be like prior generations.
Absurd.
I don't think you're arguing this is the worse time in all of human history to live, but that this period we are now entering broadly speaking is the worse for our humanity in many ways.
I think the latter could be true, at least for some of us. There's many things that gave my life meaning which I've abruptly stopped doing as a result of AI – and no one has given me a good reason to want to continue pursuing those things.
- I used to write a technical blog and published technical books. There is absolutely no point in me doing this anymore. I've spent years of my life writing and I'd now advise people to use AI over reading anything I've ever written. Acknowledging this makes me physically hurt because it was a huge sense of pride for me in the recent past.
- I used to write music. I'd argue there's absolutely no point in anyone wasting their time with music now. Unless you're extremely talented AI is going to do a better job than you. Unless you get a kick out of prompting AI to produce music or enjoy creating subpar music there's no point.
- I've spend decades of my life coding. It's my number 1 passion in life. It's the thing I loved doing more than anything as a teen. But I no longer code. AI is broadly superhuman at all coding, and even where it's not it's quite there yet it's far faster for me to tell AI what code to write. This isn't remotely enjoyable, but I'll do it for a while more just for the money.
- I used to do a fair amount of casual photo editing and VFX for people. It was a bit of a side hobby from when I was a teen, but I was decent enough. I'd never do this anymore. For almost all small projects people are better off using AI.
Elsewhere I no longer ask humans to do things for me:
- I don't need to pay human to design things for me anymore
- I don't need humans to pay humans for translations
- I don't need to pay humans for technical knowledge I don't have
I genuinely don't know what people are doing on computers where they're finding meaning anymore. For me I'm just checking out and growing my own food, building furniture, raising my chickens, etc. None of it gives me creative meaning, but at least I feel like I'm accomplishing something.
My sense is that AI appeals to the types of people video game cheat codes appeal to. If you feel satisfaction from completing games with unlimited health, then you probably love AI. I'm not that person. I like things I do to be hard with high barriers to entry. If I can talk to an LLM and do something it's pointless in my eyes.
True, but not exactly a new thing
Riots over chariot races burned or destroyed half of Constantinople in 532: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
A volcanic winter started in 536: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
Plague of Justinian began in 541 AD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian
I’d also rather live now than in China during the Taiping Rebellion.
How is it all going to play out? I have no idea. Career advice? Stay flexible and willing to learn, but I can't give any concrete advice.