in the mid 2010s my grandpa was adamant that semi-truck drivers were untouchable to AI/self driving. things move fast in this era

This is true. He has been saying this for many, many years. ^^

Funny that when i raised concern you're the one who told me it wasnt a big deal and said its the same as turn of the century baseball seamers.

still feel the same way? or are you starting to get concerned that WAY too many people in america will be unemployed?

maybe he is huffing the copium that somehow more jobs will be made to replace all these going away

Water and electricity skyrocketing because of these new data centers is pretty cool.

Jobs decrease and basic needs become more expensive. What a wonderful combination for a dystopian future. Water bill and electricity can increase in price so Walmart and Krogers and use AI for dynamic pricing , to ummmmm fuck us over"better the customer experience".

The future looks bright!

Where is our wonderful elected members, surely not making themselves wealthy.

This post was edited by SBD on Jun 2 2026 02:15pm

Learn a trade, you layabouts. If this garbage search engine "ai" can do your job, it should get your job. All those jobs are dehumanizing horse shit any way. Get your hands dirty and keep your conscience clean.

Tractors and every other type of machinery replaced a ton of jobs too. People back then also had all these dystopian visions of the future based on that. We just call it progress around here

Still feel the same way.
I do worry about AI though. Not that it will take over, but that it will make too many mistakes. :/

The math doesnt math. take all of the shortages in the trades, which are massive numbers, and add them together. its still a smaller number than the number of people forecast to lose jobs due to Ai and automation.

just as a quick example about 2 million people in the USA are semi drivers, and we're projected to be about 500k plumbers short by 2027.

as ive said for a long time telling a young man to get a trade is wonderful advice, and sets him up for success. telling all young men to get a trade just floods the market and reduces all trade people's pay. the system cant handle that many new tradesman even from a jobs perspective, let alone apprenticeships.

Most trades aren't for people who need year round and continous employment.
Many of them are contract workers and have to deal with periods of slow work or no work at all. And when they do get work they still have to submit competitive bids otherwise they don't even get the work.

The ones that are full time, work for a company, get lowballed like hell on their wage offers. See those new hire welder video memes? It's a real thing.