Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF
Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out
Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.
Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.
“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”
I certainly wouldn't want to be coming out of uni now looking to be a software developer, data scientist, consultancy.
Probably needs a radical rethink of the jobs market.
Also driving jobs are likely to go too. Taxi drivers, lorry drivers, van drivers. For a lorry load up at departure, unload at arrival. Self drive.
We need a forward thinking, proactive, govt to look at the numbers going to Uni and where the jobs of the future are. That’s a lot of income tax and NI to lose.
Tesla is now demonstrating FSD from coast to coast in the USA, It is happening. Driving is disappearing. I noticed also today that insurers are HALVING their premiums for drivers that agree to let the car do the driving, as they are so much less prone to accidents. This is how economics will quickly force humans away from the steering wheel. The way humans aren’t allowed to do laser eye surgery. Safety = profit
Whatever happened to @JosiasJessop? He and I used to have enjoyable arguments on this. Did he flounce? Is he banned? I was gone and now I’m back he is nowhere
Fuck him. He flounced after you called him a beta cuck 😂😂😂😂. A beta cuck being the sort of guy who sits down to pee.
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
The newfound anti-Americanism in Europe risks leaving Ukraine in a very difficult position because it puts a different gloss on Putin's 25 year-long effort to resist US encroachment will make the option of nomalising trade with Russia start to look attractive, especially to Germany.
I am not sure what total 2 plus 2 has made there but it sure isn't 4.
Why look uniquely to a bankrupt Russia?
To be fair, I think for some industries, like internet trolling, Russia do pay premium rates.
After Trump's disgusting comments on Afghanistan it is time to drop the fawning and realise he is a real threat and bully and time to call him out
No more appeasement, just take immediate action to massively increase our defence spending and form new alliances with the EU, Canada, Australia, Japan and the sane parts of the world
It seems astonishing that Trump declares a deal with Rutte over Greenland that did not include the Danes or Greenlanders agreement
I do not think Greenland or Ukraine is anywhere near settled and Trump's plans for Gaza are obscene
Jeremy Hunt was on one of the most appalling episodes of WATO I have heard. It was a real hatchet job on Starmer re: Trump/ NATO. Dimond came in with his boots on to kick Starmer expecting Hunt would jump at the opportunity. But Hunt was very measured. He outlined the dilemma in Downing Street. Hunt explained that the sitting Government have to limit or at least control their personal criticism of Trump over Afghanistan because whether we like it or not we have to keep Trump sweet over Ukraine. If he takes his bat and ball home Ukraine falls.
Hunt did say even if Downing Street has to bite collective tongues anyone else can criticise to their heart's content. Which brings me back to Farage, he's been awfully quiet.
Allegedly he's on constituency business in Clacton.
I am old enough to remember when GB News camera crews were permanently encamped in the Clacton constituency.
Just as Trump delivered the election to Carney, it seems he could do the same in Denmark's election this year. (Though a lot can happen between now and October.)
Today's Danish opinion poll from Megafon is beyond crazy. The red bloc regains a majority and the blue bloc loses 9% of the vote since last month: 🟥 Red Bloc 51.7%, 90 seats 🟦 Blue Bloc 41.9%, 73 seats 🟪 M 6.4%, 12 seats Danish politics has completely changed in just a month. https://x.com/Gust_2319/status/2014570635582652557
This is the same Red Bloc which has supported dismantling neighbourhoods if the percentage of ethnic minorities gets too high?
Good attempt at ignoring the effect.
You’re quite the Rejoiner, I imagine
How would you vote in a new referendum if, say, Le Pen was running France, Meloni Italy, and a Merz-Afd Coalition in Germany? Plus Orban and all the rest
Because this is really quite likely. The EU is poised to shift decisively to the hard right in the coming years, perhaps even the far right in some cases. I wonder how Roger will feel about it then
I think that's a poor prediction, but we will see. Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
The newfound anti-Americanism in Europe risks leaving Ukraine in a very difficult position because it puts a different gloss on Putin's 25 year-long effort to resist US encroachment will make the option of nomalising trade with Russia start to look attractive, especially to Germany.
I am not sure what total 2 plus 2 has made there but it sure isn't 4.
Why look uniquely to a bankrupt Russia?
