What Will Happen to Most of Us When AI Takes Over?

[LoneWonderer]

Ok seriously though. Most of us will not become the top 5% in our field to be able to secure a job when AI really takes over. So what happens? Wars? Massive conflict? UBI? The end of humans? I can't see a clear path foward on this one. 

I keep hearing become a massive value provider, but honestly I don't know if that'll ever be me, I'm just an average dude. I have a good job but eventually AI robots will come for it too. Most of us are in this camp. What will happen to us?

Is there any chance all this free time will push humans towards an evolution (people finally have free time to think, contemplate, meditate, do psychedelics etc) or is it Mad max and most of us are fucked. Knowing what I now know about corruption it feels like most definetly it'll be the latter. A few very talented, self motivated, ambitious and visionary people will win and most will be left behind. Because we seem to live in a winner takes all society inequality will become MUCH worse than it currently is. I see people who run businesses today and have that personality profile getting ahead aswell because it is advantageous in such a world to be self reliant and having a "can do, I create my own future" mentality, but I'm not that personality type. I work so that I can focus my free time on my goals. My work is not my life purpose.

I don't know which direction to take, and can feel scary at times. It's like there's this storm in the distance and you know it's coming but you're not preparing properly for it. I keep up to date with all AI advancements but that's not really being ready for when shit hits the fan. Keeping up to date with AI progress is like the finger pointing at the moon.

I have listened to David Shapiro's full post-labour Economics series but not sure how viable this really is. Also that is just the US. What about the other western countries? What about people in emerging economies?

 

My life is great now, but it doesn't feel stable because of this looming automation future. I'm afraid of losing the life I've worked so hard to get because I wasn't prepared, I didn't take massive action in the right moment, because I wasn't mature enough to do what I had to do in order to win big in this AI era.

I have massive respect for many users on this forum, some are running teams, working in think-tanks, running and setting up businesses etc. You guys are awesome and I see many of you thriving in these coming uncertain times. 

Edited 15 hours ago by LoneWonderer

[Elliott]

The first car to drive itself across America was in 2001, in 2015 Musk promised FSD in 5 years, he's arguably not gotten closer in an appreciable way, Waymo is expanding it's market very gradually.

AI is not close to being a panacea. Self driving is simpler than robotics, it's 2 dimensional, the hype around these things is for investment, it's a con. AI will work it's way into production in all kinds of ways, the result on people will be determined by taxation. If corporations are taxed more, think utopia, better working conditions, free education, more creative and inventive careers, lower prices, space travel, cleaner environment. If corporations are continued to be given the advantage over individuals, think more mad max, wars, terrorism, genocide, more like Stahlins USSR.

Edited 14 hours ago by Elliott

[Thought Art]

I don’t think it will. Not for a long time. Try any business chat bot… they can’t solve your problem 99% of them time. The hype is too much. Maybe some fields but not all.

Edited 14 hours ago by Thought Art

[toasty7718]

AI is just a glorified auto-complete software, that's how AI tokens operate. 

 

The first video you linked comes from somebody who is not committed to truth and who fear-mongers about the dangers of AI to earn youtube ad revenue. I have my suspicions that the channel itself is AI-generated also.

 

Realistically, all AI is going to do is make the job market even worse than it is and allow for malicious actors to further their greed, power, disinformation campaigns, lies, scams, and exploitation (which it's already doing).

 

Conservative political leaders in the US have been investing so heavily into AI and it's actively destroying critical thinking skills, whereas big tech executives are actively trying to get their children as far away from tech as possible because they know how destructive it is. They send their children to tech-free schools that focus on human interaction and critical thinking whereas several schools in the south have placated the teachers role to AI, which research shows is both inaccurate and hallucinates information regularly. So in this regard, it's making people more stupid, which is exactly what people in power want.

 

All the hype around evil AI (especially on LessWrong) just fuels more and more hype for investors, as you either invest in it and get billions of dollars or don't, and still with the likelihood that it kills us all. We are truly living in dark times, and human intellectualism is experiencing a rapid decline.

[LordFall]

Definitely some sort of UBI. The job market cannot keep functioning even if AI fulfills even 40% of it's promises. 2027 will be the year of massive AI layoffs to the tune of 10-15% unemployment. 

If you're an average dude work on your social network. UBI depending on the countries will take years to successfully implement but layoffs can happen overnight. Families used to stick together with 15-20 people in a household I think we might have a similar period. 

Eventually it'll lead to post scarcity and abundance for the whole of human race the even the most optimistic scenarios for that are in the 2040s. 

Edited 9 hours ago by LordFall

[LoneWonderer]

11 minutes ago, LordFall said:

If you're an average dude work on your social network. 

Yeah I ought to do this AI or no AI. It's almost like I'm allergic to human interaction in real life tho, it's an area I need to seriously work on.

Edited 9 hours ago by LoneWonderer

[LordFall]

Allergic or afraid of? 

[LoneWonderer]

3 minutes ago, LordFall said:

Allergic or afraid of? 

