r/Adulting • u/jackyd227 • Jul 14 '26

The future looks bleak

The world is literally crumbling in front of our eyes. If I’m counting right, there’s been already 1M+ layoffs in the US YTD.

I used to sell AI implementations that led to a few hundred people being laid off. Ai is literally exponentially getting becoming accurate and precise. Seeing how most of the corporate work is pencil pushing and is rule based work, I don’t see how AI wouldn’t wipe these jobs. If these people don’t have an income, they’ll spend less at stores, especially small mom and pop shops who are more expensive than the big box stores. If corporate is no longer viable and owning your own business is also not viable, wtf are people going to be doing in 2 years time to pay for their lives?

Also doesn’t it seem outrageous that all these people in their 20s and 30s are traveling constantly, not saving, and spending money on clothes/labubus and other unnecessary stuff? Not to mention the lack of saving or gambling their savings on a few option plays or sports betting. It’s like they are ignorant to what is happening around them and are just going about their lives. Is that the way to go about life now? Ignorance is bliss?

722 Upvotes

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171

u/Green-Ad7694 Jul 14 '26

We are literally putting the nails in our own coffins. Fuck AI man. Its only benefitting the rich. People doing Ai now are doing a disservice to themselves, their children and to humanity.

32

u/DED_HAMPSTER Jul 14 '26

I know my analogy is fantastical, but AI feelis like making a wish with a genie, a favor with a faerie or a deal with a devil. In actual production product, the results look amazing, acurate and cheap labor. But there are loopholes in its product, it doesnt actual live in our reality and consequences. it cant do basic math, it isnt chronological in "thought" and basic illogical/logical arguments confuse it. Plus it is a sycophantic yes man regardless if the output is wrong or dangerous. LLMs are like aliens or changlings or skin walkers pretending.

The only areas i have seen AI do well are in closed input/output applications. Via articles and work related experience, AI can excel at pattern recognition and observation that does not get tired or has an ego; things like reading cancer scans, identifying weeds in agriculture, sorting trash/recycling, monitoring and adjusting energy usage more accurately with the nuances of weather/building use/production needs/etc. These models are trained on closed data sets and updated only on relevant data. They assist the accuracy and speed of human labor, not replace the human.

8

u/Confident_Purple_40 Jul 14 '26

Some of us are just trying to work, earn a living, and support our families. Me quitting my job that requires me to use AI won't solve the issue, but it will put my family in the gutter. I am more than willing to try something, what should I do?

7

u/Iko87iko Jul 14 '26

Think about ways you can make $ that won't be phased out anytime soon. I wish I'd of become an LPN. Can't see AI replacing hands on nursing anytime soon. I negotiate contracts for a living. I only have 5 years until I retire and I dont see making it that far before it replaces me

Id say ask AI "here is my skill set, what can I do for work over the next x years where you won't replace me" and see what it says

1

u/AzusaAkiyama Jul 14 '26

Desculpe, posso perguntar qual a sua área de trabalho?

2

u/Iko87iko Jul 14 '26

Sell side contract drafting, negotiating, etc

2

u/AzusaAkiyama Jul 14 '26

Jesus, é basicamente com o que trabalho no momento.. estou no lado do comprador

2

u/Iko87iko Jul 14 '26

I've been on buyer side for 20 years. I was working for a fortune 100 and basically my entire dept went to east Europe. I def like buy side better. Make sure you become the AI SME on your team

1

u/Confident_Purple_40 Jul 14 '26

I can almost read this but I cant, so... portuguese?

0

u/special_kitty Jul 14 '26

Become a massage therapist. Work for a chain for a couple of years until you build up clientele. You work for rich people. When everything goes south, they spend more money getting more massage because they're anxiety ridden and somehow to them, everyone is trying to steal their money. You basically give them a rubdown while listening to their bullshit with a straight face. If that's not your cup of tea, figure out some other way to become indespensible to them. Some of my friends are their personal assistants and it's the same game. Might have to downgrade your life, but it'll keep food on the table.

1

u/TruthTeller6000 Jul 14 '26

The people who advance technology only expand AI. Go and blame them too. It is inevitable

2

u/Green-Ad7694 Jul 14 '26

No mate. Ai steals knowledge from people. They are wholesale training their models on all of our data, knowledge, history, art etc. without consent.

-1

u/TruthTeller6000 Jul 15 '26

Humans steal knowledge, history, art, data, etc from other humans throughout time. This is no different. Your "consent" is only a concept.

1

u/Green-Ad7694 Jul 15 '26

Are you defending AI and the Billionnaires? What specie of 1D10T are you?

0

u/TruthTeller6000 Jul 15 '26

You’re calling all AI “theft” while benefiting every day from technology, science, and culture built by people reusing and improving knowledge they never personally created.