To be fair, I think for some industries, like internet trolling, Russia do pay premium rates.
My old company had a two day ‘event’ due to a cyber hack from Russia.
After Trump's disgusting comments on Afghanistan it is time to drop the fawning and realise he is a real threat and bully and time to call him out
No more appeasement, just take immediate action to massively increase our defence spending and form new alliances with the EU, Canada, Australia, Japan and the sane parts of the world
It seems astonishing that Trump declares a deal with Rutte over Greenland that did not include the Danes or Greenlanders agreement
I do not think Greenland or Ukraine is anywhere near settled and Trump's plans for Gaza are obscene
Jeremy Hunt was on one of the most appalling episodes of WATO I have heard. It was a real hatchet job on Starmer re: Trump/ NATO. Dimond came in with his boots on to kick Starmer expecting Hunt would jump at the opportunity. But Hunt was very measured. He outlined the dilemma in Downing Street. Hunt explained that the sitting Government have to limit or at least control their personal criticism of Trump over Afghanistan because whether we like it or not we have to keep Trump sweet over Ukraine. If he takes his bat and ball home Ukraine falls.
Hunt did say even if Downing Street has to bite collective tongues anyone else can criticise to their heart's content. Which brings me back to Farage, he's been awfully quiet.
Allegedly he's on constituency business in Clacton.
Is that a euphemism? I think it should be, a tribute to Roger Helmer UKIP MEP, Roger is unavailable at the moment, he's on constituency business in a layby off the M6.
After Trump's disgusting comments on Afghanistan it is time to drop the fawning and realise he is a real threat and bully and time to call him out
No more appeasement, just take immediate action to massively increase our defence spending and form new alliances with the EU, Canada, Australia, Japan and the sane parts of the world
It seems astonishing that Trump declares a deal with Rutte over Greenland that did not include the Danes or Greenlanders agreement
I do not think Greenland or Ukraine is anywhere near settled and Trump's plans for Gaza are obscene
Jeremy Hunt was on one of the most appalling episodes of WATO I have heard. It was a real hatchet job on Starmer re: Trump/ NATO. Dimond came in with his boots on to kick Starmer expecting Hunt would jump at the opportunity. But Hunt was very measured. He outlined the dilemma in Downing Street. Hunt explained that the sitting Government have to limit or at least control their personal criticism of Trump over Afghanistan because whether we like it or not we have to keep Trump sweet over Ukraine. If he takes his bat and ball home Ukraine falls.
Hunt did say even if Downing Street has to bite collective tongues anyone else can criticise to their heart's content. Which brings me back to Farage, he's been awfully quiet.
Allegedly he's on constituency business in Clacton.
I am old enough to remember when GB News camera crews were permanently encamped in the Clacton constituency.
I haven't looked at GB News (ever); I'm relying on a report o the BBC where they said they'd tried to contact him for his his views on the Trump 'slander' but that he was, as I posted, on constituency business in Clacton. Why someone from BBC Essex can't be sent post-haste to Clacton I don't know.
Just as Trump delivered the election to Carney, it seems he could do the same in Denmark's election this year. (Though a lot can happen between now and October.)
Today's Danish opinion poll from Megafon is beyond crazy. The red bloc regains a majority and the blue bloc loses 9% of the vote since last month: 🟥 Red Bloc 51.7%, 90 seats 🟦 Blue Bloc 41.9%, 73 seats 🟪 M 6.4%, 12 seats Danish politics has completely changed in just a month. https://x.com/Gust_2319/status/2014570635582652557
This is the same Red Bloc which has supported dismantling neighbourhoods if the percentage of ethnic minorities gets too high?
Good attempt at ignoring the effect.
You’re quite the Rejoiner, I imagine
How would you vote in a new referendum if, say, Le Pen was running France, Meloni Italy, and a Merz-Afd Coalition in Germany? Plus Orban and all the rest
Because this is really quite likely. The EU is poised to shift decisively to the hard right in the coming years, perhaps even the far right in some cases. I wonder how Roger will feel about it then
I think that's a poor prediction, but we will see. Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
Do you actively strive to be boring? If so, well done
So many of the issues discussed on here are about to be rendered spectacularly irrelevant by advances in technology - eg robotics
We are 1-3 years from advanced humanoid robots entering the market at scale. Think what that does to, say, defence
Eg look at the latest Unitree robot (from China). Imagine taking on that, on the battlefield. It will be tireless and relentless and be equipped with 100% accurate weapons
It will also go into factories and the like. Vast wealth will be created
And that is just one example
It's not going to change the issues we talk about.
