The economic viability of a 4-hour work week is a contentious issue. As per a lecture from MIT, historical trends indicate that improvements in efficiency and productivity have not resulted in a decrease in the workweek. Instead, they have led to an increase in wages and per capita consumption. This implies that a substantial transition to a 4-hour work week may not be economically viable within the existing capitalist framework, where the pursuit of profit frequently takes precedence over the desire for reduced work hours. Nonetheless, there have been experiments with part-time roles and shorter workdays, suggesting that such a model could potentially be adopted under specific circumstances.
The introduction of AI, particularly Generative AI, is often discussed as a potential game-changer in this context. However, whether it can serve as a panacea for the challenges associated with reduced work hours remains a topic of debate. The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) often emerges in these discussions as a potential part of the solution. Critics of UBI argue that it could be prohibitively expensive and could potentially exacerbate poverty. On the other hand, proponents contend that a basic income could help lift millions from poverty and provide a crucial financial safety net.
This is a great title that chatGPT could never write haha.
GPT is challenging our entire society. I find it amusing how much uproar, attention, and discomfort it is making us feel as a whole. It definitely isn't Einstein in a genie bottle, but it's the first interface to the cutting edge of AI that the general public has seen. This specifically was made to start the conversation of AGI in public discourse for whatever reason you want to believe. I am not here to debate that issue. I remember when people use to laugh about AGI and now it's being taken seriously. This is a fundamental shift in our society whether it will come sooner or later.
In terms of coding, GPT-4 is definitely not replacing any jobs. But it has brought access of a skill to more people. Yea, it will write bad code, but all of us have written bad code at some point. The point is that people can start and fail and learn quicker. This is powerful. The point of technological advancement is to empower people and bring advanced tools to more and more people. For example, programming industrial robot arms use to require a Masters degree but now a technician with some YouTube videos can program an arm to do a task.
GPT-4 isn't a tool that rids us of all the work, but it is also not a complete bullshit generator. It's a stepping stone in the technological arc. The Transformer architecture has been a convergence moment to approach data ingestion and regurgitation for computers in a semi-elegant way. And now, the investment dollar is here and every top level AI Engineer has a bag full of cash to tackle AGI.
You can doubt GPT-4's intelligence, but let's not doubt the intelligence of our most brillant minds all focused on bringing AI to the next frontier.
I dislike the idea of “bullshit jobs”, and maybe as someone who spent a decade in Big4/large corporation, I’m biased.
Large organizations are all about information flows and decision making. That’s what many “bullshit” jobs are - you get several pieces of information, combine them, make certain decisions based on your expertise, and pass them along.
The fact that many people don’t like their jobs doesn’t automatically mean that they are not necessary.
Now, current tools like ChatGPT can greatly help such people, making information processing and decision-making much quicker and easier. However, the modern organization still expects the person, not the machine, to do it.
I think of it as if every “bullshit worker” suddenly got an employee that can do 80% of what the worker used to do. The worker becomes a manager of bullshit employees, and being a manager of someone who can work 24/7, doesn’t want a raise, and never takes sick leave is a much more fun job than being a real manager or being a “bullshit worker.”
In the past two weeks, I had around 20 conversations with early ChatGPT adopters in advisory and corporations. One story was particularly illustrative - the guy was overloaded with work and asked his boss to hire a junior to help. It took a few months for the boss to approve, but in the meantime, ChatGPT was released, and the guy decided he didn’t need human help anymore.
Does such BS work have a role in the modern world or could we dispense with it to free up resources and productivity? It's reminiscent of the red tape and "fake" work in old Soviet Russia, but one would imagine this wouldn't fly in a competitive capitalistic economy.
I’ve always found the term ‘bullshit jobs’ a little disrespectful, so I wonder if you could reflect on that?
Also I feel the analogy of ‘bullshit generator’ is missing the point with regards to what makes tools like ChatGPT and Github CoPilot useful to people.
Github Copilot is incredibly effective because it suggests relevant autocompletes often enough to be generally useful in supporting during daily coding tasks.