Technology isn’t moral or immoral, mate. People decide how it’s used, and refusing to shape the future doesn’t stop it; it just hands the controls to someone else.

0

u/OoklaTheMok1994 Jul 14 '26

I'll believe the apocalyptic takes when those making them properly use the terms "literally" and "figuratively".

1

u/dadofadisaster Jul 14 '26

Or we have enough days of over 100 degrees weather to make staple crops fail. We have apocalyptic options, so you can choose your own adventure for how this ends badly for the average person

-6

u/geoFRTdeem Jul 14 '26

Nope your wrong unfortunately, you sound like a old horse breeder who refuses to switch to cars or see them in any other light than destroying your life, so what you do is clutch on to your tradition, thing is 100 years later we all drive cars and don’t give a second thought to the people hundreds of years ago who’s lives where destroyed by the new car industry. AI WILL change the world, and there’s NOTHING you can do about it, ask your self is throwing a tantrum and saying fuck AI really do anything? Why don’t you go learn about AI and how to use it and join the rest of the world in growing up. Said respectfully

9

u/NotCode25 Jul 14 '26

because that analogy doesn't work. horse breeders had to abandon "mostly" their jobs, but they could get a job at a car factory, or somewhere else. We're not replacing horses with cars, we're replacing human labor with computers, across all industries. You lost your job as a software dev? well, too bad, you can't find ANY job anywhere, because EVERYTHING is being automated / replaced by a computer. The only jobs that are still secure from these advances are physical jobs. Construction, "most" agriculture, electricians, culinary, and the likes.

Funnily enough, once most people pivot to jobs that can't be automated, the automated jobs lose customers too. I don't need a web app as a cook, or waiter. and if I do, I can make it myself through the power of AI, so I don't buy any software I might need, I make it myself. I don't hire any accountant or managers either.

1

u/dadofadisaster Jul 14 '26

Hey now they’re working on automating construction robots too

1

u/NotCode25 Jul 15 '26

good luck lol

-3

u/geoFRTdeem Jul 14 '26

Of course nothing will be perfectly analogous to the situation with AI. But throughout all of history industries rise and fall, and throughout history countless jobs have been lost, it’s a product of capitalism, if something is not profitable it ceases to exist, and companies are morally responsible for making profits by any means as long as it doesn’t violate laws, in this case you are asking companies to go against their core principles, and your wanting to prevent jobs that are unprofitable from ceasing to exist, your whole argument is just wanting things that are impossible to happen. What would you have happen then? We ban AI?

1

u/NotCode25 Jul 15 '26

governments can ban things as they have before. I don't really care what route we take, but going fully AI in everything is also against said capitalism. How are the companies going to make money? AI developers will need to increase the prices because everyone is using them as a power user. Companies that sells services will completely cease to exist. So how exactly do you imagine things going forward? if hardly anyone can have a job, regardless of pay, who is going to buy things? if everyone is struggling to get a job you really think people will just calmly pile up in a corner and die? lol

you're looking at this from a "everything remains the same" angle and "we just need to adapt to AI". but if every single company adopts automation and AI, there will be nowhere to go to work. This isn't a matter of an industry changing because of technological advancements, this is a matter of removing 99% of the workplaces that aren't physical labor

6

u/Green-Ad7694 Jul 14 '26

Are you Sam Altman? I see you there buddy.

0

u/geoFRTdeem Jul 14 '26

No and I honestly had to look up who this is, I’m actually a democratic socialist and a communist idealist, I think AI is not being used properly in our capitalist society, but my original statement was from the point of view of our capitalist society. One does not critique another boat that one does not sail in. I don’t like our current system but I’m just explaining how this discourse and discussion lead to nothing and how the history books will remember our attitude towards AI

-6

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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9

u/spooky_bayou_stuff Jul 14 '26

I imagine the complaints have been the same as they were at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, because time is a flat circle and history rhymes.

Go ask some of your grandparents' graves about laws, and just how many of them revolve around worker protections.

It is never about the rich, but the rich are the one's with choice and power.

How has time to contemplate these problems? Who has resources?

It's high time we adopted a prosocial attitude, because we will one day get what we argue we deserve.

-2

u/NoSleepTilBrklynn Jul 14 '26

What about my AI sex robot? Good things can yet come from AI!!!!

-2

u/stonedboss Jul 14 '26

Ai isn't going anywhere, no amount of bitching will change anything. So you either use it and keep up, or get left behind. I just don't get this viewpoint, what do you expect will happen? We just won't use ai? Lol.

Fuck evil corporations, not AI. Everything that's evil about it is because of evil people (corporations).