There will still be arguments over how to distribute wealth - particularly land. There will still be arguments over who gets to be in the club (neighborhood, country, whatever), and who doesn't.
Defence is still going to take a willingness to fight, to invest, to innovate.
Everything will be different (I mean - robots! - how could it not be), but everything will be the same, regardless (I mean - humans! - how could it not be).
No, it won't change what we talk about. We'll still talk about how Leon was wrong about LLMs becoming conscious, about how Leon was wrong about Trump being great, about how Leon was wrong about what3words, about how Leon was wrong about UFOs being revealed to be aliens, about how Leon was wrong about Starmer being great...
Pretty sure Leon thinks LLMs are already sentient.
I sit back and wait for the big reveal about UFO's from the usual suspects in America (i.e. the grifters behind Skinwalker Ranch)
Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF
Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out
Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.
Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.
“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”
I certainly wouldn't want to be coming out of uni now looking to be a software developer, data scientist, consultancy.
Probably needs a radical rethink of the jobs market.
Also driving jobs are likely to go too. Taxi drivers, lorry drivers, van drivers. For a lorry load up at departure, unload at arrival. Self drive.
We need a forward thinking, proactive, govt to look at the numbers going to Uni and where the jobs of the future are. That’s a lot of income tax and NI to lose.
Tesla is now demonstrating FSD from coast to coast in the USA, It is happening. Driving is disappearing. I noticed also today that insurers are HALVING their premiums for drivers that agree to let the car do the driving, as they are so much less prone to accidents. This is how economics will quickly force humans away from the steering wheel. The way humans aren’t allowed to do laser eye surgery. Safety = profit
Whatever happened to @JosiasJessop? He and I used to have enjoyable arguments on this. Did he flounce? Is he banned? I was gone and now I’m back he is nowhere
Fuck him. He flounced after you called him a beta cuck 😂😂😂😂. A beta cuck being the sort of guy who sits down to pee.
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
Automation in the eighties and nineties did the same to working class factory workers.
Do we need 50% of our youth taking degrees.
I think the danger is we are in a world were we all have jobs to pay for all the things we (a) need to live and (b) want to enjoy our lives. AI/robots/etc is genuinely a threat to jobs but...
In the past we dreamed of a world of leisure, but it seemed no-one really thought through how it would work.
Just as Trump delivered the election to Carney, it seems he could do the same in Denmark's election this year. (Though a lot can happen between now and October.)
Today's Danish opinion poll from Megafon is beyond crazy. The red bloc regains a majority and the blue bloc loses 9% of the vote since last month: 🟥 Red Bloc 51.7%, 90 seats 🟦 Blue Bloc 41.9%, 73 seats 🟪 M 6.4%, 12 seats Danish politics has completely changed in just a month. https://x.com/Gust_2319/status/2014570635582652557
This is the same Red Bloc which has supported dismantling neighbourhoods if the percentage of ethnic minorities gets too high?
Good attempt at ignoring the effect.
You’re quite the Rejoiner, I imagine
How would you vote in a new referendum if, say, Le Pen was running France, Meloni Italy, and a Merz-Afd Coalition in Germany? Plus Orban and all the rest
Because this is really quite likely. The EU is poised to shift decisively to the hard right in the coming years, perhaps even the far right in some cases. I wonder how Roger will feel about it then
I think that's a poor prediction, but we will see. Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
Do you actively strive to be boring? If so, well done
As you are deliberately picking fights, I'm guessing for all you boasting about the weather in Ladyboy central, you are rather bored.
Just as Trump delivered the election to Carney, it seems he could do the same in Denmark's election this year. (Though a lot can happen between now and October.)
