Level up your oral skills.

Now, this is the point where I disagree: if it is possible with today’s tech, why is it not happening? Why is automation limited to repeatetive tasks and stuff like self checkout?

They have the tech right now. My local news even ran a little disguised Chipotle PR video showing their new robotic burrito bowl machine, as the news anchors oohed and aahed over what was essentially a propaganda ad.

So Chipotle already has it, and every other fast food outlet is either working on it, or has it - and has for a long time. They’ve been salivating for this moment for decades. There are only two things holding it up:

1. The tech isn’t quite ready: It is, but it it isn’t. It’s ready to be fully tested on the public, and that’s when it will finally get fully perfected. They’ve gone as far as they can without actually installing it. Now they need real world scenarios.

2. It will be a PR nightmare. The first fast food chain to announce a fully robotic store is going to get savaged, including a massive national boycott, one that I will happily join. But once one company does it, and the dust settles a bit, the others will do it, too.

The next stage will be when someone announces that their entire company will be mostly automated, probably a fast food operation again. That will result in an even stronger boycott that may even bankrupt the company. It will certainly take a serious hit, but someone will make the calculation that the short-term PR risk is worth the long-term profits.

We are in the calm before the storm. We can see it on the horizon, and we can see how big and ferocious it will be. The job environment after the full implementation of AI, is going to get really bad. Saying that it won’t be so bad, that the approaching maelstrom won’t kill EVERYBODY, isn’t comforting.

I forgot that the US is a dystopian hellscape where many people work what would have been a college summer job a couple of decades ago just to get by, my bad.

Sarcasm aside

That was supposed to be sarcastic? Because that’s the reality for MANY people in America. If you don’t see it happening around you in your life, good for you, things are going well for you. But we are in a K-shaped economy, and a lot of people are on that lower rung, and those are the people that are going to get hit worst by AI.

Great, so in your scenario, things will still be great because people can always clean up busted milk jigs, and watch for shoplifters (both of which could be easily automated, by the way)? And that sounds like a reasonable job environment to you? Don’t worry about AI taking your job, you can always get a minimum wage job guarding the rich guy’s stuff, at least until they perfect the Slaughterbots to replace you. Nice career, you should get those $120k student loans for your software development degree paid off in no time.

And they’ll use the pizza vending machine, if they want a pizza, or any other fast food, because they’ll ALL be fully automated. The building itself will be the vending machine. Autonomous trucks will be loaded by robots at a robotic warehouse, driven to the locations and unloaded by robots, then cooked and served by robots. The entire process from end to end can be done without a single human touching it, with the technology they have RIGHT NOW.

It’s only a matter of time before it’s perfected and launched. Dismissing an obvious societal trend because it is inconvenient is a very American trait, and it has gotten us to where we are now. How about we start seeing the actual future that is looming in front of us, and stop pretending it’s not there? AI is coming, and the manner in which businesses are already deploying it is already losing jobs, just in anticipation of losing even more jobs.

Replacing as many human-powered the is the express purpose of AI by nearly every corporate entity. Stop pretending that it isn’t.

Of course industrial robots have always existed, but technology is much better now, and we have AI to power them now. These aren’t your grandpappy’s robots.

The combination of automation and AI is going to lead to the elimination of entire human powered industries. The technology currently exists to automate EVERY fast food outlet in the country, and every one of those companies already has a system ready to roll out. The only reason they haven’t is because nobody wants to deal with the backlash when it happens. But once it does, the rest are going to follow, quickly. A lot of these jobs are first jobs, second household incomes, retirement supplements, etc. The loss of those jobs will be felt deeply.

How many people are supplementing their income with driving a ride share? How many older workers are doing that after losing their jobs? Both Uber and Lyft make it very clear on their website that they intend to replace their ENTIRE fleets with autonomous vehicles, which are nothing more than AI powered robots. These are people who aren’t on the unemployment rolls because they have managed to scrape together driving to work. Without this, they go right back to being on the unemployment rolls.

I just saw a report on autonomous trucks, predicting 170,000 on the roads with a few years. That’s 170,000 lost truck driving jobs. What are those professional drivers going to pivot to?

AI/ Automation won’t replace every job, but we will eventually have to live with a permanent unemployment rate over 50%, and if they could figure out to replace EVERY job, they would, enthusiastically.

The overall problem with humanity is that we think we’re as smart as humans can be, so we are at the pinnacle of human achievement.

