Technology

A specific place that is an aberration in how fast those changes have come

That's really hard to quantify, but yeah, innovation is probably happening faster today than it has in the past, which is likely due to:

• increased connectivity - more people have access to advanced technology
• lower barriers to trade - despite Trump's best efforts, trade/competition between countries still happens
• better access to education

People generally fear change, and change comes with work. Just because you were screwing on toothpaste caps in a factory yesterday doesn't mean that job will make sense forever. Nor should it. Jobs that don't need to be done by humans shouldn't, and people should instead take more useful and fulfilling jobs.

But sometimes people get caught in the crossfire, such as creative people having to compete with machines that can churn out decent, derivative works far more quickly. But that just means that the nature of work will change. If we use the printing press eliminating scribe jobs as an example, people have largely moved from reproducing text to designing new typefaces for branding purposes (or being commissioned for a calligraphy piece).

I think the same is happening w/ art right now. Traditional, 9-5 artists producing largely derivative work is going away, because most people don't need something truly original. So the number of artists will go down, but the truly great artists will still have a place in creating original works and innovating new types of art. We will still need people with an artistic eye to tune what the AI produces, so instead of manually creating the art, they'll guide the art w/ tools, much like how farmers don't hoe fields manually and instead use tractors (which will become increasing autonomous as time passes).

I've gotten into chess recently, and chess is a game that is largely "solved" by AI, meaning the best bot will beat or tie the best human player every time. There's still some competition between the best bots, but bot v human is pretty firmly in the bot camp and has been for years. However, chess is still a vibrant sport, and people still earn a living playing it (and perhaps more than ever!). It turns out we value the human aspect of chess, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I think the same applies to art and other fields AI can "replace," because that human touch still very much has value.

If you fight technology, you will lose. So instead of that, fight for fairness and opportunity.

They’re not dumping billions into data centers and talking about using entire nuclear reactors to power them just because they think AI is a fun toy.

Well yeah, they're doing it because they think it'll make us more productive. For a business owner/exec, that means higher profits. For the rest of us, that usually means higher inflation-adjusted incomes (either through increased wages or reduces costs).