Today's Danish opinion poll from Megafon is beyond crazy. The red bloc regains a majority and the blue bloc loses 9% of the vote since last month: 🟥 Red Bloc 51.7%, 90 seats 🟦 Blue Bloc 41.9%, 73 seats 🟪 M 6.4%, 12 seats Danish politics has completely changed in just a month. https://x.com/Gust_2319/status/2014570635582652557
This is the same Red Bloc which has supported dismantling neighbourhoods if the percentage of ethnic minorities gets too high?
Good attempt at ignoring the effect.
You’re quite the Rejoiner, I imagine
How would you vote in a new referendum if, say, Le Pen was running France, Meloni Italy, and a Merz-Afd Coalition in Germany? Plus Orban and all the rest
Because this is really quite likely. The EU is poised to shift decisively to the hard right in the coming years, perhaps even the far right in some cases. I wonder how Roger will feel about it then
I think that's a poor prediction, but we will see. Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
Do you actively strive to be boring? If so, well done
Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF
Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out
Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.
Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.
“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”
I certainly wouldn't want to be coming out of uni now looking to be a software developer, data scientist, consultancy.
Probably needs a radical rethink of the jobs market.
Also driving jobs are likely to go too. Taxi drivers, lorry drivers, van drivers. For a lorry load up at departure, unload at arrival. Self drive.
We need a forward thinking, proactive, govt to look at the numbers going to Uni and where the jobs of the future are. That’s a lot of income tax and NI to lose.
Tesla is now demonstrating FSD from coast to coast in the USA, It is happening. Driving is disappearing. I noticed also today that insurers are HALVING their premiums for drivers that agree to let the car do the driving, as they are so much less prone to accidents. This is how economics will quickly force humans away from the steering wheel. The way humans aren’t allowed to do laser eye surgery. Safety = profit
Whatever happened to @JosiasJessop? He and I used to have enjoyable arguments on this. Did he flounce? Is he banned? I was gone and now I’m back he is nowhere
Fuck him. He flounced after you called him a beta cuck 😂😂😂😂. A beta cuck being the sort of guy who sits down to pee.
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
Automation in the eighties and nineties did the same to working class factory workers.
Do we need 50% of our youth taking degrees.
Ah, that’s a shame. He could be an arse, and very snowflakey, nonetheless I don’t like seeing PBers go, especially veterans. And he was genuinely interesting and insightful, on his best subjects
The old timers are part of the PB folk collective memory. I hope he returns
I agree entirely with you on the question of uni degrees, I hesitate to go further as I’m not sure if I am still banned from talking about THAT
Whatevs. Now I’m off to watch the last hour of One Battle After Another. It’s pretty good but jeeez if this is one of the “best movies of the year” Hollywood is in a tough place
Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF
Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out
Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.
Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.
“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”
I certainly wouldn't want to be coming out of uni now looking to be a software developer, data scientist, consultancy.
Probably needs a radical rethink of the jobs market.
Also driving jobs are likely to go too. Taxi drivers, lorry drivers, van drivers. For a lorry load up at departure, unload at arrival. Self drive.
We need a forward thinking, proactive, govt to look at the numbers going to Uni and where the jobs of the future are. That’s a lot of income tax and NI to lose.
Tesla is now demonstrating FSD from coast to coast in the USA, It is happening. Driving is disappearing. I noticed also today that insurers are HALVING their premiums for drivers that agree to let the car do the driving, as they are so much less prone to accidents. This is how economics will quickly force humans away from the steering wheel. The way humans aren’t allowed to do laser eye surgery. Safety = profit
Whatever happened to @JosiasJessop? He and I used to have enjoyable arguments on this. Did he flounce? Is he banned? I was gone and now I’m back he is nowhere
Fuck him. He flounced after you called him a beta cuck 😂😂😂😂. A beta cuck being the sort of guy who sits down to pee.
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
Automation in the eighties and nineties did the same to working class factory workers.
Do we need 50% of our youth taking degrees.
I think the danger is we are in a world were we all have jobs to pay for all the things we (a) need to live and (b) want to enjoy our lives. AI/robots/etc is genuinely a threat to jobs but...
In the past we dreamed of a world of leisure, but it seemed no-one really thought through how it would work.
Indeed and if we have UBI where does the money come from to fund it ?
You cannot just print it and if you apply an AI tax the businesses that can will simply decamp.
