Will unimportant tasks really disappear with AI?

[Sairo]

Well, people talk about AI as if it's going to revolutionize everything, especially 'useless' jobs. But do we realize that some of these 'little' jobs are part of the system's equilibrium? Like, if everything is automated, who's going to take care of the day-to-day hassles? Of course, automation is all well and good, but I wonder if we don't lose a little of that human touch in the interaction.

[hadaso]

Well, it seems like some useless jobs, like spamming, actually gains some human touch by the introduction of AI to the business.

But then, this was automated from the start. It's just that the automation became a bit more sophisticated with the use of AI.

[TenFour]

Well, people talk about AI as if it's going to revolutionize everything, especially 'useless' jobs.

Which jobs are useless? If someone is willing to pay someone else to do something, it obviously isn't useless. And, lots of work is unpaid, but I think most of us would consider it quite important. Like most childcare by parents, for example. I think instead what we are seeing is an attempt to reduce labor costs by automating work, but so far I have not seen improvements in the quality of work done. That reduced quality will cost companies money, like magazines that have tried to replace real writers with AI causing a backlash when readers discovered it by noting that the articles were crappy. But, to get AI to the point that it can improve on human workers will require highly skilled people to create the AI and manage it, so maybe jobs will just shift to more highly skilled people doing different things than they are doing now. Also, with the energy requirements of ever more automation, will it be cheaper in the end?