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Public have more fear than hope on AI and future of work, study finds

57 points by geox

by muldvarp

3 subcomments

There is literally nothing in it for me (all productivity gains will be pocketed by my employer) and there are many reasons to be afraid of it.

by henry2023

0 subcomment

Modern society has taught us human value is proportional to their productivity capacity. i.e. Homelessness it’s seen more like an inconvenience than anything else mostly because deep inside people believe if they were just more productive they would be back on track.
If you add that to the market expectation that most work will become redundant then it’s not hard to see why people are fearful of AI.

by 10xDev

2 subcomments

Funny, it seems Asian countries are more optimistic than Western countries [1]. Maybe this says more about the people running these countries than the technology itself. Technology is just a tool after all.
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/publi... [1]

by jaspanglia

2 subcomments

Yes i completely agree with this. As many employer say to employees this can be done by AI then what is the use of you guys. These kind of situtation are there

by markus_zhang

0 subcomment

I’m completely burned out because our team has no new headcount as management wants to see how AI tools span out.
Gonna see what happens when I get out eventually. I’m sure my colleagues still have some potentials…

by foxyv

0 subcomment

I would feel a whole heck of a lot better about AI if we were making progress towards a society where people who work for a living won't die in poverty when there are no more jobs for them.

by mbfg

0 subcomment

The glaring truth is no Large company ever says WOW with AI we can do so much more with the same staff. It's always We can do the same, with much less staff.

by trolleski

0 subcomment

Maybe because the people behind it are batshit crazy and can barely articulate the benefits themselves? Maybe because it sucks out capital for virtually any other industry while we're not sure we're not in a bubble? Also, corporate culture, slop and hype.

by moralestapia

0 subcomment

Hmm, maybe it has to do with every tech leader saying "AI will replace humans" for the past 3 or so years.
But idk, I didn't study a PhD in marketing and psychology and whatnot.

by ericmcer

0 subcomment

It is just really hard to be valuable as a person anymore.
In the 1800s if your body/mind worked relatively well you had value. That was all it took.
Then we industrialized everything and having a body wasn't worth much anymore, You needed to have a healthy body/mind and educate yourself in a specific skill.
Now we are staring down a reality where having a healthy body/mind, an education and skillset isn't worth much. So what is next?
At the end of the day we all just want to feel like we have a place, but our kids are looking at a future where they can prepare themselves 24/7 and still be easily replaceable. We probably need some kind of post-capitalist view of human value or people if we keep raising the minimum requirements to have worth in society.

by Nasrudith

5 subcomments

I know I sound like the cliche hubristic mad scientist here but, the public seems completely incapable of thinking of the potential of AI and it is deeply frustrating. Is this what a factory worker oriented school system gets us?