The big AI companies promised us that 2025 would be “the year of the AI agents.” It turned out to be the year of talking about AI agents, and kicking the can for that transformational moment to 2026 or maybe later. But what if the answer to the question “When will our lives be fully automated by generative AI robots that perform our tasks for us and basically run the world?” is, like that New Yorker cartoon, “How about never?”
That was basically the message of a paper published without much fanfare some months ago, smack in the middle of the overhyped year of “agentic AI.” Entitled “Hallucination Stations: On Some Basic Limitations of Transformer-Based Language Models,” it purports to mathematically show that “LLMs are incapable of carrying out computational and agentic tasks beyond a certain complexity.” Though the science is beyond me, the authors—a former SAP CTO who studied AI under one of the field’s founding intellects, John McCarthy, and his teenage prodigy son—punctured the vision of agentic paradise with the certainty of mathematics. Even reasoning models that go beyond the pure word-prediction process of LLMs, they say, won’t fix the problem.
Kemi condemns Trump's careless talk, saying we need a strong NATO, and asks for Starmer to seek a retraction
Perhaps right, but a bit pointless. What she should be doing is working out how on earth the Tories are going to be able to afford the defence spending we need. Then, with a plan in hand, making it clear that Starmer needs to do more than talk.
Being the official opposition isn't just about criticism.
So whilst I think she's doing well, it isn't enough in the current circumstances.
So many of the issues discussed on here are about to be rendered spectacularly irrelevant by advances in technology - eg robotics
We are 1-3 years from advanced humanoid robots entering the market at scale. Think what that does to, say, defence
Eg look at the latest Unitree robot (from China). Imagine taking on that, on the battlefield. It will be tireless and relentless and be equipped with 100% accurate weapons
It will also go into factories and the like. Vast wealth will be created
And that is just one example
It's not going to change the issues we talk about.
There will still be arguments over how to distribute wealth - particularly land. There will still be arguments over who gets to be in the club (neighborhood, country, whatever), and who doesn't.
Defence is still going to take a willingness to fight, to invest, to innovate.
Everything will be different (I mean - robots! - how could it not be), but everything will be the same, regardless (I mean - humans! - how could it not be).
No, it won't change what we talk about. We'll still talk about how Leon was wrong about LLMs becoming conscious, about how Leon was wrong about Trump being great, about how Leon was wrong about what3words, about how Leon was wrong about UFOs being revealed to be aliens, about how Leon was wrong about Starmer being great...
And about Covid would be, to quote, "contagious but essentially benign"
COVID was essentially benign for millions considering how many people needed to be tested to see if they even had it..🤨
Young will suffer most when AI ‘tsunami’ hits jobs, says head of IMF
Kristalina Georgieva says research suggests 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be affected, with many entry-level roles wiped out
Artificial intelligence will be a “tsunami hitting the labour market”, with young people worst affected, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned the World Economic Forum on Friday.
Kristalina Georgieva told delegates in Davos that the IMF’s own research suggested there would be a big transformation of demand for skills, as the technology becomes increasingly widespread.
“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40% globally,” she said. “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”
I certainly wouldn't want to be coming out of uni now looking to be a software developer, data scientist, consultancy.
Probably needs a radical rethink of the jobs market.
Also driving jobs are likely to go too. Taxi drivers, lorry drivers, van drivers. For a lorry load up at departure, unload at arrival. Self drive.
We need a forward thinking, proactive, govt to look at the numbers going to Uni and where the jobs of the future are. That’s a lot of income tax and NI to lose.
Tesla is now demonstrating FSD from coast to coast in the USA, It is happening. Driving is disappearing. I noticed also today that insurers are HALVING their premiums for drivers that agree to let the car do the driving, as they are so much less prone to accidents. This is how economics will quickly force humans away from the steering wheel. The way humans aren’t allowed to do laser eye surgery. Safety = profit
Whatever happened to @JosiasJessop? He and I used to have enjoyable arguments on this. Did he flounce? Is he banned? I was gone and now I’m back he is nowhere
Fuck him. He flounced after you called him a beta cuck 😂😂😂😂. A beta cuck being the sort of guy who sits down to pee.
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
Automation in the eighties and nineties did the same to working class factory workers.
Do we need 50% of our youth taking degrees.
