In a world of truly transformative AI, automating 10 or 20 or perhaps even 100 percent of human labor, work requirements go from cruel to some combination of cruel, bizarre, and silly. They’d be like if Congress were, today, to pass a dedicated law setting labor standards for horse-and-buggy drivers. Imagine telling folks in a world of transformative AI “you have to work to get food stamps.” Work? What work? Unemployment is 30 percent and rising, what are you even talking about?

I want to change the key mapping of Shift+Backspace to Delete.

Running xmodmap -pke gives me (among other lines):

keycode 22 = BackSpace BackSpace BackSpace BackSpace BackSpace BackSpace

I change this line to

keycode 22 = BackSpace Delete Delete Delete Delete Delete

and save it in the file ~/.Xmodmap and run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap. Apparently, this worked in part. When I run xev and press Shift+Backspace I get:

KeyPress event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x1200001,
    root 0x300, subw 0x0, time 133664788, (484,630), root:(584,799),
    state 0x0, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x1200001,
    root 0x300, subw 0x0, time 133665052, (484,630), root:(584,799),
    state 0x1, keycode 22 (keysym 0xffff, Delete), same_screen YES,
    XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 119
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (7f) ""
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (7f) ""
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x1200001,
    root 0x300, subw 0x0, time 133665116, (484,630), root:(584,799),
    state 0x1, keycode 22 (keysym 0xffff, Delete), same_screen YES,
    XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 119
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (7f) ""
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x1200001,
    root 0x300, subw 0x0, time 133665444, (484,630), root:(584,799),
    state 0x1, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

With other modifier keys (LeftAlt, RightAlt, LeftCtrl) I still get BackSpace.

But xev seems to be the only application that recognizes Delete. In Wayland applications I get only Backspace, no matter what modifier key (Shift, LeftAlt or RightAlt, LeftCtrl) I press. In Firefox (an X application) there is a change. Now, Shift+Backspace does nothing. I suppose this is because Shift+Delete does nothing as well. The KeyPress event of Shift_L seems to block Delete from being obeyed by applications, which is unfortunate when Shift is part of a key combination that maps to Delete. How can I undo this block of Delete? How can I make the key mapping work in Wayland and X applications?

The problem isn't that workers are avoiding generative AI chatbots - quite the contrary. But they simply aren't yet equating to actual economic benefits.

"The adoption of these chatbots has been remarkably fast," Humlum told The Register. "Most workers in the exposed occupations have now adopted these chatbots. Employers are also shifting gears and actively encouraging it. But then when we look at the economic outcomes, it really has not moved the needle."

…

The economists found for example that "AI chatbots have created new job tasks for 8.4 percent of workers, including some who do not use the tools themselves."

In other words, AI is creating new work that cancels out some potential time savings from using AI in the first place.

"One very stark example that it's close to home for me is there are a lot of teachers who now say they spend time trying to detect whether their students are using ChatGPT to cheat on their homework," explained Humlum.

He also observed that a lot of workers now say they're spending time reviewing the quality of AI output or writing prompts.