Google warns of AI ending everything; forum users skeptical

Google warns of the end of everything, but people don't buy it

There is a phrase that returns periodically with the punctuality of a bill: "this is the end of everything." The last time someone powerful said it in capital letters was linked to Google, and the echo reached a corner of the internet where people have been distrustful of epic headlines for decades. According to those trinc the news, the warning suggests that artificial intelligence will wipe out employment as we know it. The problem is that this same movie has already been shown with Y2K, the dot-com bubble, and the metaverse. And the world continues, with its plumbers and office workers.

What exactly does Google's AI warning say?

The message circulating attributes an alert about the labor impact of artificial intelligence to Google. The thesis is that the technology not only optimizes processes but replaces workers in tasks that seemed secure until now. The most repeated response among those trinc the issue is that Google is not an oracle: it is a company that lives on advertising and selling the next big thing. The noise, they argue, is part of the business.

The comparison with Y2K appears again and again. In 1999, collapse was also announced, and absolutely nothing peine. Those using this precedent do not deny that AI changes things; they deny that it changes them at the pace and depth suggested by the headline. AI is just another tool, they maintain. It optimizes, replaces in certain tasks, and stays there.

The inflating bubble: expected vs. actual returns

The underlying economic argument is the usual one: expected returns are much higher than what will actually be obtained. That gap between expectation and result is the technical definition of a bubble, and here it applies without hesitation. Models aren't good enough, some say, and companies haven't seen a dime yet. Current valuations would be impossible to justify with the numbers on the table.

Some put a date on it: one or two years at most. Others remember that model quality has dropped in recent months, that Gemini soared when it launched with its TPUs, and that now neither ChatGPT nor the rest impress as much. Enthusiasm cools from the user side, not the investor side.

If AI replaces office workers, who gets the manual jobs?

The most uncomfortable scenario isn't the engineer losing their job, but the domino effect. If millions of office workers leave the market, professions that seemed immune get flooded. Thousands of people trying to do odd jobs, labor dumping, struggling freelancers, struggling plumbers. And the State, which without collecting half the salary of those workers would see taxes skyrocket and civil servants unpaid.

The conclusion of that reasoning is that everyone would be screwed, including those who think they are safe. The complete calculation, broken down item by item, shows a difference that surprises first-time readers. It's not a sector-specific problem: it's a problem of where to place people when the ground shifts.

The Swedish precedent: when trauma wasn't losing the job

The crisis of the year 2000 hit Sweden hard. Many people in the ICT sector didn't just suffer job loss, but almost existential trauma: deciding what to do with your life when everything goes to hell, or when you believe it has gone to hell. Many of those abandoned technology and moved to manual jobs, fed up with the hype, full of antiestéticar of the future, and eager to earn their bread with the sweat of their brow.

That is the data that doesn't appear in consulting reports. AI may or may not destroy net employment; what it is already doing is forcing many people to rethink what their skills are for. And that, unlike a dismissal, isn't measured in a statistic.

The paradox: AI also trashes AI

There is a detail that borders on comedy. A user says they have a project on ChatGPT dedicated precisely to analyzing AI: how it works, its limitations, tests to see when it glitches. And when the model enters that role, it trashes AI itself. It cracks up over AGI. Literally.

It's not proof of consciousness or machine rebellion. It's evidence that the artifact repeats what it has read, and that what it has read includes a lot of skepticism. The tool has no faith in itself because it has no faith in anything.

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In the end, Google's warning about the end of everything remains just that: a warning. Those who have heard the same tune for decades are used to it. Those entering the labor market are not. What if this time the one warning isn't the one deceiving, but the one selling?