I think the danger is we are in a world were we all have jobs to pay for all the things we (a) need to live and (b) want to enjoy our lives. AI/robots/etc is genuinely a threat to jobs but...
In the past we dreamed of a world of leisure, but it seemed no-one really thought through how it would work.
Compared with former times we have loads of leisure. many would like a bit more. We also have loads more wealth. We also, of course, have loads more automation.
In a functioning economy for private enterprise (from corner shop to Nvidia) to flourish there has to be widespread prosperity in order that Mars Bars and 10 trillion chips can be bought and sold. Machinery neither earns nor spends.
Private enterprise intends to flourish. In well functioning societies, it operates alongside the state and states to ensure that the functioning world is a job producing scheme, and to some extend a job creation scheme.
'Prosperous neighbours make good customers' applies to the local petrol station and shop, and applies to Amazon and Microsoft. AI will not alter this fundamental truth, pace Leon, any more than electricity and the industrial revolution did.
O/T - my kids have accounts with Nationwide from when they were little. I've just popped in to the branch for the firat time in 8 years to do some admin. It was brilliant. I'd forgotten how good in-person banking was. So much more straightforward and less stressful. Why don't other banks offer this? (Well I know they still sort of do but actual branches are few and far between.)
We were shuffling money around into various savings accounts after a house sale recently. Nightmare online due to the fraud/laundering issues. Gave up and drove to a branch and they did it all for us. Charming about it too.
The big AI companies promised us that 2025 would be “the year of the AI agents.” It turned out to be the year of talking about AI agents, and kicking the can for that transformational moment to 2026 or maybe later. But what if the answer to the question “When will our lives be fully automated by generative AI robots that perform our tasks for us and basically run the world?” is, like that New Yorker cartoon, “How about never?”
That was basically the message of a paper published without much fanfare some months ago, smack in the middle of the overhyped year of “agentic AI.” Entitled “Hallucination Stations: On Some Basic Limitations of Transformer-Based Language Models,” it purports to mathematically show that “LLMs are incapable of carrying out computational and agentic tasks beyond a certain complexity.” Though the science is beyond me, the authors—a former SAP CTO who studied AI under one of the field’s founding intellects, John McCarthy, and his teenage prodigy son—punctured the vision of agentic paradise with the certainty of mathematics. Even reasoning models that go beyond the pure word-prediction process of LLMs, they say, won’t fix the problem.
The reason it hasn't got any fanfare is it is a 7 page thought experiment dumped on Arxiv i.e. not peer reviewed and increasingly lots of garbage gets put up there. It has a massive 2 citations. There are no experiments to justify their argument, it is simply an discussion piece that they think it isn't possible to have LLMs to verify their work beyond a certain level of complexity. Despite the author that is not a paper that should be accepted to any top tier conference.
There was actually a more recent deepseek paper that did find the current way agentic LLMs are being operated is wrong, where they actually did science.
The newfound anti-Americanism in Europe risks leaving Ukraine in a very difficult position because it puts a different gloss on Putin's 25 year-long effort to resist US encroachment will make the option of nomalising trade with Russia start to look attractive, especially to Germany.
I think it is anti-Europeanism in the US that is the issue at hand.
Well, if he does he should go fully togged as King of Canada. And wear a golden maple leaf in his lapel. From a news report a little time ago:
"King Charles III wearing Canadian military honors aboard a British Royal Navy aircraft carrier went viral after Donald Trump repeated that he would like to annex Canada.
"Charles, who is king of Canada as well as Britain, stepped onto HMS Prince of Wales on Tuesday, a day after discussing sovereignty with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a meeting in London.
"During the visit, he wore several Canadian military honors, including the Canadian Forces' Decoration, the Order of Canada and the Canadian Order of Military Merit."
So many of the issues discussed on here are about to be rendered spectacularly irrelevant by advances in technology - eg robotics
We are 1-3 years from advanced humanoid robots entering the market at scale. Think what that does to, say, defence
Eg look at the latest Unitree robot (from China). Imagine taking on that, on the battlefield. It will be tireless and relentless and be equipped with 100% accurate weapons
It will also go into factories and the like. Vast wealth will be created
And that is just one example
Defence is why we are 100% NOT about to get advanced humanoid robots entering the market. Musk even described the Tesla Robototron as his "robot army". No way are autonomous robots making it out into the general pubic. Factory use? Far better to use a specific robot for a specific task as we already do.
