from Hacker News

'just put it in ChatGPT': the workers who lost their jobs to AI

by fallinditch on 5/31/25, 4:19 PM with 14 comments

  • by pdfernhout on 5/31/25, 5:02 PM

    What I put together circa 2010 is becoming more and more relevant: https://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html "This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
  • by up-n-atom on 5/31/25, 5:06 PM

    It’s far more bleak, what about the jobs that aren’t given? And the big unknown? Is this all just a fad? Who’s next on the chopping block? Etc.
  • by sandspar on 6/1/25, 1:31 AM

    I suppose you could do a mirror article: "The millions of people who gained access to a graphic designer, audiobook narrator, copywriter, and illustrator - for $30 a month."