The word relevant is key here. In the same way ChatGPT can be useful not as a database of facts, but as a tool to speed up writing tasks and present relevant suggestions often enough to be useful to people.
While organizational bullshit indeed lends itself very well for that, I find it slightly reductive of you to say that’s ChatGPT’s single purpose.
Nice article. Thanks. Also, are we therefore ushering in the most boring of dystopias, wherein our workplace information systems become maximally saturated with content that no person wanted to be asked to produce, that no person actually produced, and that, because it wasn’t really necessary in the first place, that no person actually reads.
I wonder how this bullshit-elimination effect will play out when LLMs truly become mainstream? And ironically, it's the push by Google, Microsoft, and other giants working to embed AI into every business product for the sake of productivity gains that is the most likely to get us there.
Haven't thought of this aspect, very interesting. I suppose, as the ruling class sees free time as a danger, the use of ChatGPT to do pointless work will see as a danger too because it frees time for the employees. ChatGPT bans will ensue. Or the creation of additional tasks to compensate for the freed time resulting from the use of it.
Great article! It has many multifaceted dimensions. I think one more facet may be that so very many humans find AI threatening precisely because it can clearly show that what they do and what they’ve been up to for years is bullshit, and perhaps it always likely was. Yet even more damaging is the hugely decisive reveal linking their personal identities to bullshit, meaning precisely that the foundation of their identities are also bullish. That is a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. It’s a real threat for people insecure in their core identities. Yet bullshit does pervade so much of human life.
One of the biggest bullshit jobs I ever saw was when I was an airline pilot flying in and out of China. As we would come through the entry doors of a major metropolitan airport there was one guy directing us to place our luggage in the metal detector while he scanned us with a wand. But that wasn’t the big bullshit job. After we passed through the wand guy and collected our luggage we had to stand in a line behind a tape. There was another guy to stop us at the tape and let the line build up. Then he would let us go. So, the essence of the job was to stop us. Then let us go. Stop us. Then let us go. Rinse and repeat. All -- day -- long. (I occasionally pondered how he would reply to his wife asking him if he had a good day at work that day - how would you reply? “Another great day honey. You should’ve seen me operate. Would you do me a favor? Just, kill me now”). In China these are called “rice bowl jobs”. They give people a sense of dignity where they get to wear uniform and do something invented which is just short of doing nothing at all. They get just enough of a wage to afford “rice bowl” of food. Such jobs are the epicenter of bullshit, but they give people a sense of dignity (supposedly) and keeps people from becoming disgruntled in an authoritarian regime building into an unmanageable mob. A lot of humans seem to crave a dignified ….. I guess you’d call it a ... Job. But I digress.
Another serious purpose I see for GPT-4, or ChatGPT, is to elevate true mediocrity to a more refined level. My 88 year old father recently delivered a reasonably good eulogy for his 94-year-old friend. It was above average by most standards, as he had been preparing it in his mind for years. When it came time to write his tribute for the local paper, I have to say it was pretty mediocre work. He’s an educated man with a Master’s degree in education, and I’m sure he thinks he’s an above average writer. But truth be told he’s a below average writer. This tribute was okay in that the sentiment he delivered was clearly sincere and genuine. But he just lacked certain skills to do a very great job. So, I volunteered to take his tribute and amp it up with GPT-4. I took my father’s contribution and applied the following prompt:
Please improve the writing of the following tribute: REMEMBERING DURAND BLANDING by Norm Toensing.
In with the marginal - out with the pretty damn impressive. The difference in quality was night and day. My father thought it was now a superb piece of writing and was incredibly appreciative. After proofreading it he only altered one word. My contribution took about five minutes. Yet in our small town I suspect my father’s reputation as an eloquent writer was secured. So, this tool also does have the ability to elevate mediocrity.
What % of ChatGPT users do you think are using it for “bullshitting” purposes?
Do you think there are other common use cases?
The economic viability of a 4-hour work week is a contentious issue. As per a lecture from MIT, historical trends indicate that improvements in efficiency and productivity have not resulted in a decrease in the workweek. Instead, they have led to an increase in wages and per capita consumption. This implies that a substantial transition to a 4-hour work week may not be economically viable within the existing capitalist framework, where the pursuit of profit frequently takes precedence over the desire for reduced work hours. Nonetheless, there have been experiments with part-time roles and shorter workdays, suggesting that such a model could potentially be adopted under specific circumstances.