Humanoid droids on the battlefield? Maybe. Your own persona robototron that could be remote programmed to kill us all? No chance
Are you serious?
If governments have a choice between seeing a young man of 25 die on a battlefield, or a robot costing 25k getting temporarily disabled, what will they choose? What will voters prefer? Which makes more sense morally, financially, emotionally, politically?
Of course armies will become robot armies, and this is a GOOD thing. Humans will stop dying young in absurd battles
You gullible enough to think teh robots will only kill other robots, whole point is to kill the enemy, FFS.
So many of the issues discussed on here are about to be rendered spectacularly irrelevant by advances in technology - eg robotics
We are 1-3 years from advanced humanoid robots entering the market at scale. Think what that does to, say, defence
Eg look at the latest Unitree robot (from China). Imagine taking on that, on the battlefield. It will be tireless and relentless and be equipped with 100% accurate weapons
It will also go into factories and the like. Vast wealth will be created
And that is just one example
It's not going to change the issues we talk about.
There will still be arguments over how to distribute wealth - particularly land. There will still be arguments over who gets to be in the club (neighborhood, country, whatever), and who doesn't.
Defence is still going to take a willingness to fight, to invest, to innovate.
Everything will be different (I mean - robots! - how could it not be), but everything will be the same, regardless (I mean - humans! - how could it not be).
No, it won't change what we talk about. We'll still talk about how Leon was wrong about LLMs becoming conscious, about how Leon was wrong about Trump being great, about how Leon was wrong about what3words, about how Leon was wrong about UFOs being revealed to be aliens, about how Leon was wrong about Starmer being great...
...how Leon was wrong about Truss surprising on the upside...
So many of the issues discussed on here are about to be rendered spectacularly irrelevant by advances in technology - eg robotics
We are 1-3 years from advanced humanoid robots entering the market at scale. Think what that does to, say, defence
Eg look at the latest Unitree robot (from China). Imagine taking on that, on the battlefield. It will be tireless and relentless and be equipped with 100% accurate weapons
It will also go into factories and the like. Vast wealth will be created
And that is just one example
It's not going to change the issues we talk about.
There will still be arguments over how to distribute wealth - particularly land. There will still be arguments over who gets to be in the club (neighborhood, country, whatever), and who doesn't.
Defence is still going to take a willingness to fight, to invest, to innovate.
Everything will be different (I mean - robots! - how could it not be), but everything will be the same, regardless (I mean - humans! - how could it not be).
No, it won't change what we talk about. We'll still talk about how Leon was wrong about LLMs becoming conscious, about how Leon was wrong about Trump being great, about how Leon was wrong about what3words, about how Leon was wrong about UFOs being revealed to be aliens, about how Leon was wrong about Starmer being great...
And about Covid would be, to quote, "contagious but essentially benign"
COVID was essentially benign for millions considering how many people needed to be tested to see if they even had it..🤨
Just as Trump delivered the election to Carney, it seems he could do the same in Denmark's election this year. (Though a lot can happen between now and October.)
Today's Danish opinion poll from Megafon is beyond crazy. The red bloc regains a majority and the blue bloc loses 9% of the vote since last month: 🟥 Red Bloc 51.7%, 90 seats 🟦 Blue Bloc 41.9%, 73 seats 🟪 M 6.4%, 12 seats Danish politics has completely changed in just a month. https://x.com/Gust_2319/status/2014570635582652557
This is the same Red Bloc which has supported dismantling neighbourhoods if the percentage of ethnic minorities gets too high?
Good attempt at ignoring the effect.
You’re quite the Rejoiner, I imagine
How would you vote in a new referendum if, say, Le Pen was running France, Meloni Italy, and a Merz-Afd Coalition in Germany? Plus Orban and all the rest
Because this is really quite likely. The EU is poised to shift decisively to the hard right in the coming years, perhaps even the far right in some cases. I wonder how Roger will feel about it then
I think that's a poor prediction, but we will see. Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
Do you actively strive to be boring? If so, well done
'Cause we were never being boring We had too much time to find for ourselves And we were never being boring We dressed up and fought, then thought, "Make amends" And we were never holding back or worried that Time would come to an end
Comments
He’s one of those fragile flowers who was very keen to dish it but when he got a little back he cried like a little soy bitch (TM Steve Inman).
