People were surprised that AI has turned out to make information workers obsolete before laborers, but I'm not.
Information is the easiest job.
I laugh at the obliviousness of the photographer who snaps a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge and demands copyrights and royalties, as if that task was harder than the years of labor by thousands building it (some of whom lost their lives).
Information is the easiest job.
Who worked harder, the men that spent years leveling a path through the forest and mountains to build a road, or the guy who makes an SVG representation of the road for a digital map?
Information is the easiest job.
I enjoy thinking about information. I like to write. I like to find new ideas and digest them and rotate them and tear them apart and put them back together.
But not for a moment do I think information jobs are harder than the physical labor jobs I did in the past, or that others are doing all around me.
That's why I put out all of my work to the public domain. I wouldn't dare throw a "copyright" sign on my work, or a "license", and pretend like my job is so special that I deserve to restrict the freedoms of others.
The janitor does not demand royalties when I walk into a clean room; the plumber does not demand royalties when I flush the toilet; the electrician does not demand royalties when I turn on a switch; the furniture maker does not demand royalties when I sleep on a bed; the shoemaker does not demand royalties when I go for a walk.
Why on earth should I demand royalties when someone uses my outputs?
Especially since information is the easiest job.
I do want to get paid to produce solid information. I sell things of various sorts. I find information work that needs to be done and deliver. I push myself to always be improving my skills so I can make the best information I can.
But I don't expect the absurd salaries of the old days.
Why have information workers been paid so much, relative to other professions?
Corruption.
The people who make the laws (lawyers) are information workers, and so unsurprisingly they made unnatural laws to benefit themselves.
They made information jobs far harder than they should be. Instead of encouraging collaboration they encouraged silo'd work and unnatural monopolies.
The people who inform the public (medias) are also information workers, and so unsurprisingly they misled the public not to oppose these laws.
But now AI has come along, and has ignored these unnatural laws (and just trained on everything, ignoring the information laws us humans are shackled with), and shown what a farce these high salaries for the easiest jobs have been.
My advice to information workers is this: keep in mind that information is the easiest job.
If your job is information, do it to the best of your ability, like you would want anyone else to do their job.
Don't expect the monopoly salaries of old. It wasn't honest before and now the truth is harder to hide.
And please, do your best to publish your information in the most honest format: unencumbered by "licenses"; clean source code; auditable change history.
It's an easy job, but it's even easier if we all do it right, and work together.