The introduction of AI, particularly Generative AI, is often discussed as a potential game-changer in this context. However, whether it can serve as a panacea for the challenges associated with reduced work hours remains a topic of debate. The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) often emerges in these discussions as a potential part of the solution. Critics of UBI argue that it could be prohibitively expensive and could potentially exacerbate poverty. On the other hand, proponents contend that a basic income could help lift millions from poverty and provide a crucial financial safety net.
This is a great title that chatGPT could never write haha.
GPT is challenging our entire society. I find it amusing how much uproar, attention, and discomfort it is making us feel as a whole. It definitely isn't Einstein in a genie bottle, but it's the first interface to the cutting edge of AI that the general public has seen. This specifically was made to start the conversation of AGI in public discourse for whatever reason you want to believe. I am not here to debate that issue. I remember when people use to laugh about AGI and now it's being taken seriously. This is a fundamental shift in our society whether it will come sooner or later.
In terms of coding, GPT-4 is definitely not replacing any jobs. But it has brought access of a skill to more people. Yea, it will write bad code, but all of us have written bad code at some point. The point is that people can start and fail and learn quicker. This is powerful. The point of technological advancement is to empower people and bring advanced tools to more and more people. For example, programming industrial robot arms use to require a Masters degree but now a technician with some YouTube videos can program an arm to do a task.
GPT-4 isn't a tool that rids us of all the work, but it is also not a complete bullshit generator. It's a stepping stone in the technological arc. The Transformer architecture has been a convergence moment to approach data ingestion and regurgitation for computers in a semi-elegant way. And now, the investment dollar is here and every top level AI Engineer has a bag full of cash to tackle AGI.
You can doubt GPT-4's intelligence, but let's not doubt the intelligence of our most brillant minds all focused on bringing AI to the next frontier.
I dislike the idea of “bullshit jobs”, and maybe as someone who spent a decade in Big4/large corporation, I’m biased.
Large organizations are all about information flows and decision making. That’s what many “bullshit” jobs are - you get several pieces of information, combine them, make certain decisions based on your expertise, and pass them along.
The fact that many people don’t like their jobs doesn’t automatically mean that they are not necessary.
Now, current tools like ChatGPT can greatly help such people, making information processing and decision-making much quicker and easier. However, the modern organization still expects the person, not the machine, to do it.
I think of it as if every “bullshit worker” suddenly got an employee that can do 80% of what the worker used to do. The worker becomes a manager of bullshit employees, and being a manager of someone who can work 24/7, doesn’t want a raise, and never takes sick leave is a much more fun job than being a real manager or being a “bullshit worker.”
In the past two weeks, I had around 20 conversations with early ChatGPT adopters in advisory and corporations. One story was particularly illustrative - the guy was overloaded with work and asked his boss to hire a junior to help. It took a few months for the boss to approve, but in the meantime, ChatGPT was released, and the guy decided he didn’t need human help anymore.
Does such BS work have a role in the modern world or could we dispense with it to free up resources and productivity? It's reminiscent of the red tape and "fake" work in old Soviet Russia, but one would imagine this wouldn't fly in a competitive capitalistic economy.
I’ve always found the term ‘bullshit jobs’ a little disrespectful, so I wonder if you could reflect on that?
Also I feel the analogy of ‘bullshit generator’ is missing the point with regards to what makes tools like ChatGPT and Github CoPilot useful to people.
Github Copilot is incredibly effective because it suggests relevant autocompletes often enough to be generally useful in supporting during daily coding tasks.
The word relevant is key here. In the same way ChatGPT can be useful not as a database of facts, but as a tool to speed up writing tasks and present relevant suggestions often enough to be useful to people.
While organizational bullshit indeed lends itself very well for that, I find it slightly reductive of you to say that’s ChatGPT’s single purpose.
I’m happy to be convinced otherwise, of course.
