What really shocked me when I first came across this paradox was that we had knowledge of it since the early 1970s and yet the narrative always remained that its the so called 'easy' blue collar jobs that computers will take away first. And as AI made huge strides in competing with humans in cognitively challenging tasks like beating us in Chess and Go or with the recent developments in LLMs, somehow we were all shocked that it was actually the white collar knowledge work field that became the first casualty. WE ALWAYS KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! And yet somehow we collectively chose to believe otherwise.
The more surprising thing (in retrospect) is that some creative jobs are now threatened! You're dead right about the warning signs being there all along for white collar "knowledge workers."
I love this paradox, and it's great that you're calling attention to it (and to Moravec).
Describing how to do things we just... do... as humans is tough. We take a lot of things for granted as people.
What really shocked me when I first came across this paradox was that we had knowledge of it since the early 1970s and yet the narrative always remained that its the so called 'easy' blue collar jobs that computers will take away first. And as AI made huge strides in competing with humans in cognitively challenging tasks like beating us in Chess and Go or with the recent developments in LLMs, somehow we were all shocked that it was actually the white collar knowledge work field that became the first casualty. WE ALWAYS KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! And yet somehow we collectively chose to believe otherwise.
The more surprising thing (in retrospect) is that some creative jobs are now threatened! You're dead right about the warning signs being there all along for white collar "knowledge workers."