Ask HN: Is this the worst time to be human?
I'm worried that with AI doing much of the work, we humans will lose the joy in our professions. For example, AI can generate code, animation, and books, making passionate creators feel miserable and unable to compete. I wonder if this is the beginning of a golden age for mediocre people using AI tools, if creative people are doomed, and what options we have. It seems like greed is causing miserable lives for everyone, and passionate people may not be able to make a living doing things the 'old way'.
This is easily the best time there's ever been to be a human. And while I think many creatures' existence is pleasant, I would never trade the human experience for another. I think the world is what you make it, in Western countries (standard caveats like disabilities). I empathize with misery experienced in other places, but it has nothing to do with AI. It has to do with humans, bad decisions, power monopolies. Anyone miserable in America is choosing it, or very unlucky.
I don’t know, I think it’s not that black and white. People who genuinely live for their work will probably keep coding because they enjoy it, but if they need to use AI to be more productive, they’ll have to adopt it. After all, people invented the wheel because they were lazy and wanted to make things easier and more profitable. I think AI is just another wheel...
No. No, no, no. This isn't just after a volcanic eruption, where we're facing starvation because crops won't grow, and there's plague that we're too weak from hunger to fight off. This isn't the bubonic plague, where one-third of people in Europe died. This isn't 1913, where we were about to go through WWI, and then the Great Depression, and then WWII. This is "we don't know what jobs are going to look like in five years, and we're experiencing high levels of job dissatisfaction". This is _nothing_ like real hard times. How is it all going to play out? I have no idea. Career advice? Stay flexible and willing to learn, but I can't give any concrete advice.
Everyone's experience will be different, make the best of it. Life is mostly luck, but you have some choices sometimes, control what you can to the best of your ability.