Nice to see you back.
As for AI we shouldn’t resist the changes but adapt. There’s an air of ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ going on.
The IMF director on AI. Middle class kids are going to be squeezed.
https://x.com/marionawfal/status/2014699644681687300?s=61
Automation in the eighties and nineties did the same to working class factory workers.
Do we need 50% of our youth taking degrees.
Orban might be gone in a few months.
Meloni is running Italy, and that's fine.
In any event, the rest of that is going to be decided long before any vote to rejoin, so it's a pointless hypothetical.
They have to be good at something.
Oh those Russians.
I think it should be, a tribute to Roger Helmer UKIP MEP, Roger is unavailable at the moment, he's on constituency business in a layby off the M6.
Why someone from BBC Essex can't be sent post-haste to Clacton I don't know.
I sit back and wait for the big reveal about UFO's from the usual suspects in America (i.e. the grifters behind Skinwalker Ranch)
In the past we dreamed of a world of leisure, but it seemed no-one really thought through how it would work.
I find it discourages you.
The old timers are part of the PB folk collective memory. I hope he returns
I agree entirely with you on the question of uni degrees, I hesitate to go further as I’m not sure if I am still banned from talking about THAT
Whatevs. Now I’m off to watch the last hour of One Battle After Another. It’s pretty good but jeeez if this is one of the “best movies of the year” Hollywood is in a tough place
Later
You cannot just print it and if you apply an AI tax the businesses that can will simply decamp.
That was basically the message of a paper published without much fanfare some months ago, smack in the middle of the overhyped year of “agentic AI.” Entitled “Hallucination Stations: On Some Basic Limitations of Transformer-Based Language Models,” it purports to mathematically show that “LLMs are incapable of carrying out computational and agentic tasks beyond a certain complexity.” Though the science is beyond me, the authors—a former SAP CTO who studied AI under one of the field’s founding intellects, John McCarthy, and his teenage prodigy son—punctured the vision of agentic paradise with the certainty of mathematics. Even reasoning models that go beyond the pure word-prediction process of LLMs, they say, won’t fix the problem.
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-agents-math-doesnt-add-up/
Being the official opposition isn't just about criticism.
So whilst I think she's doing well, it isn't enough in the current circumstances.
In a functioning economy for private enterprise (from corner shop to Nvidia) to flourish there has to be widespread prosperity in order that Mars Bars and 10 trillion chips can be bought and sold. Machinery neither earns nor spends.
Private enterprise intends to flourish. In well functioning societies, it operates alongside the state and states to ensure that the functioning world is a job producing scheme, and to some extend a job creation scheme.
'Prosperous neighbours make good customers' applies to the local petrol station and shop, and applies to Amazon and Microsoft. AI will not alter this fundamental truth, pace Leon, any more than electricity and the industrial revolution did.
I still think Labour should be given much better chances of a recovery.
Former Tory councillor admits drugging and raping wife over 14-year period
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/23/philip-young-former-tory-councillor-pleads-guilty-drugging-raping-wifeA
There was actually a more recent deepseek paper that did find the current way agentic LLMs are being operated is wrong, where they actually did science.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/23/philip-young-former-tory-councillor-pleads-guilty-drugging-raping-wife
Enough is enough .
‘He resigned as the cabinet member for culture, regeneration and economic development on 6 May 2010 to devote more time to his family’
Too much time it would seem.
NEW THREAD
"King Charles III wearing Canadian military honors aboard a British Royal Navy aircraft carrier went viral after Donald Trump repeated that he would like to annex Canada.
"Charles, who is king of Canada as well as Britain, stepped onto HMS Prince of Wales on Tuesday, a day after discussing sovereignty with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a meeting in London.
"During the visit, he wore several Canadian military honors, including the Canadian Forces' Decoration, the Order of Canada and the Canadian Order of Military Merit."
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought, "Make amends"
And we were never holding back or worried that
Time would come to an end