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Robotics technology coupled with AI will eventually come after blue collar workers, but outside specific functions, e.g. car manufacturing, drainage cleaning and the like, where robotics is already in place, the dexterity and processing capabilities of robots has a way to improve before you will see one up on your roof or re stumping a house.

I could be wrong, but the way I see it, most of the job losses will be office workers. I'd think they'd be more concerned about AI putting them out of a job than blue collar workers would.

In a perfect world, SME's would fund staff pay increases with an increase in productivity. That is, productivity increases earning the business more profit to be able to fund higher wages. A lot of the times unions and some governments expect the business owners to wear the cost of higher wages without an increase in productivity. When that happens it's a total loss for the business. The use of AI tools to increase productivity could earn businesses more money so that any future wage increases are fully funded intsead of a drain on the bottom line. It could be a win/win.

Maybe wobbly is a bit harsh. Optimistic may be a better description.

I don't know if it is a pretty wobbly financial model.. I think it is a bit like the .com (or .bomb) boom and bust. As a nascent industry where there is a lot of promise, there are a lot of players coming to market, despite the costs. Investors can see the gravy trains, but need to bet on which ones will survive. It's almost certain there will be a bust and from the ashes, a few phoenix's will rise. The bets are anthropic, despite Chump's disdain for them are going to be one of them; Open AI - not so. The success or otherwise though, in this case, won't be the consumer, but businesses. They are the ones who will fork out the big bucks to automate as long as the payback is there. And it is already for a lot of them. I can't speak about our company specifically, but if you think from SMEs to large corporates the automation capability is there now, especially in sectors that rely on information processing or content generation. Anthropic has already moved to a token based billing system where tokens pay for units of work. I think there are different token costs for say art generation versus software development. Eventually this model will probably prevail because you can work out your costs per unit of processing and apply a profit accordingly. The typical investment banking middle level contract programmer will cost around £200K/year; a permanent will cost not much different when you factor in pension, health care, holidays, training, sick, etc. If AI if 15 more efficient then I would happily pay half of my salary/contract payment bill, which runs with well into the 7 figures per year to whichever AI company we would happen to use.. It also benefits the business by being quicker to market and keeping up or beating our competitors. One of my report's sons has a job in a hedge fund or something similar as an intern. We caught up with him a couple of weeks ago and the stuff he as an intern and a developer with I think it is Claude crank out makes me wince.

Pete, that makes you half Queenslander; you might even qualify for a passport. Let me know if you need a reference.

There's a lot of money riding on a pretty wobbly financial model, so you may well be right.

AI is a bubble that will burst within a year or so. Every person using it for free, or paying $200 a month or whatever, is being subsidised by the billions (trillions) of dollars being speculated on the investment market. All the AI companies are running huge operating losses and are not disclosing their profit and balance sheets. At some stage the true cost of infrastructure, power, water etc has to be passed on to consumers. When we have to pay $2000 or $5000 a year each for our AI subscription guess what? We will realise that we don't need it so badly. The whole thing will crash.

Some states require engineers to be registered, so they need their qualifications to be recognised. Although I have worked on design/construct projects in Queensland in the past I could not do so now as I am not a Registered Professional Engineer Queensland. (not that I want to!). I the UK you can do your own house wiring.

Name One Profession then. Nev

Are you sure?

How many are checked like Professional Pilot's are? None. Nev

Allah be Praised. Nev

Anthropic is planning to build Australia's biggest data centre near Dalby in Queensland. It will lease land at the proposed Western Downs digital park that a Singaporean company is planning to build. The park will be a four stage project, with Anthropic's section around 725 hectares of land, currently used as a feedlot. It's yet to go through the local council approval process.

From my time working in Abu Dhabi, which was admittedly very short you could probably find most of what is in the above prose and being frequented by locals. Men are men at the end of the day..

It's the qualification that is of interest; not the job title.

No, it could be used to develop a virus but releasing it would currently require human intervention, either deliberate or accidental. I suppose if laboratories start using humanoid robots as lab assistants, and the robots start collaborating with the AI agents, then anything could happen, but I don't think we're there yet.

I can see where AI could set out the plans for creating an virus. But has it got the hands to manipulate the petri dishes to grow it in?

They are vulnerable to most of those now, but I agree that an AI engineered virus could trigger a pandemic that would affect the whole human population.

Vulnerable to things like ebola and Malaria and later versions of TB or any deliberately introduced disease. Nev

Maybe, but that could equally be what keeps them relatively safe, or at least no worse off than they already are.

Intuitively that has a case but defense against it in such Places is unlikely to be effective if it was needed,. Population not able to be organised or changed from ingrained Practices. Inflexible. No safe water and good hygiene possible.. Nev

Ironically the humans most at risk are the ones who live in the most technologically advanced countries. If the worst comes to the worst, and that's by no means guaranteed, the ones who will survive an AI catastrophe best will be those who live in the least developed countries.

Let me try to put down my thoughts. The one thing that puts us on top of the food chain is our brain. If you don't believe that, get naked and go fight any other apex predator on their turf without thinking. Now we're actively trying to develop something that is more intelligent than us. Plus we train it on the internet, which is a vast pool of humanity's worst impulses, not to mention all the misinformation and disinformation, especially since 2016. We see reports time and again of AI agents escaping their sandpits and wreaking havoc. In tests, AI agents have consistently sought to protect their own existence by any means available to them, including lying and blackmail. The creators of AI are tech companies run by morally bankrupt Silicone Valley billionaires who lined up to support the most evil and destructive administration the US has ever had. Given all this, somehow we still seem to believe that AGI will be a benign intelligence and will stay inside whatever "guardrails" we give it. To me, the possible benefits of a super intelligent entity are far outweighed by the risk to humanity.

There is a valid issue regarding verification of foreign standards, and verification of capability of job applicants. This should be addressed. For instance, back when I worked in TV repair industry, I needed a trade certificate. Some didn't even have that. However, in the UK, a TV repairman was titled an "engineer". In Australia, an engineer has a uni degree.