> You could easily replace them with an LLM if that were the case.

We're already seeing this happen.

The journalist should have used the LLM to explain how this wasn’t a hack but a common mistake made by untrained workers.

And the lawyers should have used an LLM to perform a first pass of the redactions and methods of redaction.

Going forward the full stack of perpetrators, unindicted coconspirators, lawyers, judges, legislators, journalists, editors, fact checkers, ... it'll all be LLM all the way down such that nothing will be trustable save something akin to Stephenson's gargoyles and Flock cameras for which people will conduct spectacles to shape the salience landscape.

Back when LLM chatbots were new and shiny, I was comparing the failure modes to journalism by way of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.

Sure, deep investigative jounalism with real skill and effort behind it is a thing; but it is an expensive thing, and opinion pieces disguised as jounalism are much cheaper, as is reporting on other people's reports.

At the end of the day, we the audience reward the behavior unfortunately

Um - and not just journalists.

Most “bullshit jobs” are already being replaced. The era of bullshit jobs is coming to an end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

I wish it was true. From the bullshit jobs in the book, I can only see the box tickers being replaced. The flunkies, goons, task masters, and duct tapers will probably continue to exist.

Als unless we come up with something like UBI or a dramatic rethinking of how capitalism works in our society there will probably be __more__ bullshit jobs.