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The Secret of Success
2 years ago
General
As you see, being less active online doesn’t prevent me to perform shitposting.
People following me since 2007 (when I have opened my first gallery on deviantART) have noticed that the dichotomy between upper-class and lower-class has often appeared in my illustrations (at least in the less fetish-related ones). Beyond the fact that judging peoples as losers and winners somehow confuses me (and more, generally, modelling everything as a battlefield, perplexes me). Recently, many political speeches (often delivered by the more Conservative representatives of the French Government) are insisting on the “value” of hard work, especially in the current competitive society. Yet the idea of doing well at school in order to get a good position at work and, therefore, fulfil all your goals in life, could still be considered as relevant?
More specifically, are the “prestigious” job positions (the ones requiring long studies, and often regulated by selective exams, like surgeons, researchers, or even “simple” physicians and engineers) still as “prestigious” in a world where artificial intelligence is getting better than human experts on more and more points? Me, and probably a few people reading this journal entry, we have done long studies (because we were [pick one or several options] serious, hard-working, lucky, gifted, curious, ambitious, born and raised in good conditions, etc.) to reach some job that helps us to live decently and keeping good relationships with our bank. It seems self-satisfactory. I am sure that, like me, some of you are often presented by your family members as an example of how successful scholarships will bring you a successful career. Yet how much are we? What is our true impact? Are we really as essential as we have been told?
Of course, I limit myself with the very specific case of job position following a long and specialized scholarship. Yet the evolution of AI and the way it would “change the game” (I hate this expression) could be applied to creative and artistic professions, where long year of practices are often required to reach an expert level.
Eventually, it mostly apply to all the intellectual professions.
Yet I emphasize on the word “mostly”. Obviously, some people cannot be replaced: the one that are “too big to fall” (I don’t think specifically about Elon Musk, yet it is the first name that come to my mind now… yet it may work with Bernard Arnault too). Whether you want it or not, their decisions will shape our world. They keep saying that hard-work is the base of their success. They are shown as example to follow. Yet, is their assertion compatible with the recent technical evolution?
For some of you, I might sound as a far-leftist terrorist brainwashed by Marx ideology… yet, even if considering the billionaires responsible for all the word issues does sound definitely simplistic, not to say more, refusing to see their influence and the consequences of their acts is maybe a bit questionable, isn’t it? 😉
PS: And for the ones wondering how I react to FurAffinity last announcement… well… no comment… I believe that I have posted enough drawings to make my position clear on this subject.
People following me since 2007 (when I have opened my first gallery on deviantART) have noticed that the dichotomy between upper-class and lower-class has often appeared in my illustrations (at least in the less fetish-related ones). Beyond the fact that judging peoples as losers and winners somehow confuses me (and more, generally, modelling everything as a battlefield, perplexes me). Recently, many political speeches (often delivered by the more Conservative representatives of the French Government) are insisting on the “value” of hard work, especially in the current competitive society. Yet the idea of doing well at school in order to get a good position at work and, therefore, fulfil all your goals in life, could still be considered as relevant?
More specifically, are the “prestigious” job positions (the ones requiring long studies, and often regulated by selective exams, like surgeons, researchers, or even “simple” physicians and engineers) still as “prestigious” in a world where artificial intelligence is getting better than human experts on more and more points? Me, and probably a few people reading this journal entry, we have done long studies (because we were [pick one or several options] serious, hard-working, lucky, gifted, curious, ambitious, born and raised in good conditions, etc.) to reach some job that helps us to live decently and keeping good relationships with our bank. It seems self-satisfactory. I am sure that, like me, some of you are often presented by your family members as an example of how successful scholarships will bring you a successful career. Yet how much are we? What is our true impact? Are we really as essential as we have been told?
Of course, I limit myself with the very specific case of job position following a long and specialized scholarship. Yet the evolution of AI and the way it would “change the game” (I hate this expression) could be applied to creative and artistic professions, where long year of practices are often required to reach an expert level.
Eventually, it mostly apply to all the intellectual professions.
Yet I emphasize on the word “mostly”. Obviously, some people cannot be replaced: the one that are “too big to fall” (I don’t think specifically about Elon Musk, yet it is the first name that come to my mind now… yet it may work with Bernard Arnault too). Whether you want it or not, their decisions will shape our world. They keep saying that hard-work is the base of their success. They are shown as example to follow. Yet, is their assertion compatible with the recent technical evolution?
For some of you, I might sound as a far-leftist terrorist brainwashed by Marx ideology… yet, even if considering the billionaires responsible for all the word issues does sound definitely simplistic, not to say more, refusing to see their influence and the consequences of their acts is maybe a bit questionable, isn’t it? 😉
PS: And for the ones wondering how I react to FurAffinity last announcement… well… no comment… I believe that I have posted enough drawings to make my position clear on this subject.
What's happening now is that it's possible to create "silicon migrants" for problems that currently require human paper-pushing.
Bon, c'est pas grave : concentrons-nous sur le moment présent. Toouuut vaaaaa biiiiieeeeeeeen ! ^^"...
What happens when anyone can download an AI tool that grants them artistic ability? Being an artist is no longer something to be that proud of. It's no good as a career either, as almost all professional artists work in producing corporate artwork - signage, branding, advertising.
I wonder how long this can be kept up though. Every society has a fundamental assumption beyond question: The importance of work. Everyone needs a job to do, to earn their right to exist. No job, no food, no shelter. As individual productivity has increased, consumption has had to rise to match - often with some government encouragement to 'grow the economy.' Now it's expected that people will buy new clothes rather than stitch a hole, and every house should be decorated like an 18th-century palace, and every family should own their own car. The people must be pushed into wastefulness, because without their over-consumption there could never be enough jobs to go around, and that would be a disaster. The cost of all this is environmental ruin and the soul-crushing life of the daily grind. Now along comes AI to render a load more jobs obsolete.
Same story for most billionaires. They might talk about the value of hard work, but almost all of them come from a background of family wealth, and they made it to the top through luck as much as anything else. They took risks, and came out on top. Now they run the world, because money is power.
So the world will have alternatives:
- no more middle and upper class, except for the capitalists who own shares in businesses.
- a revolts against IA and robots, an old theme in science fiction.
- IA and the elite eliminating the useless people, this also fixes global warming.
So many scenario can play out.
AI in theory might take over jobs; however, thank goodness for programmers and tradesmen. We can fix those technologies. AI will mostly be help for stuff but can’t fix all scenarios at job.
The politicians are enjoying to play around with people hearts and minds.
I learn it doesn’t matter in class as long no debt, no children, and no f up in life.