I just saw a video about the first synthesizer. It was built in 1897, and it took up the basement of a building the size of an entire city block. They had the technology to do it, but not to do it well. But they didn’t see it that way. To them, it was the pinnacle of technology. But 75 years later, and we can put that same instrument in a suitcase.

Data Centers may be something that will be useful in the future, but our tech isn’t good enough yet. Right now it takes an enormous building, and mind-boggling amounts of resources, and does incredible damage to the environment, as well as the damage to the economy and the job market.

It’s like realizing that you can talk with two tin cans and a string, and then running out and installing a giant international system of tin cans & string, instead of waiting for the tech to advance to a point where we can do it properly.

Maybe in 50 years, the tech, regulations, and policy will be caught up to the ambition, but right now, we aren’t ready for it at this level of technology.

Nobody has said that AI will replace everyone, except rhetorically. But it will replace MANY people, on an increasing basis, as each new iteration gets more powerful.

It won’t take long before we have a PERMANENT double digit unemployment rate, and the government will gaslight us all into accepting that as normal, even as it rises to the 50% or more.

You have to drop trou in open court.

So he doesn’t believe in transgender, but he believes in transLIFE?

What a fucking clueless bitch. She goes on to compare AI with the rise of the Internet, without the most basic understanding that the Internet was supposed to transform our lives for good, while the primary objective of AI is to replace as many human jobs as possible, simply to increase profits, at the expense of nearly EVERYTHING else.

100%. I paid for this space, and now you want to drop back into it, and make it difficult to use my tray table? Gimme $50.

I used to work for the largest record company in America at the time, and saw a LOT of concerts of all kinds. My favorites:

• Ella Fitzgerald with the Count Basie Orchestra: Two genuine legends, at the top of their game.

• kd lang: A private performance at a convention, and it was a PERFECT performance. It’s hard to describe what I mean, but I’ve never seen an audience react like that. A few weeks later, I saw her interviewed on 60 Minutes, and she mentioned that every now and then she does a perfect performance, and I knew she was thinking about that night.

• Debbie Harry/ Tom Tom Club: Tom Tom Club (Talking Heads without David Byrne) opened with a blistering set, and then backed up Debbie Harry, who also had her guitarist Chris Stein with her. Just an incredible show.

• Beethoven: Symphony #9: the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with Thomas Hampson and Dawn Upshaw, at Carnegie Hall. Harnoncourt was one of my favorite conductors, very influential on my musical education, and seeing him conduct the greatest music ever composed was one of the most memorable musical moments of my life.

• Prince - Saw him twice, and he was unbelievable both times. Frankly, I don’t think those performances were anything special for him, I think he was just that good, all the time.

• Lindsey Buckingham - Private performance in a conference room with about 20 people. He played acoustic guitar, and sang three Fleetwood Mac songs. He sings so intensely, he turns bright red, and he looks like his head will explode. I met him after, and got a photo with him that I still have.

Nothing he likes better than big words and statistics.

Then why didn’t he say that? It sounds to me like he’s surrendered, and is giving them an excuse to not release them.

That’s exactly how they’d read that. They’re already saying that the American people have moved on, and they don’t feel like releasing the rest. Nobody cares anyway. When they hear our side saying it, it only proves them right.

Because theyve quarantined the truly monstrous, incriminating stuff, and haven’t released it yet, obviously.

Are you really that dumb? Or are you MAGA? Or both?

Countries need to sit down and figure out how to make it work because as it stands, jobs have turned into a form of slavery by design.

Yeah, they already did that, and “slavery by design” is what they came up with.

The next time, we don’t consult our country, we force them to do what WE want.

When they come up with it on their own, and push it relentlessly despite obvious and enormous resistance from the citizens, you know they been paid off handsomely.

Disney, Iran, GW Bush, etc. Somehow MAGA manages to consistently be worse than the worst people on Earth.

When they suspended Kimmel, I sent them a ferocious email, and one of the things I said was that the FCC license that they are so concerned about also carries with it the responsibility to serve the American people and the First Amendment with integrity. Defending our Freedom of Speech is literally the most important responsibility they have, and I expected them to hold the line to the bitter end.

It seems like they agree. So far.

I question the need for one, I definitely wouldn’t want any more.

The pool guy gets $3 mill, and kicks back the rest. Standard money laundering scheme.