I found this thought funny. A few years ago everyone was all learn to code so you don’t lose your job! Now there wont be any programming jobs in 10 years. But we will need a lot of manual labor still.

  • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
    27·
    1 day ago

    Remember when Biden told coal miners to learn to code

    “My liberal friends were saying, ‘You can’t expect them to be able to do that,’” Biden told his New Hampshire audience. “Gimme a break! Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake.”

    These politicians and policy makers don’t know what they talk about when it comes to tech. Any one who tells you that programming jobs will be gone because of AI has never written a complex piece of software before. Also the trades pay well because there is a shortage of workers. If everyone starts going into the trades wages will crater. It’s just cycles. I remember when nobody wanted to go into the trades because it didn’t pay well. This created the shortage of workers. And since salaries are better now because of the shortage lots of people want to go into the trades This will create an oversupply of tradespeople and the cycle will repeat.

    • Lucelu2@lemmy.zip
      6·
      1 day ago

      Building trades are hell on your body and there is no goddamn way that any construction worker (Electrician, carpenter, plumber, pipefitter, mason etc) can last until SS age-- esp. as they are planning to raise it to 70.

    • plyth@feddit.orgEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      It’s two quotes. Miners don’t throw coal into furnaces.

      My liberal friends were saying, ‘You can’t expect them to be able to do that,’” Biden told his New Hampshire audience. “Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine, sure in hell can learn to program as well, but we don’t think of it that way,” he said.

      “Gimme a break! Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program for God’s sake.”

    • Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Part of me wants to argue this isn’t a cycle of demand and is instead capitalism. The trades didn’t pay poorly because there were too many people as much as people willing to work for less and the employer will pocket the difference. I admit this is extremely pedantic of me to split hairs here but people have an effective floor for how much they can work for. Coal miners weren’t being told to code because there were too many coal miners but that they could never work for as little as the machines that were replacing them.

      To be clear I’m not saying AI is a replacement for programmers, I’m not able to see the future here, but capitalists will attempt to to replace any labor with machines if possible.