Not afraid, unwilling. I'm unwilling to talk to people about mundane bs stuff but that ends up meaning I don't get to know a person deeply as I don't dedicate the time to develop deep emotional bonds. Also I have a bit of a superiority complex where I think my time isn't worth talking to most people if they don't see the world as I do. This ties into a lack of empathy to some degree as you need empathy to listen to others and making space for others that is not you or what you believe in. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. 

[Leo Gura]

All this assumes AI can do jobs.

Huge unwarranted aasumption with no basis in reality so far.

A chatbot is not a job.

Edited 8 hours ago by Leo Gura

[LoneWonderer]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

All this assumes AI can do jobs.

Huge unwarranted aasumption with no basis in reality.

I'll have to contemplate this. Thank you.

[Salvijus]

Alien apocalypse. 

[LordFall]

30 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

All this assumes AI can do jobs.

Huge unwarranted aasumption with no basis in reality so far.

A chatbot is not a job.

Are you seriously saying you don't think they'll be able to? If it can even do 30% of the efficiency of what an entry level worker can do it can already be massively leveraged to not outright replace a workforce right away but most analysis from mainstream firms are predicting massive layoffs starting from 2027-2030. Unemployment in the US right now is at 4.4%, if it doubled in the next 5 years that'd be pretty drastic. 

[AION]

When ai takes your job which it will, in 10 years or 30 years or perhaps more, you will have to do what you a destined to do, because most jobs are slave jobs anyway. It will force people to be crea-tive.

Edited 8 hours ago by AION

[Natasha Tori Maru]

21 minutes ago, LordFall said:

Are you seriously saying you don't think they'll be able to? If it can even do 30% of the efficiency of what an entry level worker can do it can already be massively leveraged to not outright replace a workforce right away but most analysis from mainstream firms are predicting massive layoffs starting from 2027-2030. Unemployment in the US right now is at 4.4%, if it doubled in the next 5 years that'd be pretty drastic. 

Making a worker more efficient is a long way from totally replacing a worker. With current LLMs

You should see the dogshit estimating AI comes up with trying to cross reference architectural plans/elevations with services/engineering sets. Just on example. And that should be something AI can do....

Not saying it isn't a possibility - but with current LLMs it would be a jump like going from an analogue house phone to a smartphone. I think its further off than predicted. It would require massive homogenization of so many systems.

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, LordFall said:

Are you seriously saying you don't think they'll be able to?

Yes. I am calling the tech bros' bluff.

[cistanche_enjoyer]

We’re just one big breakthrough away from AGI, meaning human level intelligence. The computing infrastructure is already in place, we just need the algorithm.

And when this breakthrough happens (it could come from a genius student in China for all we know), self-improving superintelligence will not be far away. And this is when the real shit will come down.

Edited 3 hours ago by cistanche_enjoyer

[Elliott]

Here's Altman the hype man

 

"In 2005, at the age of 19,[20] Altman co-founded Loopt,[21] a location-based social networking mobile application. As CEO, he raised more than US$30 million in venture capital for the company, including an initial investment of US$5 million from Patrick Chung of Xfund and his team at New Enterprise Associates, followed by investments from Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator.[22] In March 2012, after Loopt failed to gain significant user traction, the company was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.[23]

Y Combinator

In 2011, Altman became a partner at startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC), initially working on a part-time basis.[24] In February 2014, he became president of YC.[25] Altman aimed to expand YC to fund 1,000 new companies per year and sought to broaden the types of companies funded, particularly focusing on "hard technology" startups.[26]

In October 2015, Altman was involved in expanding YC's scope. He contributed $10 million to the initial fund of Y Combinator Research, and announced YC Continuity, a fund to invest"

 

"https://www.thetimes.com

Sam Altman and husband fund startup to edit babies' genes

Nov 13, 2025 — The Open AI boss and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, have invested in the startup Preventive, which aims to genetically engineer children"

 

 

Typically with revolutionary breakthroughs, a 'genius' of sort is out front; think Gates, Jobs, Edison, Tesla, Zuckerberg, not a venture capitalist. Tech bros can raise money, but AGI requires genius. Pair all of this with data centers being underwater and losing money hand over fist.

Edited 1 hour ago by Elliott

[Wilhelm44]

 

[Wilhelm44]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes. I am calling the tech bros' bluff.

I am curious, what makes you believe that AI won't improve drastically from current levels, in the next 5 to 10 years ?

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I am curious, what makes you believe that AI won't improve drastically from current levels, in the next 5 to 10 years ?

Because they have no actual understanding of intelligence. All they are doing is feeding it data, but they have run out of data already. There just is not enough data on Earth to make AI more intelligent than it currently is. And data is not real intelligence because is leeches off human intelligence.

To make AGI they would need to actually crack the issue of intelligence, which they are not even working on.

They are deluded by their own hype greed, and lust for power. The whole thing is a gross farce.

Edited 23 minutes ago by Leo Gura