Nice article. Thanks. Also, are we therefore ushering in the most boring of dystopias, wherein our workplace information systems become maximally saturated with content that no person wanted to be asked to produce, that no person actually produced, and that, because it wasn’t really necessary in the first place, that no person actually reads.
One gets the feeling from reading Hofstader's article that he lives in a bubble, as intellectuals are wont to do.
Interesting take!
At the same time, according to recent Pew Research study (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/24/a-majority-of-americans-have-heard-of-chatgpt-but-few-have-tried-it-themselves/) - only 14% of Americans have actually tried ChatGPT personally.
I wonder how this bullshit-elimination effect will play out when LLMs truly become mainstream? And ironically, it's the push by Google, Microsoft, and other giants working to embed AI into every business product for the sake of productivity gains that is the most likely to get us there.
Excellent article
I prefer to think of it as "bullshit banisher."
BULLSHIT for BULLSHIT-NATION a marriage made in heaven
https://bilbobitch.substack.com/p/chatgpt-one-ring-to-rule-them-all
Love this view.
Haven't thought of this aspect, very interesting. I suppose, as the ruling class sees free time as a danger, the use of ChatGPT to do pointless work will see as a danger too because it frees time for the employees. ChatGPT bans will ensue. Or the creation of additional tasks to compensate for the freed time resulting from the use of it.
This article should be read by anyone who is against/afraid of GPT.
Great article! It has many multifaceted dimensions. I think one more facet may be that so very many humans find AI threatening precisely because it can clearly show that what they do and what they’ve been up to for years is bullshit, and perhaps it always likely was. Yet even more damaging is the hugely decisive reveal linking their personal identities to bullshit, meaning precisely that the foundation of their identities are also bullish. That is a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. It’s a real threat for people insecure in their core identities. Yet bullshit does pervade so much of human life.
One of the biggest bullshit jobs I ever saw was when I was an airline pilot flying in and out of China. As we would come through the entry doors of a major metropolitan airport there was one guy directing us to place our luggage in the metal detector while he scanned us with a wand. But that wasn’t the big bullshit job. After we passed through the wand guy and collected our luggage we had to stand in a line behind a tape. There was another guy to stop us at the tape and let the line build up. Then he would let us go. So, the essence of the job was to stop us. Then let us go. Stop us. Then let us go. Rinse and repeat. All -- day -- long. (I occasionally pondered how he would reply to his wife asking him if he had a good day at work that day - how would you reply? “Another great day honey. You should’ve seen me operate. Would you do me a favor? Just, kill me now”). In China these are called “rice bowl jobs”. They give people a sense of dignity where they get to wear uniform and do something invented which is just short of doing nothing at all. They get just enough of a wage to afford “rice bowl” of food. Such jobs are the epicenter of bullshit, but they give people a sense of dignity (supposedly) and keeps people from becoming disgruntled in an authoritarian regime building into an unmanageable mob. A lot of humans seem to crave a dignified ….. I guess you’d call it a ... Job. But I digress.
Another serious purpose I see for GPT-4, or ChatGPT, is to elevate true mediocrity to a more refined level. My 88 year old father recently delivered a reasonably good eulogy for his 94-year-old friend. It was above average by most standards, as he had been preparing it in his mind for years. When it came time to write his tribute for the local paper, I have to say it was pretty mediocre work. He’s an educated man with a Master’s degree in education, and I’m sure he thinks he’s an above average writer. But truth be told he’s a below average writer. This tribute was okay in that the sentiment he delivered was clearly sincere and genuine. But he just lacked certain skills to do a very great job. So, I volunteered to take his tribute and amp it up with GPT-4. I took my father’s contribution and applied the following prompt:
Please improve the writing of the following tribute: REMEMBERING DURAND BLANDING by Norm Toensing.
In with the marginal - out with the pretty damn impressive. The difference in quality was night and day. My father thought it was now a superb piece of writing and was incredibly appreciative. After proofreading it he only altered one word. My contribution took about five minutes. Yet in our small town I suspect my father’s reputation as an eloquent writer was secured. So, this tool also does have the ability to elevate mediocrity.