The people do yearn for automation, just not at any cost

Nilay Patel is always one of the smartest people in tech media, so it's no surprise that his piece THE PEOPLE DO NOT YEARN FOR AUTOMATION is spreading.

I agree with the conceit that people do not have software brain. As someone cursed with this particular affliction, dealing with customers who are not, I know the dangers of thinking in this way.

But I think people do yearn for automation. Washing machines, dishwashers, coffee machines, using a pressure washer instead of scrubbing with a brush... even your toilet is a mechanical solution to having to carry buckets of water from the well to wash out the latrine. The human history of invention has shown over and over that we seek out automation.

But the inventor of the washing machine didn't tell everyone it was going to take their job. Even if they said it was going to take the job of the laundress, the slower speed of communication in 1691 would have meant that not every laundress across the globe would suddenly have heard that this machine was coming for them. If they had, and that was their current means of making a living, then they probably would have had a similar reaction to those who don't like AI.

For those who didn't make their living that way, or wanted to stop paying those that did, a washing machine asked for little in return. But the pace of change was also slower, it's been 300 years. The steamie still existed in Glasgow 250 years after it's invention.

That slow rate of change is what gave people time to adapt. If I invented something now that made plumbers obsolete, but knew it took 300 years for that invention to take hold, then the plumbers of today would likely be unconcerned. And there would be fewer plumbers to disrupt 299 years from now because they would have seen the industry slowly disappear.

Sam Altman told everyone that AI was going to take their job and it was happening now. The speed of communication now compared to the 17th century took that message around the globe in an instant, so everyone heard it. Before they'd demonstrated any real benefit of the technology, before they'd shown anyone how it would really save them time, the message everyone heard was "this is going to put you out on the street". Worse than that, the message isn't even "this is going to put laundresses out of a job", the implication is that it impacts everyone.

That's why people hate AI. It's a simple human emotional reaction of being scared. They don't understand how it works, how things are going to change, or what jobs it's going to take. I'm not scared of my washing machine.

You may think therefore that buying a podcast network would help you get that message out in a more friendly way. But it's impossible to convince anyone that their emotional choices are wrong by feeding them more facts (just ask the Democrats).

Why do 900 million people still use it monthly? Because they DO yearn for automation. They want that report written. They want that research into their next holiday done for them. They want a birthday message for their aunt they haven't seen in a decade. They want the time saving benefits that automation brings.

Just like they wanted to stop taking their clothes down to the river and hitting them with rocks.